אחד עשר יום מחורב ELEVEN DAYS FROM HOREB [TO KADESH-BARNEA BY THE MOUNT SEIR ROUTE]:
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2This is the true explanation of the matter: the text begins to explain that they only tarried on the way from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea a mere eleven days. At that point they were on the verge of entering the land of Israel immediately via the same road that the spies entered. That is what Moses said to them [when he sent the spies to spy out the land] (Numbers 13:17), “Go up there into the Negeb and on to the mountain.” And at the end of that story it is written that (Numbers 14:40), “Early next morning they set out towards the top of the mountain,” and then (ibid., vs. 44) “they defiantly marched to the top of the mountain,”3 and then (vs. 45) “the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt on that mountain came down and dealt them a blow.” And here also it is written below (Deuteronomy 1:43), “You willfully marched up the mountain.”4 All of these verses prove that, had the Israelites not5 sinned in the episode of the spies, they were close to a place where they could enter the land directly from Kadesh-barnea which is in the wilderness of Paran.
The Israelites left Horeb in the second year, on the twentieth day [of the second month]. For it says in the Torah portion Beha‘alotekha (Numbers 10:33) “They marched from the mountain of the LORD a distance of three days.” And in the beginning of that section of text it says [that the story took place] (Numbers 10:11), “In the second year [on the twentieth day of the second month].” Following that it is written that (ibid., vs. 12) “The Israelites set out on their journeys from the wilderness of Sinai. The cloud came to rest in the wilderness of Paran.” [This verse is to be seen as a general statement about the fact that the Israelites moved from the wilderness of Sinai to the wilderness of Paran. First the text makes this general statement and then] it goes back and gives the details of how they ended up coming to the wilderness of Paran.6 Along the way (Numbers 11:1) “The people took to complaining” and then they (ibid., vs. 4) “felt a gluttonous craving.” That is why the place was [at the end of that episode] called Kibroth-hattaavah [“the graves of craving”].7 From there they proceeded to Hazeroth, which is where Miriam became leprous, and they were delayed there for a week. Then (Numbers 12:16) “the people set out from Hazeroth” and traveled until “they encamped in the wilderness of Paran.” This [arrival in the wilderness of Paran in Numbers 12:16] is [just a reiteration, as part of a detailed description, of the same arrival in the wilderness of Paran that was described already in the general statement in Numbers 10:12] which we mentioned above, “[The Israelites set out... .] The cloud came to rest in the wilderness of Paran.”
So this is the tally of the eleven days that elapsed on their trip “[from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea] on the Mount Seir route.” There were three days of travel [from Horeb until their arrival in Hazeroth], as it says (Numbers 10:33), “They marched from the mountain of the LORD a distance of three days.” Then there were seven days when they did not travel (Numbers 12:15) “until Miriam was readmitted.”8 This brings the total to ten days. Then on the eleventh day they (Numbers 12:16) “set out from Hazeroth and encamped in the wilderness of Paran,” which is Kadesh-barnea. For that is the place from which the spies were sent, as it is written (Numbers 13:26), “They [the returning spies] went to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran.”9
Then, because of their sin, the decree was pronounced to increase their time in the wilderness to forty years, as it says below (Deuteronomy 2:14), “The time that we spent in travel from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, until that whole generation had perished... .”10
The verse that says (Deuteronomy 2:1) “we skirted Mount Seir for many days,” [is not referring to the time that the Israelites traveled from Mount Horeb to Kadesh-barnea. That trip took only eleven days. Rather, Deuteronomy 2:1] refers to their travels after they left Kadesh and before they arrived at Mount Hor, on the border of the Edomite territory, in the fortieth year.11
All of the above is an explanation added by me, the young [i.e., the unworthy] copyist, who is copying the manuscript written by our rabbi [i.e., Rashbam]. For Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency explained to me its true meaning.12 And now I will return to [copying] the commentary of Rabbi Samuel, which is also what I learned from the rabbi.}
Whoever is wise will understand this!13 The only reason that this verse was written14 is because it is written below (vs. 19), “We journeyed from Horeb and traveled the great and terrible wilderness [that you saw], along the road to the hill country of the Amorites ... to Kadesh-barnea.” [We know that at that point the Israelites were] close to the land of Israel, for they sent the spies from Kadesh-barnea [to scout the land]. But they were delayed there for forty years.
That is why the text explains here that when they left Horeb on the direct route, the Mount Seir route, they could have entered the land in [a mere] eleven days, [i.e., the number of days that it took to travel] to Kadesh-barnea.15 But because they sinned [in the incident of the spies, the result was that] (2:1) “we skirted Mount Seir for a long time,”16 [i.e., the wanderings continued] up to forty years.
And that is the meaning of what Moses says below (vs. 19): “‘We journeyed from Horeb and traveled ... to Kadesh-barnea,’ just a few days’ journey, that amounted to just eleven days of walking. [Our whole wilderness experience could have lasted a mere eleven days!] But I sent the spies from Kadesh-barnea and [the result was that] you were delayed forty years because of your sins.”17
1. In some of the editions of Rashbam’s Torah commentary, there is at this point a very long alternate explanation of verse 2, which begins with the words זה אמיתת הדבר. As Rosin notes, at the end of that explanation the copyist labels it as an interpolation – זה פירשתי אני הצעיר. The copyist identifies himself as a student of Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency (who, in turn, was, as far as we can tell, Rashbam’s student; see note 12 on p. 211 below).
2. I understand this specific comment as an expansion of Rashbam’s comment on Deuteronomy 1:2. See further discussion in note 9 below.
3. The same copyist discusses this verse in the context of the sin of the spies at greater length in his interpolated comment below that follows Rashbam’s comment on 2:14.
4. All of these verses prove that just before the episode with the spies the Israelites had arrived at the appropriate spot from which to enter the land of Israel, for we see that they really did try to enter the land from that spot.
5. Berzinsky reasonably emends the phrase כי מיד אלמלא to כי אלמלא.
6. This style of explanation resembles Rashbam’s. Rashbam refers to it as כולל ואחר כך מפרש – the text makes a general statement and then gives the details. When applied to a narrative it usually means that the text first tells the whole story in one short statement and then retells the same story with more details. See e.g. Rashbam’s commentary to Exodus 2:15.
But although this style of interpretation is appropriate for Rashbam, Rashbam himself did not offer this explanation of the verses in Numbers in his commentary there.
7. Here the commentator is taking issue with Rashi who writes that the Israelites spent an entire month in Kibroth-hattaavah. The import of this commentator’s explanation is that the Israelites just passed through Kibroth-hattaavah, as can be seen from his calculations that follow. See also note 9.
8. Or perhaps “until Miriam was cured of her leprosy.” See note 66 on Rashbam’s commentary to Numbers 11:35.
9. Our commentator takes issue with Rashi who argues that the trip of the Israelites from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea took either three days or forty days, depending on how you count. The elapsed time, according to Rashi, was forty days, but the Israelites spent only three of those days traveling. Rashi may be trying to harmonize two opinions on the subject in Sifre (Finkelstein’s edition, p. 8).
Rashbam writes in his commentary that the trip took eleven days. Now the copyist provides Scriptural backing for Rashbam’s view, by showing how the chronology of the events in Numbers 10–13 can yield an eleven-day trip from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea.
While the copyist’s explanation here is meant to support Rashbam’s comment, this kind of chronological analysis is not typical of Rashbam. Perhaps Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency and his student the copyist were more interested in such chronological issues.
10. See similarly Rashbam’s commentary to 2:14.
11. See Numbers 20:23.
The commentator’s point here is generally agreed upon. Clearly Deuteronomy 2:1 refers to the Israelites’ travels after the episode of the spies and has nothing to do with the amount of time that the trip from Mount Horeb to Kadesh-barnea took. See also Rashbam’s commentary to Numbers 21:14.
12. As noted above in note 20 on the commentary on Deuteronomy 1:2, Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency was presumably a student of Rashbam. See Robert Harris, The Literary Hermeneutic of Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency, especially pp. 85-87, where Harris discusses our passage.
13. An allusion to the language of Jeremiah 9:11 and Hosea 14:10.
Rashbam more than once hints that he expects his commentary to be of interest particularly to “the wise” (e.g. commentary to Genesis 1:1) or to those “who love reason” (e.g. commentary to Genesis 37:2). See also commentary below ad 7:7 and ad 9:25.
14. This verse is problematic. It does not seem to connect smoothly either to the verse that precedes it or the one that follows it.
There are at least three ways that the phrase has been traditionally interpreted.
1) Some (e.g. Ibn Ezra) have said that the phrase is a continuation of what they see as the list of place names in vs. 1. (See explanation [b] in note 1 above.) Moses spoke to the Israelites in many locations, including during the eleven days that they traveled from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea.
2) Rashi suggests that verse 2 is, like verse 1, an oblique criticism of the Israelites. (See explanation [c] in note 1 above.) Moses is reminding the Israelites that God has performed many miracles on their behalf and yet they have still remained ungrateful. As part of that reminder he tells them that it should have taken them
eleven days to travel from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea. Rashi assumes that all of Moses’ listeners (and all the readers of the Bible) know that the Israelites actually traversed that distance in only
three days. (Rashi provides the arithmetic to prove that assertion.) So the mention of the eleven days that the trip should have taken was a way of hinting at a great miracle.
3) The explanation that Rashbam offers: verse 2 helps the reader to a better understanding of the verses that follow, but not those that follow immediately. It has anticipatory value, and really is not connected to vs. 1. Rashbam’s explanation will become clearer in note 25 below.
There is one further very creative way of understanding vss. 1-2, suggested by Luzzatto. He writes that the place names in verse 1 constitute a list of various places where Moses spoke to the Israelites, and that vs. 2 is a verbatim quotation of the same short speech that Moses repeated at each of those places. Vss. 1-2 then say the following:
“These are the words that Moses spoke to the Israelites in [a few different places]: ‘It is only an eleven day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea on the Mount Seir route.’”
In other words, in all the places listed in vs. 1 Moses chastised the Israelites in a subtle manner by reminding them that they could have spent a mere eleven days in the wilderness, had they not sinned. (An explanation of the syntax similar to that offered by Luzzatto, but with a more midrashic twist, was suggested three centuries earlier by his Italian compatriot, R. Ovadyah Seforno.)
15. Rashbam is disagreeing with one of the details in the explanation that Rashi offers. (See explanation 2 in note 22 above.) Rashi says (following one opinion in Sifre [Finkelstein’s edition, p. 8], that the trip actually took only three days. Rashbam says that it took eleven.
Weinfeld (Anchor, p. 127) notes that accounts of modern travelers confirm that it is an eleven-day walk from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea.
16. Rashbam’s comment here appears to be inconsistent with his comment to 2:29 below. Here he portrays the “skirting of Mount Seir” as a result of the sin of the spies, i.e., as something that began in the second year of wandering in the wilderness. The implication of his comment on 2:29 is that the Israelites skirted Mount Seir after the Edomites refused passage to the Israelites, an event that occurred in the fortieth year.
17. Rashbam’s explanation is that verse 2 serves anticipatory purposes. At this point in the narrative it really does nothing. But the book of Deuteronomy begins by providing us with information that will make the continuation of the story more understandable.
When we read verse 19 below it is important that we realize that it describes a journey that took only eleven days and that brought the Israelites to the border of Israel. We will then understand how sad the subsequent sin and punishment of the Israelites were. What should have taken eleven days ended up taking forty years.
An interpretation like Rashbam’s is later offered by Nahmanides See similarly NJPSC: “This verse is probably preparatory to verse 19. Its point is that the journey took only eleven days, and, had Israel trusted God, it could have entered the land immediately and not wandered in the desert... .” One explanation in Sifre (ibid.) expresses a similar but not identical idea. Craigie notes, like Rashbam, that vs. 2 is best connected to vs. 19. He, however, writes, “It has been suggested that the verse [= vs. 2] should follow 1:19.”
On Rashbam’s use of anticipation as an exegetical tool, see Appendix I in my Genesis volume, pp. 400-421.