The men of Gath killed them, the ones born in the land. Some explain (Pseudo-Rashi) that the reason the text says “the ones born in the land” is that the men of Gath were born in the land, and knew the lay of the land; so when the Ephraimites came into the land to take their cattle and did not know the roads, the men of Gath ambushed them and killed them. And some (?) explain that it says “the ones born in the land” because Gath later belonged to Israel; so it says that the men of Gath who were born in the land, that is, the Philistines, were the ones who killed them. But in my opinion, “the ones born in the land” refers to the Ephraimites. Because among the descendants of Ephraim the text mentions the ones born in Egypt—that is, his sons and grandsons, as it says, “Joseph lived to see children of the third generation of Ephraim” (Genesis 50:23)—it says that the descendants of Ephraim “born in the land”—whom he produced “in the land”—went down to the land of Gath to take their cattle, and the men of Gath killed them. Now this took place in the wilderness. It could not have taken place in the land of Israel, because the text says “And Ephraim their father mourned many days” (v. 22)—and Ephraim did not enter the land! For the only ones who left Egypt at twenty years of age or more who entered were Joshua and Caleb (Numbers 14:29–30). Therefore, I say that this event took place in the wilderness or in the land of Gilead, with Ephraim still alive. For that is possible, because Machir son of Manasseh was among those who conquered the land of Gilead (Joshua 17:1), and the children of Machir son of Manasseh were, after all, “born upon Joseph’s knees” (Genesis 50:23). What proves this interpretation is that you find that the Ephraimites’ numbers when they went out of Egypt, when they were counted in the wilderness of Sinai in the second year, totaled forty thousand five hundred (Numbers 1:33), whereas when they were counted upon entering the land, at the fords of Moab, they totaled only thirty-two thousand five hundred (Numbers 26:37). So those eight thousand whom they lost in the wilderness are the ones whom the Gathites killed. But our Sages, of blessed memory, explain midrashically (b. Sanhedrin 92b) that this was before the exodus from Egypt: having calculated the end erroneously, they left before their time, and this is what happened to them.