Komentaryo sa Mga Bilang 32:32: Rashi, Rabbeinu Bahya, Tur HaArokh & Siftei Chakhamim

ואתנו אחזת נחלתנו AND LET POSSESSION OF OUR INHERITANCE BE WITH US [ON THIS SIDE OF THE JORDAN] — it is as much as to say: (ואתנו) in our hands and in our ownership let the possession of our inheritance be on this side.

נחנו נעבור חלוצים לפני ה', “we will cross (the Jordan) as vanguard before the Lord.” Actually, the Torah should have written אנחנו instead of נחנו. However, seeing that the members of the tribe of Gad always appear as physically strong and self-reliant, and they had the audacity of describing themselves as a vanguard מלפני ה' “in front of the Lord,” the Torah decided to put them in their place by omitting the letter א from the word אנחנו as if teaching that they needed to downgrade their reliance on ego. The word נחנו appears in the guise of understating ego when Moses and Aaron play down their part in orchestrating the Exodus in Exodus 16,7. This interpretation is tenable as the plain meaning of the words.

However, we have a tradition that the Torah deliberately wanted to commence this verse with the letter נ just as we find Jeremiah commencing Lamentations 3,42 with the words נחנו פשענו ומרינו, “we have rebelled and transgressed.” In Lamentations the need for the verse to commence with the letter נ is dictated by the prophet wanting to maintain the alphabetical sequence of each verse, i.e. each verse commences with the following letter of the alphabet. In our paragraph the need for the verse to commence with the letter נ is dictated by the fact that there are a total of 11 verses in scripture which commence and conclude with the letter נ. It is a well known fact that the tetragram originates in these eleven verses and that it contains 13 letters. If one mentions these verses together with the holy name of G’d which emerges from them one has no reason to be afraid as the great name of the Lord is an antidote against fear itself. [Rabbi Chavell points out that the eleven verses are listed in the Siddur Otzar HaTefillot (page 866 in my edition) after the songs to be recited at the conclusion of the Sabbath.]