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Commentary

Bible Commentary on Biblical Text

Two Doubles in Shelach

Double Count In Shelach

I hope you are having an exceedingly good day today!

This is our second installment of a series of posts about the double count Hebrew words. In this installment we are doing a basic word study using both kosher and non-kosher dictionary sources.

Parsha Shelach contains two double counts. One deals with Joshua and Caleb’s report of the land. The other deals with HaShem dealing with the bad report from the other spies.

Let’s look at them now…

Three Doubles in Beha’aloscha

Double Count in Bechaaloscha

No this is not tennis; its Hebrew. Hebrew is like no other language. Deeper studies are very nuanced and sometimes the Rabbis examine the letters, their shapes, the space they occupy and even the space they don’t occupy. It creates some very interesting ideas.

Once while studying for this website I was looking at Hebrew stats — word counts and similar stuff.  I noted a stat called “double count”. I was clueless; so I asked around about this stat and this is what was told to me.

The 5 Mitzvot in Parsha Beha’alotcha

Mitzvot in Parsha Behaalotcha

Rambam and others have created lists of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) of the Torah. The mitzvot are scattered throughout the Torah. There are five of them in parsha Beha’alotcha.

  • Three of them are positive and two are negative
  • Four of them are given in direct correlation of the second Pesach offering
  • The fifth one is repeated in two verses

This is another one of those things I really wanted to have a compiled list. I will begin here because, “why not?” I will include the Scripture, English translation,  whither it’s positive or negative, the number it is on the list and other small details I can quickly find about them.

Before we jump into the list, I must explain …

Numbers (B’midbar) 25:11 Phinehas (Pinchas), the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.

Notes from Rabbi Avila’s teaching on July 10-11, 2015 / Tamuz 23-24, 5775. Expanded upon as I was recording it here.

This verse contains the word “jealousy” twice. Why?