Yehoshua 20 - Arei Miklat

In the chapter 19, Yehoshua concluded dividing the land amongst the tribes. In chapter 20, the Cities of Refuge for negligent murderers are designated. Yehoshua designated the three cities in Israel proper - Kedesh in the north, Shechem in the heartland, and Chevron in the south - and activated the three cities that Moshe had designated in Transjordan - Betzer in the south, Ramos in the central region, and Golan in the north.

The commentators discuss why the two disparate sides of the Jordan river were allocated an equal number of Cities of Refuge. Rashi (Bamidbar 35:14), quoting Makkos 10a, learns out from pesukim in Hoshei'a that Gil'ad - here apparently used to refer to Transjordan as a unit - was a land in which murder was more prevalent. Ramban (ibid.) suggests that this could either be a form of prophetic foreknowledge of the future or an acknowledgement that something about the land - perhaps its status as something of a frontier-country - made murders more likely.

Ramban deals with the objection that Cities of Refuge only worked for accidental murders, not willful ones, by suggesting that the murderers of Gil'ad tried to make their murders look accidental. Da'as Z'keinim notes the ma'amar on Makkos 10b describing a form of Divine justice in which one who accidentally kills without witnesses and one who purposefully kills without witnesses would happen to come to the same place where it would be brought about that the accidentally murderer would accidentally kill the purposeful murderer with witnesses, so that both parties would get what they deserved. Chizkuni points out that according to Makkos 9b, both accidental and purposeful murderers were exiled to the Cities of Refuge, from whence they would be retrieved and judged with the proper punishment.

Ramban alternatively suggests that the reason why Transjordan was alloted more cities was because of its greater land area.

Yehoshua 12

(See introduction in post on Yehoshua 6)

Chapter 12 of Yehoshua is one of those chapters of Tanach which is a lot more exciting if one learns it with an Atlas Da'as Mikra open alongside. It consists of a list of the kings whom Bnei Yisroel defeated when they entered the land. In the first half of the chapter, the conquests of Sichon and Og in Transjordan are rehashed. In the second half, the 31 kings who ruled in Israel proper are listed; some of them are familiar, some less so:

* The kings of Yericho and the Ai, the first two cities conquered by B'nei Yisroel (chapters 6-8)
* Adoni-Tzedek of Yerushalayim, Hoham of Chevron, Pir'am of Yarmus, Yafia of Lachish, and D'vir of Eglon - the five Emorite kings in the south who declared war on Giv'on because of its sealing a peace treaty with Bnei Yisroel, and who were defeated by enormous hailstones and by the heavenly bodies that kept watch together in the Ayalon Valley* until Bnei Yisroel finished destroying the enemy (chapter 10 in general and specifically 10:36-37, 31-32, and 34-35)
* Horam of Gezer, who attempted to defend the city of Lachish. (10:33) According to Atlas Da'as Mikra, the two cities are approximately 10 miles apart; perhaps Gezer was somewhat of a regional power?

* The king of D'vir (10:38-39)
* The kings of Geder and the far southern cities of Chormah and Arad
* The king of Livna, whose city was conquered immediately after Makeida (10:29-30, see below)
* The king of Adullam, located between Yerushalayim, Chevron, Yarmus, and Lachish. Interesting they didn't join the alliance (perhaps they were a smaller city?)
* The king of Makeida, whose city was conquered the same day that the five kings of the south were killed (10:28)
* Beis-El, a neighboring city to the Ai (see Bereishis 13:3). These 16 kings all reigned in the future territories of Shim'on, Yehuda, and Binyamin (to be precise, Beis-El and Gezer were actually in southern Ephraim - and ADM is ambiguous about Makeida - but they were right near the border).

* The kings of Tapu'ach, Cheifer, and Afeik, located in the heartland of the country later inhabited by the tribes of Ephraim, Menashe, and Dan.

* The king of Lasharon and Yovav of Madon, kings who reigned near the Kinneret, the latter of whom was allied with...
* Yavin of Chatzor, the head of the northern alliance that gathered at Mei Marom in the far north of Israel to fight against Bnei Yisroel after their successful exploits in the south (11:1), and
* The kings of Shimron (M'ron) and Achshaf, junior partners in the alliance. These five kings (six cities, as M'ron is a city distinct from Shimron) reigned in the far north, in the lands of Asher, Naftali, Yissachar, and Zevulun.

* The kings of Ta'nach and Megiddo, further to the southwest
* The king of Kedesh, the northernmost of the cities mentioned
* The kings of Yokn'am of Karmel, of Dor of the Dor region, of Goyim of Gilgal, which are in the northwest of the country.
* And the king of Tirtzah, which is in the hills of Ephraim in the heartland.

To summarize, the first 8 kings are kings of the south which have some storyline associated with them, while the next 8 were from other cities in the south. The next three kings were from the central region. Next are listed the 4 kings who organized the northeastern resistance, preceded by Lasharon (who may be one of the cities that are mentioned implicitly in 11:2-3) for reasons unclear (It is additionally curious that Madon is mentioned before Chatzor, a more central member of the alliance that was closer to the battlefield and most likely destroyed first). The last 7 kings are all in the (lower) northwest, with the exceptions of Kedesh which is in the far north and Tirtzah, which is in the hills of Ephraim.

If the list in this chapter is meant to be nearly chronological, it would mean that Bnei Yisroel entered the land in Binyamin (the northern extent of the southern region), proceeded in a cycle around the south, conquered the cities in the central region, moved up along the plain of the Jordan to to battle with the kings arrayed at Mei Marom, and then swept to the southeast to destroy the other cities of the north, interrupting in the middle to return to Kedesh in the far north and concluding with Tirtzah. If one wishes to view this chapter as being chronological where no other priorities exist, though, one must resolve why D'vir, Livna, and Makeida are listed in the reverse order of their conquest.

This chapter completes the conquest section of the book; the rest of the book is devoted to the division of the land.
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* To hedge off a potential question, the ancient city of Ayalon - and its neighbor Sha'alvim - were in the territory of Dan, but it's in the far south, right near the borders with Yehuda and Binyamin (and the valley covers more territory than just the city).

Yehoshua 6

(A friend of mine started up a Nach Yomi program. While I'm not learning along with it, as I'm currently in the midst of a schedule of my own learning Nach on Shabbos* to complete it in a year, I volunteered to write some of the daily divrei torah for the program.)

Yehoshua perek 6 describes the conquest and destruction of the city of Yericho and its inhabitants, save the family of Rachav the businesswoman**. The entire city is declared to be cheirem to HaShem. All of the metal objects in the city are brought to the storehouse of HaShem, and the city is burned to the ground. Following the destruction of the city, Yehoshua adjures the nation, "Accursed be the man who arises and builds this city, Yericho; with his firstborn shall he lay its foundations and with his youngest shall he erect its doors." (And indeed, during the days of the wicked Ach'av, Chi'el of Beis-El built Yericho, and the curse befell his children - see Melachim I 16:34).

The gemara in Sanhedrin 113a states that the curse applies both to one who builds a city on the site of the original Yericho, even under a different name, and to one who builds a brand-new city and calls it Yericho (and the mefarshim say that the latter was the sin of Chi'el).

The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim (3:50) explains that the reason for this curse is so that the ruins of Yericho will be an eternal reminder of their miraculous method of destruction.

The Malbim explains that the punishment of the builder fits his crime, in that one who violated Yehoshua's decree in order to build for himself an eternal monument will be punished by losing all of his children, who comprised his truest form of a monument. Abravanel provides a similar mida-k'neged-mida equation, explaining that because the builder rebuilt that which HaShem destroyed, HaShem will destroy that which the builder built, that is, his children.***

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* There's no local halacha shiur that I'm giving up in order to keep up with the schedule, so there won't be a halachic issue with learning kesuvim on Shabbos even once I get to kesuvim in a few months - see Shabbos 116a and Rambam Hil. Shabbos 23:19.

** A nice way of incorporating both shitos as to her profession, innkeeper and prostitute.

Spies and Kohanim

In the haftarah of P' Shelach (Yehoshua 2), Rachav twice hides the two spies that Yehoshua sends to Yericho. The first time, she quickly sticks them out of sight when the king demands that she turn them over (to which she responds that they already left), while the second time, she hides them in the flax arranged on her roof as an overnight solution where they can stay until the gates of Yericho open again in the morning and they can escape (although they ended up not even using the gates, as she lets them out through her window, which was located on the wall - perhaps she was only willing to lay herself on the line in this way once they swore to spare her life).

In first instance, rather than using the logical plural object form, וַתִּצְפְּנֵם , similar to the word used in the second instance, וַתִּטְמְנֵם, it instead uses a singular object form, וַתִּצְפְּנוֹ. One explanation given is that in this scenario, she quickly hid each one in a separate place, wherever there was room to fit them, and so the verse uses a singular object form. Yalkut Shim'oni (8) explains that the two spies were Kaleiv and Pinchas, and Pinchas did not require hiding, since he was able to make himself invisible. An interesting point, though, is that Pinchas did not claim that he had this ability due to his being the great Pinchas, but rather because he was a kohein, and, according to the verse in our own haftarah (Malachi 2:7), a kohein is analogous to a mal'ach, who can make himself invisible at will. I found this to be an interesting additional drasha on this verse, besides the more well-known one that only one who is on the spiritual level of a mal'ach can teach Torah.

On a side note, the navi makes a point of using two different words when referring to the two different forms of hiding. It's interesting, therefore, that the Yalkut Shim'oni explains the word ותצפנו as נטלה אותן להטמינם, connecting the two words together, saying that the former word meant that she took action to more securely hide them but apparently did not have time, so hid (one of) them quickly, and only afterwards succeeded in hiding the two of them.

Giv'on

The story of the Giv'onim in Yehoshua ch. 9 has a certain bizarre aspect to it. The people are suspicious about the origins of the Giv'onim, and are hesitant to make any treaty with them, but Yehoshua and the nesi'ei ha-edah, the leaders of the generation, are the ones who make the mistake. Maybe the lesson to be learned is that the leaders should trust the instincts of their followers, and think twice before exerting their power to go over the heads of the populace.

Yehoshua, chapter 8

A couple of observations on Yehoshua ch. 8:

1) The drastic change between the first attack on Ha-ai and the second. We are told that the population of Ha-Ai was 12,000, male and female, which means roughly 2,000-3,000 adult males of military age (as per the 1/5 ratio often invoked by y'tzias Mitzrayim). In the first battle, the scouts advised using this number to fight. In the second, 30,000 soldiers constituted the ambush alone - both by force of numbers and by use of a strategy, this battle should have been a decisive victory for the Jews even through natural means - why did HaShem command that it be done this way?

2) Although instructions for the battle with Yericho included a ban on all of its property, no such instructions were given for the battle with Ha-ai. To the contrary, even after the execution of Achan, the opposite command was given, i.e., that all of the spoils be plundered. It seems that the Jews had lost an opportunity of some sort when Achan took from the spoils of Yericho, as I don't believe we ever find a similar ban at a later time in Tanach (with the exception of the war of Esther).
(Rashi says on the words "and like this and like this I have done" in the confession of Achan in the previous chapter that Achan was confessing additionally to taking from the spoils of previous battles during the time of Moshe in which a ban was placed on all plundering (I don't recall when this was the case) - one can, perhaps, say that the z'chus of Moshe over that of Yehoshua caused that the Jews were not punished until now - but despite the fact that the sin was the same both here and there, it is interesting that it was only now that the Jews lost this extra command).

3) If Ha-ai was so small (see the scouts' report at the beginning of chapter 7), why did it merit the name Ha-ai, with the definite article in front? In two places, there is a k'ri/k'siv that takes out a terminal reish, which may mean that "ai" is a truncation of "ir" (does a precedent exist?) - but perhaps this is not the case, but rather "ai" and "ir" are just a case where the proper and common nouns look similar? Could "ai" mean something else? Unless it was a city that had once been great, but had seen better days? Such could possibly be said about Yericho, also, as per the rule (mentioned by Rashi in P' Sh'lach) that strong cities don't need such solid walls - if so, perhaps HaShem chose these two cities to start the invasion of K'na'an to make it more derech ha-teva? (Unless Yericho is known from elsewhere to be a powerful city - in which case I don't know how to explain the choice of these two cities as the beginning of the invasion).

Eimek Achor

In today's perek of the Nach Yomi for Avraham program, Yehoshua ch. 7, the place where Achan is judged and executed for taking from the spoils of Yericho is called Eimek Achor, and he himself is referred to as Ocheir Yisroel (in the genealogies of Divrei HaYamim). The term Eimek Achor is also used by Hoshei'a (ch. 2), who says that it will turn into Petach Tikva, an entrance of hope, and Yeshaya (ch. 65), who says that it will turn into an area of cattle pasturing. The description ocheir is also used by Yiftach, to refer to his daughter, Ach'av and Eliyahu to refer to each other, and Yonasan, to refer to his father, due to his decree during a certain battle against the P'lishtim that the people were required to fast until the P'lishtim were utterly beaten.

I had always thought that "ocheir" meant one who makes stumble, but today's research indicated that it means to make cloudy, turbid, or stirred up - like "mayim achurim" used in the mishnah (?) in reference to what may or may not be used for netilas yadayim.

What does this mean? I don't know.

Mila and cherpah

In Yehoshua ch. 5, Yehoshua performs a mass circumcision on the people. Subsequently, HaShem says to Yehoshua, "Today I have rolled off the 'cherpah' of Egypt from you". I don't have time to delve into this, but it's interesting that the same term 'cherpah', meaning insult or shame, is used by the b'nei Yaakov when they explain to Chamor and Shechem why they cannot give Dinah to Shechem while he is uncircumcised. Rashi there quotes a Midrash which elaborates, with the brothers explaining that it is their habit to insult each other by calling each other 'areilim. Looking at some of the mefarshim on Yehoshua - Radak, Metzudas David, and Malbim all say that the cherpah that was removed is the orlah itself, although none of them explain why this is so, other than to quote the passuk in Bereishis. Rashi and Ralbag go in a different direction altogether, with the former saying that the cherpah is the projection of the Egyptian astrologers that the Jews will meet up with blood in the desert (which only now was revealed to be dam mila, as opposed to the blood of death) and the latter saying that cherpah is the perverted Egyptian ideology in general, which the subsequent offering of the korban pesach serves to remove (he cross-references here his commentary on P' Bo), and more specifically the Egyptian predeliction for lewdness, which is weakened by circumcision; the Ralbag also quotes Rashi's opinion afterwards, but prefers his own.