11 INGREDIENTS OF THE KETORES
שמות פרק ל , לד קַח -לְׁךָ סַמִּים נָטָף וּשְׁחֵּלֶת וְׁחֶלְׁבְׁנָה סַמִּים וּלְׁבֹנָה זַכָה בַד בְׁבַד יִּהְׁיֶה:
מסכת כריתות דף ו/ב א"ר יוחנן י"א סממנין נאמרו לו למשה בסיני אמר רב הונא מאי קראה (שמות ל') קח לך סמים תרי נטף ושחלת וחלבנה הא חמשה וסמים אחריני חמשה הא עשרה ולבונה זכה חד הא חד סרי
The word סמים (spices) is a general term in the plural. The minimum of a plural form is two items. The verse has the word סמים a second time which the Gemara indicates means a repeat of the previous count of five. Why doesn’t the word indicate another set of two?
The commentators explain that if the Torah wished to have each word indicates two, then the Torah would have placed the words together. Rabbi Epstein explains that repeating the same word might not be the proper language since the letters might be “swallowed” during the repetition of the words. Therefore, he proposes that if the Torah wanted each word to indicate two, then, the Torah would have placed one such word at the beginning of the verse and the other one at the end of the verse. Since the second one was placed in the middle of the list of specific spices, this indicated that this time the word did not mean a minimum of two, but the repeat of the total of the previous count.
