Komentarz do Powtórzonego Prawa 1:2

אחד עשר יום מחרב ELEVEN DAYS JOURNEY FROM HOREB — Moses said to them: “See what you brought about! There is no route from Horeb to Kadesh-Barnea as short as the way through Mount Seir, and even that is a journey of eleven days. You, however, traversed it in three days!” — for you see that they journeyed from Horeb on the twentieth of Eyar, as it is said, (Numbers 10:11—12) “And it came to pass in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth of the month, [the cloud went up and the children of Israel journeyed out of the desert of Sinai” (which is Horeb)] and on the twenty-ninth of Sivan they sent out the spies from Kadesh Barnea, (an interval of 40 days; cf. Taanit 29a); deduct from these the thirty days they spent at Kibroth Hataavah, where they ate the flesh “a month of days”, and seven days they spent at Hazeroth for Miriam to be shut up there as a leper, it follows that in three days they traversed all that way. — To such an extent did the Shechinah exert itself to hasten your coming to the land of Canaan, but because you became degenerate, He made you travel round about Mount Seir for forty years (Sifrei Devarim 2:2).

IT IS ELEVEN DAYS’ JOURNEY BY THE WAY OF SEIR UNTO KADESH-BARNEA. The meaning thereof is that Scripture informs us of the vastness of the wilderness, that from Horeb, which they left, to Kadesh-barnea is a journey of only eleven days, since by way of Mount Seir it is near. Kadesh-barnea is at the end of the wilderness at the border of the hill-country of the Amorites³¹Verse 7. which is the inheritance of Israel. There are the lands of Sihon and Og where Moses explained the Torah in the valley over against Beth-peor.³²Further, 4:29. Afterwards Scripture says, they went by way of the mountain of the Amorites all that great and fearful wilderness,³³Verse 19 (here). and, following that, it narrates that in Kadesh-barnea,³³Verse 19 (here). which is at the boundary of their inheritance, they requested spies [to see the Land]. As a result, their journey was disrupted and they went [into the wilderness] toward the Red Sea³⁴Verse 40. — backward and not forward³⁵Jeremiah 7:24. — until the completion of forty years. And because Israel was presently not in the wilderness, since they had already entered the land of Moab, earlier mentioned [i.e., the part which they took from Sihon and Og], Onkelos interpreted the expression in the wilderness, in the plain [These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan ‘in the wilderness, in the plain’]³⁶Verse 1. as being allusions to reproof [thus rendering: he reproved them “on account of that which they provoked Him in the wilderness, etc.”]. Moreover, why should Scripture mention all these places [in the wilderness, in the plain, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab]³⁶Verse 1. and specify signs and borders more than [the law requires] in selling a field! [Therefore these place-names were interpreted by Onkelos as being allusions to certain deeds about which Moses reproved them.] And the sense of the Scripture according to Onkelos’ opinion is: “These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan; he spoke of [that which they did] in the wilderness, in the plain, and over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zahab, and the eleven days’ journey from Horeb,” because he mentioned to them all that they had done in these places. Afterwards Scripture states that there, beyond the previously mentioned Jordan, Moses wanted³⁷See Ramban at the end of preceding verse, and Note 28. to explain the Torah after he reproved them, and he spoke and said, The Eternal our G-d spoke unto us in Horeb, saying.¹⁷Verse 6. And so it is interpreted in the Sifre³⁸Sifre, Devarim 1. according to the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah. Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskis, however, holds that they were actual places called by these names.

'אחד עשר יום מחורב וגו, who is wise enough to understand these words [that after 40 years the Israelites found themselves only 11 days from Mount Chorev? Ed] We must understand that the reason why Moses inserted this verse here is that in verse 19 we are told: “we set out from Chorev and traveled the great and terrible wilderness that you saw, along the road to the hill country of the Emorites and we came as far as Kadesh Barnea (which is close to the land of Israel and from where the spies were sent out.) As a result, we remained in this desert for forty years. This was due to our sin as recorded in Deuteronomy 2,1-7. Moses is simply contrasting the fact that the journey from the Sea of Reeds to the borders of the Holy Land was a distance of 11 days’ travel and had been covered in that amount of time [after deducting the encampments, especially the eleven and a half months at that mountain Ed.] whereas the rest of the journey, on account of the sin of the spies, took all these years.

Deduct from these days the thirty days, etc. I.e., in total deduct thirty-six days [instead of thirty-seven] because the thirtieth day is counted as the end of the thirty day period and also as the beginning of the seven days. For on the thirtieth day they traveled from Kivros haTaavah; so it turns out that on the thirty-ninth day they sent the spies from Kodeish-Barnei’a, which is the twenty-ninth day of Sivan (see Re”m who elaborates at length).

V. 2. אחד עשר יום. Die bezeichnete Örtlichkeit erreicht man vom Horeb in elf Tagereisen zum Gebirge Seir hin.

אחד עשר יום מחורב, “eleven days’ march from Mount Chorev.” Some of the speeches recalled by Moses here occurred during the journeys of the Israelites after leaving Mount Sinai, during the first eleven days. It took them eleven days to cover the distance from Mount Sinai to Kadesh, the place from which the spies were dispatched. The fact is that no new commandments were revealed to the Jewish people after the return of the spies until the fortieth year, after the last of the men of military age at the Exodus had died, and G-d’s presence returned to be visible.

The Shechina attempted for your good to hasten, etc. The term מתלבטת means to hasten.

אחד עשר יום, “eleven days,” there is a letter ב missing in the word אחד, which according to the rules of grammar should have been spelled באחד, so that the phrase would read: באחד עשר יום, “we find a similar anomaly in Exodus 31,17: כי ששת ימים עשה ה' את השמים, “for during six days G-d made heaven, etc,” there too we would have expected the letter ב at the beginning of the word ששת. Our author cites a few more examples of this, adding that it occurs frequently. (Judges 14,12; Samuel II 20,4)

Circle around Mount Seir for forty years. This is not an explanation of the verse, “In the fortieth year.” I.e., Rashi is not explaining the verse as: “Eleven days from Choreiv by way of Mount Seir,” but they traveled it in forty years, as it says, “In the fortieth year.” Rather, “In the fortieth year,” refers to what is written afterwards, as Rashi explains, “This teaches that he did admonish them [only shortly before his death], etc.” The first verse is abridged, and it is as if it is written, “Eleven days from Choreiv, but you traveled it in three days with the Almighty’s help. However, because of your misconduct, you were delayed for forty years.” And afterwards starts a new sentence, “In the fortieth year ... Moshe addressed Bnei Yisrael, etc.” One should not ask: Here it implies that the sin of the spies is the reason they were delayed in the wilderness for forty years, yet in Parshas Beha’aloscha (Bamidbar 10:29) Rashi explains, “Immediately within three days we will enter the land ...but they sinned with the complainers [for meat].” The answer is: Because of their complaining they were delayed for thirty days, and on account of the sin of the spies they were delayed forty years.

אחד עשר יום, Rashi understands this line as a reproof by Moses, who is telling the people that although normally it takes eleven days to cover the distance from Mount Chorev to Kadesh, with the help of G-d they had covered that distance in only three days, seeing that the Torah had reported that they had broken camp on the twentieth day of the month of lyar. When you consider that the people had spent thirty days at Kivrat Hataavah consuming the quails, and seven days waiting for Miriam to recover from the affliction of Tzoraat at Chatzerot, it followed that they covered the distance in three days, as there had been only three way stations and by the 29th of Sivan the spies had been sent out, so that only thirty eight days had elapsed since their departure from Mount Chorev. (Compare author’s commentary on Numbers 9,1.)