“through all the miracles I performed in its midst?” (Bemidbar 14,11)
Significantly, G’d did not say: “in your midst,” plural, but “in its midst, singular?” According to the plain meaning of the text the reference is to the time when all the people were united, of one mind, in their devotion to the L-rd.
A Midrashic approach to this wording based on Bamidbar Rabbah Shelach 16,15: the word “in its midst,” means that the people did not even have to turn around in order to witness the miracles G’d was performing. The meaning of the words קרב וכרעים is used in the Talmud Yuma 75 as an allusion to the manna being food which was totally absorbed by the bodies of the people eating it, there being no excrement, waste material from it. If this is true, the question is why the Torah legislated in Deut. 23,14 that the soldiers should be equipped with tools to bury their excrement in the earth in order to maintain the holy nature of a Jewish encampment even during war? What excrement did the soldiers have to bury, seeing they ate manna? Answer: they had to bury the excrement of the food they had purchased from the surrounding nations and had eaten it.
Another view expressed on this subject is that even that food was absorbed totally together with the manna. However, when the Israelites had allowed themselves to become lax in their performance of the commandments the manna also did not dissolve completely. G’d said to them: “I have taken the trouble to enable you to stand in front of Me just like the ministering angels (who do not excrete) and now you have forced Me to legislate to bury your excrement three miles away from your camp!” This is the meaning of the words in Numbers 33,49: “they camped by the river Jordan as far as Beyt Hayeshimot until the plains of Shittim, the plains of Moab.” [Although the commandment to take a shovel in addition “to your weapons” was written in connection with soldiers going out in a war of aggression, the questioner implies that the rule to bury excrement outside the Jewish camp applied to all the Israelites also in times of peace. Ed.] Rabbi bar Chana said that he had personally seen the site where the Israelites had encamped near Beit Hayeshimot and it was three miles distant from the banks of the Jordan.
”a day for a year, a day for a year.” (Bemidbar 14:34)
We would have expected the Torah to write the opposite, i.e. “a year for a day,” i.e. that the punishment for each day the spies had spent traveling the land and planning to slander it would be that the people would have to spend an additional year in the desert. Theirs would be nomads’ tents which flutter in the wind, an existence daily reminding them of their insecurity on earth. Not only that, but according to the context of the story mention of the punishment should have preceded mention of the sin. If the Torah wrote the verse in the manner it did it was to teach us something about G’d’s mercy which is manifest even while He metes out punishment.
When the Torah chose the wording: “a day for a year,” we must consider the fact that seeing the land of Israel has been described as an area of 400 by 400 miles, approximately, this is an area which the spies could not possibly have covered in the space of a mere forty days. However, seeing G’d had known in advance that He would have to decree the punishment mentioned, He telescoped the distance under their feet so that they could cover it in such a short period of time. This is why G’d said: “a day for every year,” i.e. just like a father who is forced to inflict a blow on his son. He does not inflict a cruel blow but is as considerate as possible. The meaning of the verse therefore is: “here I have reduced the extent of your punishment as much as is possible by shortening the time you (the spies) needed to traverse the land so that it took only forty days.
“I the L-rd have spoken, etc.” (Bemidbar 14,37)
This expression is equivalent to the rendering of an irrevocable decree; seeing that it is accompanied by an oath it could not be revoked. Although it could not be revoked, it's application could be delayed. Moses’ prayer accomplished that execution of the decree was spread over almost forty years.
