Comentário sobre Números 13:16

ויקרא משה להושע וגו׳ AND MOSES CALLED HOSHEA [THE SON OF NUN JEHOSHUA] — By giving him this name יהושע which is a compound of יה and הושע “God may save”, he in effect prayed for him: “May God save you from the evil counsel of the spies” (Sotah 34b).

ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, the Torah means that this man was known as a man of valour by the name of Hosheah among the members of his tribe. The fact that he has been referred to as “Joshua” already in Numbers 11,28 is because in his capacity as Moses’ personal valet Moses had changed his name in the form of a prayer asking that he be the instrument of his own salvation and that of others.

אלה שמות האנשים, These are the names of the men, etc. Why did the Torah repeat this seeing it had already written: "and these are their names, etc." in verse 4? We may understand this by reference to Sotah 34. Rabbi Yitzchak said: "we have a tradition that the names of the spies recorded in the Torah reflect their deeds;" The name סתור בן מיכאל describes that the man bearing that name contradicted the words of G'd, etc." So far the Talmud on the subject. We have noted that Moses renamed Joshua so as to protect him against the advice of wicked people and we asked why this was necessary. This means that Joshua's name did not reflect the fact that he was wicked. It was necessary to write: "and these are their names" in order to show us why Moses was concerned about the character of these people, i.e. he did not like their names. Whereas I wrote earlier that Moses had the feeling that these men might be wicked because of the word לך, this was not an absolute as the word לך could have other connotations as I have demonstrated. Moses may have been alerted to the potential wickedness of these people when he reflected on their names. Alternatively, Moses did have his suspicions about the enterprise and any men who would be delegated to act as spies; however, had it not been for their names, Moses could not have justified his suspicions.

ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, this does not mean that the people from then on called this man Joshua. It means that the man who had been referred to as Hosheah son of Nun in his father’s house was the one whom Moses now referred to as Joshua. The change had occurred already at the time when Moses appointed this man to be his personal valet. It was customary to change the names of people who were promoted in rank. We find this the first time when Pharaoh changed Joseph’s name to Tzofnat Paneach (Genesis 41,45) We find it again in Daniel 1,6 when Nevuchadnezzar’s chief officer changed Daniel’s name to Belteshazzar. This had been a reference to a Babylonian idol so named. The first time Joshua’s name had been changed was in Exodus 24,13.

אלה שמות האנשים, “These are the names of the men, etc. ”Ibn Ezra writes that the reason the Torah repeated the line after having already named all these men individually, by introducing the paragraph with the words: “these are their names,” is to inform us that none of the names mentioned were changed except the name of Joshua.

אלה שמות האנשים, “These are the names of the men, etc.” Why did the Torah repeat the introduction “the names,” seeing it had already written the words: “and these are their names” in verse 4? The reason is to tell us that all the other spies did not have their names changed since birth. Only Joshua had his name changed.

May Hashem save you. Thus “he called” is in the sense of a prayer, as in “And there Avram called in the Name of Hashem” (Bereishis 13:4), and the lamed of ליהושע is in place of על (for). Rashi’s proof to expound in this manner is that if not so, what is the reason to name him here? (Gur Aryeh) There is a difficulty: Why did he pray for Yehoshua and not for Caleiv? But this is not a difficulty, because it is great disgrace for a person whose student does not act properly, for people will say “if he had not learned from his teacher to act in this manner, he would not have done these things.”

V. 16. ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע. Mit dieser Namensänderung gab er ihm und seinen Gefährten, denen sie ja auch bei jeder Nennung zum Bewusstsein kam, einen leitenden Wink, den sie bei der Lösung ihrer Aufgabe nicht aus dem Gesichte verlieren sollten. Er wies damit ihn und sie darauf hin, dass הושע, dass der, der in aller Vergangenheit uns geholfen, auch der sei, der יהושע, der die Heileszukunft schaffen werde, ja, dass יהושע, dass Gott unser ganzer Reichtum, unsere ganze Macht, der ganze Inhalt unseres Strebens sei, und ihm zur Seite alles andere seine Bedeutung verliere. Es ist nämlich: יהושע nicht nur eine Umwandlung der Vergangenheit הושע in die Zukunft, es hätte dann יהושיע gelautet. Es ist vielmehr eine Umbiegung des Begriffs ישע, der Wurzel von הושע, in שוע mit vorgesetztem Gottesnamen. Während ישע, verwandt mit ישה der Wurzel von יש und תושיה, die Fülle des Seins bedeutet, bezeichnet שוע, lautverwandt mit שפע ,שבע, die Fülle des Habens, daher geradezu שוע: der Begüterte. Vielleicht ist auchשוע zunächst ein Hilferuf gegen Raub; und תשועה vorzugsweise siegverleihender Beistand im Landesverteidigungskrieg, während ישועה die Existenzrettung im allgemeinen ist. Dass diese Namensänderung in tiefer Beziehung zu der Aufgabe stand, welche Josua und seinen Gefährten zur Lösung ward, ist durch die Stellung klar, in welcher sie uns berichtet wird. Hätte sie bloß eine individuelle Beziehung, sie wäre oben V. 8 berichtet worden. Hier aber steht sie nach Erwähnung des Gesamtauftrages אשר שלח וגו׳ ויקרא וגו׳ und vor genauerer Erläuterung dieses Auftrages im einzelnen. Es bildet daher diese Namensänderung gleichsam das Siegel und das grundlegende Vorwort für diesen Auftrag. Sie sagte Josua und seinen Gefährten, ihre Sendung habe nicht die Bedeutung, sich über die Möglichkeit und den Wert der Besitznahme des Landes Gewissheit zu verschaffen. Ihre Siegesgewissheit und ihre Gedeihenszuversicht, ihre תשועה und ihr שוע sei Gott, und steige und falle nicht mit dem günstigen oder ungünstigen Licht, in welchem etwa das Land in dieser Beziehung erscheinen möge. Mit dieser Namensänderung begleitete somit Mosche seine Boten im Geiste und gab ihnen den Urteilskompass mit hinaus, in welchem Sinne sie ihre Sendung aufzufassen haben sollten.

ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, “Moses called (changed) the name of Hoshea to Yehoshua son of Nun. The Midrash Tanchuma, section 6 on this portion, in dealing with this change of name, writes as follows: “what prompted Moses to change the name of Hoshea to Y’hoshua by adding the letter י (equivalent the number ten) to his name? Moses foresaw that Calev, another spy who did receive his ancestral share in the Holy Land received one share, as detailed in the Book of Judges 1,20, seeing he had bothered to make a special detour at Chevron (Numbers 13,22) (“he,” sing. came to Chevron) whereas Joshua, who would lead the people to the Land and conquer it, received ten shares, this was hinted at by the change of his name. [Seeing that Joshua personally did not have any children, looking at the matter technically, although his tribe of Ephrayim, did of course receive their share, perhaps Moses wanted to indicate that he in fact, at least, in the spiritual sense of the word, “inherited” the 10 shares of the Holy Land, that would have become the shares of the other ten spies had they not slandered the land. Ed.] According to the Talmud Yerushalmi tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 2, halachah 6, by adding the letter י at the beginning of his name, so that it began with the two letters spelling the name of G–d, Moses hoped to arm him spiritually against becoming spiritually contaminated by the other ten spies. When Sarah’s name שרי had been changed to שרה, she had lost a letter, i.e. the letter י. Joshua now received this letter. Avraham had the letter ה she had lost, added to his name when that was changed from אברם to אברהם. [Seeing that they both no longer needed these two letters, having died long ago, they were used by Moses as helping Joshua to withstand the brainwashing by the ten spies. Ed.]

אלה שמות האנשים. “the following are the names of these 12 men: no representative of the tribe of Levi had been included amongst the spies, as the members of that tribe were not going to get fields to work as ancestral lands.

ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, “Moses named Hoseah son of Nun Joshua.” According to the plain meaning of the text his name was changed, as he had been the commander of the army in the battle against Amalek. He had acquired an international reputation as a result of that encounter. Moses changed his name so that he would not be singled out as a target for the Canaanites. After all, they had never seen him, had only heard about him.

ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, Moses called Hoshea son of Nun Joshua. We already mentioned that our sages said that Moses prayed concerning Joshua. Why did he have to change his name in addition? Perhaps Moses wanted to give Joshua additional power to resist wicked advice seeing that the first three letters of his name now represented the three letters making up the tetragram. The letter י which Moses added to Hoshea's name has a numerical value of 10 and symbolised that he could resist the advice of ten of his colleagues. It would also eventually enable him to inherit the share of ארץ ישראל that the ten wicked spies would forfeit due to their conduct. This is based on a comment in Chagigah 15 according to which each person has a place allocated to him both in גן עדן and in גיהנם. If he merits it he will occupy his place in גן עדן, whereas a wicked person will occupy both his own place in גיהנם as well as the place left vacant by his pious colleague.

ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, “Moses renamed Hoshea bin Nun as Joshua. The Torah does not mean that Moses renamed Hoshea at this time; we have to understand this verse as follows: Moses had renamed Hoshea from the time he had appointed him as his personal valet. The Torah merely wishes to tell us that the Joshua whom Moses has appointed as one of the spies, was the one whom he had renamed at the time of his previous appointment as Moses’ personal servant, seeing that at that time already he had found favour in his eyes, and he wanted to express this by adding a letter to his name. We know that G-d had renamed Avram after he had found favour in his eyes by adding a letter to his name, just as He had changed a letter in Sarai’s name for a similar reason. Both Yaakov and Joseph experienced name changes, as did Daniel and the last King of Yehudah, Matnaya, whom Nebuchadnezzar renamed Tzedekiah. Also Nechemyah, underwent such a name change as we know from Nechemyah 8,9.