But among these there was not a man of them who were numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest, who numbered the Children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. For Hashem had said of them, "They shall surely die in the wilderness." There was not left a man of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. (26:64-65)
The census here is summed up by noting that all the people counted were new – there was no-one remaining from the previous count. This point is repeated in these two verses: שיִ א הָ יָה־אֹל, there was not a man, and שיִא םֶהֵמ רַתֹונ־אֹלְו, and there was not left a man. Surprisingly, the Targum translates the word שיִא, man, differently in these two verses. The first he translates as אָל גְבַר הָ וֲה, the second שָנֱא ןֹוהְ נִמ רַאְּתְשִא אָלְו.
Now it seems clear that while both words mean “man”, רבג generally indicates specifically a male, while שנא is a more inclusive term, often used to indicate mankind (e.g, אָׁ שָנֲא יֵנְ ב, Daniel 2:38). It could alternatively be translated as “being” or “person” (see Jastrow). Thus, it seems that Onkelos’s intent was to point out that the second verse is teaching something more than the first. V. 64 is saying that no man from the first count was included in the second count – remember that the count only included men, from the ages of twenty to sixty. The second verse is more expansive – it says that not a person survived from that generation, including women and men who were not counted.
However, Rashi here (v. 64) comments that the gezeirah on the meraglim did not apply to women, who did not take part in that sin – they loved the Land, as seen in the story of Tzelafchad’s daughters which immediately follows this section. This implies that not all the women died, and that Rashi disagrees with the implications of the above reading of Onkelos.
Rabbi Shaul b. Yosef of Vilna wrote one of the two haskamos on the Gaon’s pirush to Safra D’tzniusa. In it, draws on the Midrash’s depiction of םיקלא שיא to describe the Vilna Gaon – his lower half was ish, his upper half, Elokim (D.R. 11:2). He writes: “The word שיא can connote both the body and the soul. Therefore, the Targum sometime renders it שנא and sometimes רבג. שנא refers to the soul aspect of a person, and, indeed, Onkelos frequently translates שפנ as שנא (e.g. Vayikra 2:1).” Based on this principle he addresses the inconsistency in our Targum: at first glance the second verse, םֶהֵמ רַתֹונ־אֹלְ שיִא, seems extra, seeing as the first verse states הָ יָה־אֹל שיִא. Onkelos understood that they are discussing two different groups of people. The first verse refers to the Dor Hamidbar; although they died due to the sin of the meraglim, Onkelos follows the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer, his teacher, that they retained a portion in Olam Haba, thus, he translates it as ָלא ֲהָוה גְַבר – their bodies perished, but their souls did not. The second verse refers specifically to the meraglim, of whom only Yehoshua and Calev survived. About them, Onkelos writes אָלְו שָנֱא ןֹוהְ נִמ רַאְ תְשִא, not even their souls remained intact, as they have no share in Olam Haba.
