Комментарий о цитате к Дварим 3:15

V. 6. שלח .וישלח ד׳ בעם im קל heißt: schicken, etwas mit Absicht zu einem Ziele hin in Bewegung setzen. שַלֵחַ im פיעל jedoch überwiegend: loslassen, etwas seinem natürlichen Zug, seiner eigenen Bewegung überlassen, es nicht zurückhalten. So וישלח ישלח את היונה ,את העורב (Bereschit 8, 7 u. 8) ושלח את היונה ,וישלח את הערב (daselbst 43, 14), וישלח את אחיכם (Schmot 13, 17) ויהי בשלח פרעה (daselbst 22, 4) und sonst sehr häufig. Auch hier, nicht: Gott schickte Schlangen, sondern: ließ die Schlangen los, hielt sie nicht zurück. Daher auch nicht נחשים שרפים, sondern הנחשים השרפים, sie waren immer in der Wüste vorhanden, allein bis dahin hielt sie Gottes fürsorgende Macht zurück. Jetzt zog Gott diese sie zurückhaltende Macht zurück, und die Schlangen der Wüste folgten ihrem natürlichen Zug, dem das Volk erlag. So schildert Mosche (Dewarim 3, 15) die Wüste, die sie durch Gottes Wundermacht ungefährdet durch wandert hatten: נחשים שרפים .המוליכך במדבר הגדול והנורא נחש שרף ועקרב וצמאון וגו׳ sind daher ein ebenso natürlicher Zubehör der Wüste wie נשך" ,וינשכו .צמאון" lautverwandt mit "נזק" schaden, נשק brennen, נשק Rüstzeug (siehe Bereschit 41, 40).

AND JAIR THE SON OF MENASHEH. This man [who was in fact from the tribe of Judah, as will be explained] is [here] traced back by genealogy to his mother’s family [Menasheh], because he took his inheritance together with them [i.e., the children of Menasheh]. And in the Book of Chronicles¹⁵⁸I Chronicles 2:21-22. it says explicitly that he was a son¹⁵⁹Actually “a grandson,” for his father was Segub, the son of Hezron (ibid., Verse 22). of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, and his mother was the daughter of Machir the son of Menasheh, as it says, And afterward Hezron went in to the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead; whom he took to wife when he was threeescore years old, and she bore him Segub. And Segub begot Jair, who had three and twenty cities in the land of Gilead;¹⁵⁸I Chronicles 2:21-22. and it is [further] written, And Geshur and Aram took the hamlets of Jair from them, Kenath, and the villages thereof, even threescore cities. All these were the sons of Machir the father of Gilead.¹⁶⁰Ibid., Verse 23. From this [fact that Kenath is here described as being amongst ‘the hamlets of Jair’] it would appear that Nobach [mentioned here in Verse 42] who conquered Kenath and the villages thereof was a son of Jair, [although it is not mentioned here], and therefore these cities were also called ‘the hamlets of Jair.’¹⁶¹Ramban here means that the explanation of the phrase at the end of Verse 42, vayikra lah Nobach bi’shmo is: “Nobach called it [i.e., Kenath and the villages thereof] by his name” [i.e., by the name of Jair — his father — mentioned in the previous verse]; hence these towns also came to be called ‘the hamlets of Jair,’ as they are described in I Chronicles ibid.
And the meaning of the verse, And Moses gave Gilead unto Machir the son of Menasheh¹⁶²Verse 40 here. is [not “unto Machir” himself, but unto] his family, for it was his sons who conquered it.¹⁶³Verse 39: And the children of Machir the son of Menasheh went to Gilead and conquered it. Similarly, And unto Machir I gave Gilead¹⁶⁴Deuteronomy 3:15. means “unto the Machirites,” for since Machir was an honored man and the chief of all his descendants, therefore his children were called by his name, and in the same way the verses refer to the heads of the tribes in connection with the inheritance [given to their children]: southward it was Ephraim’s, and northward it was Menasheh’s.¹⁶⁵Joshua 17:10. So also: The land of Tappuah belonged to Menasheh etc.¹⁶⁶Ibid., Verse 8. And when Scripture says in the Book of Joshua, And this was the lot for the tribe of Menasheh; for he was the firstborn of Joseph. As for Machir the firstborn of Menasheh, the father of Gilead, because he was a man of war, therefore he had Gilead and Bashan,¹⁶⁷Ibid., Verse 1. it also refers to his sons, who were men of war, for it was they who went to Gilead and conquered it, and therefore Moses gave them a great part of these lands. Perhaps Machir was still alive [at the time of the division of the Land in the days of Joshua], for the decree [against the generation] of the wilderness [resulting from the incident of the spies, that they were to die in the desert] had not been decreed upon him, as he was not amongst those counted by Moses and Aaron, being he was more than sixty years old [at the time of the first census after the exodus],¹⁶⁸Baba Bathra 121b. and he enjoyed longevity as did the earlier generations.¹⁶⁹See Vol. I, pp. 98-99.