The sending of the spies took place at Moshe's initiative and direction, as we explained above. What, then, was Moshe thinking? How did he expect events to unfold?
Had the spies conducted themselves in accordance with the laws governing agents and reported only to Moshe and his Sanhedrin, the seventy elders appointed in parashas Behaaloscha (Bamidbar 11), the outcome would likely have been entirely different. Had they gone to the Beis Din (rabbinical court of law), their testimony would have been subject to proper examination and cross-examination. The spies would have been required to testify as witnesses, and their words of lashon hara could have been rejected or invalidated. And even if not, the testimony of Yehoshua and Kalev would have contradicted that of the spies, because in the laws of testimony, two witnesses carry the same weight as one hundred witnesses, and opposing testimonies can neutralize one another. The result? The scheme of the spies would have been thwarted and nullified. In such a scenario, Bnei Yisrael would have entered Eretz Yisrael in the second year after the Exodus of Egypt, together with Moshe Rabbeinu, without forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
