Comentários de Citação sobre Números 32:25

וגם הולך לקראתך, “and he is also coming towards you, etc.” It is possible to explain the word וגם as including the celestial representative of Esau. who was also on the way to engage Yaakov in battle as we know from verse 25 ויאבק איש עמו, “a man wrestled with him.” This would reinforce what I have written earlier that if the מלאכים which the Torah describes Yaakov as having sent ahead as spies or messengers had been mere mortal human beings, how would these have known anything about the celestial representative of Esau being on the way to engage Yaakov in mortal combat? The reason the Torah uses two expressions to describe Yaakov’s fear, i.e. ויירא ויצר לו, is that Yaakov worried both about the approaching physical ecounter with Esau and at the same time he worried about the spiritual confrontation which was apparently about to take place between his and Esau’s spirit.

ודעו חטאתכם אשר תמצא אתכם. "and be aware that your sins will find you out." Moses warned that at the appropriate time when they would find themselves in imminent danger G'd would exact retribution from the guilty, i.e. they would fall in battle. Remember what Tur Orach Chayim chapter 54 writes that in a war of expansion soldiers are sent home if they have been guilty only of speaking needlessly between such parts of the morning prayers as ישתבח and יוצר אור. Moses warned now that all the promises he had made concerning these soldiers returning home unharmed would be null and void unless they kept to all the details of his conditions. If they failed to do this they would not be free either in the eyes of G'd or the people. The very fact that they had sustained casualties would be proof of their being guilty. Compare what I have written on the words עבדיך יעשו כאשר אדני מצוה in verse 25.

AND THE CHILDREN OF GAD AND THE CHILDREN OF REUBEN ANSWERED, SAYING: [AS THE ETERNAL HATH SAID UNTO THY SERVANTS, SO WILL WE DO]. 32. WE WILL PASS OVER ARMED. They said to Moses: “Our lord need not command us with a double condition¹²⁶If they will pass over the Jordan … then ye shall give them the land of Gilead … But if they will not pass over, they shall have possessions among you (Verses 29-30). [to cross over the Jordan]. Far be it from your servants to transgress that which my lord commands! For they [i.e., your words] are the words of G-d, and we will not transgress His commandment!” And this is the meaning of the expression, as the Eternal hath said, for at the beginning [i.e., before Moses had made the double condition] they had [already] said that they would do as my lord commanded¹²⁷Above, Verse 25. [hence we must say that here in Verse 31 they were telling Moses there was no need for the double condition, for the reason explained above].