פְּאַת־יָ֗מָּה חֲמֵ֤שׁ מֵאוֹת֙ וְאַרְבַּ֣עַת אֲלָפִ֔ים שַֽׁעֲרֵיהֶ֖ם שְׁלֹשָׁ֑ה שַׁ֣עַר גָּ֞ד אֶחָ֗ד שַׁ֤עַר אָשֵׁר֙ אֶחָ֔ד שַׁ֥עַר נַפְתָּלִ֖י אֶחָֽד׃
Sa panig ng kanluran, apat na libo at limandaan, at ang kanilang mga pintuang-bayan ay tatlo: ang pintuang-bayan ni Gad, isa; ang pintuang-bayan ni Asher, isa; ang pintuang-bayan ni Neftali, isa.
Rabbeinu Bahya
והיה כל מבקש ה' יצא אל אוהל מועד אשר מחוץ למחנה, “and whoever sought Hashem would go out to the Tent of Meeting.” This teaches that the Shechinah was no longer resident within the camp of the people. Actually, we would have expected the Torah to write: “whoever wanted to seek out Moses, etc.” The fact that the Torah does not use this syntax indicates that seeking out Moses was equated with seeking out G’d’s presence. Moses was described by the Torah as “Hashem” in this regard. We find that our patriarch Yaakov was also accorded the title “G’d” in Genesis 33,20 where the Torah wrote: ויקרא לו אל אלו-הי ישראל. I have explained all this in connection with that verse. [seeing that every judge is called אלוהים in the Torah, this is not as mind-boggling as it appears at first. It is simply an extension of the principle that the messenger is equipped with the status of the sender, a well-known principle in the Talmud. Ed.] When Rivkah experienced an unusual pregnancy, the fetuses struggling within her womb, the Torah describes her as inquiring from G’d what all this meant. The words used by the Torah are ותלך לדרוש את ה'. The meaning there is that she went to a representative of G’d to ask the meaning of her experience. There too the person whom she inquired from is described as Hashem (Genesis 25,22). There are numerous other examples of the same thing throughout the Bible. We learn from Rivkah’s experience that when the Torah wrote ויאמר ה' לה, that she did not experience a revelation or direct message from G’d, but that she received the word of G’d by means of a person designated by G’d to tell her that she would give birth to twins, etc. We find that both the Messiah and the city of Jerusalem have been accorded the title “G’d” on occasion, such as in Jeremiah 23,6 and Ezekiel 48,34. In the latter instance the word שמה must be read with the vowels קמץ twice instead of a שוא under the letter ש. In all the instances mentioned the rule is simply that the messenger adopts the name of the Sender.