The Punishment of the Spies

האנשים אשר שלח משהו, And the men whom Moses had dispatched, etc. (Bemidbar 14,36)

This entire verse seems superfluous. We already know that Moses had dispatched the spies and what the spies had done. Perhaps this verse wanted to inform us that although under normal circumstances G'd extends His patience also to sinners -as we explained on verse 18- in this instance G'd punished these men immediately. The Torah repeats the nature of their sin in order to explain why they did not deserve G'd's patience.

There are five different circumstances which cause G'd to exact retribution without extending patience towards the sinner:

1. The sinner in question is a person of exceptional stature. When such a person rebels against G'd, He does not want to forgive him. After all, such a person should have known better and cannot expect to be judged by the same standards as an average person who commits a sin.
2. A person who has moved in a Torah-observant society and has abandoned this society to pursue a sinful conduct.
3. If someone experiences a strong urge not to commit a certain sin and he makes every effort to resist that urge and sins regardless of his primordial urge not to sin. The Talmud Menachot 44 illustrates this with the example of someone deliberately ignoring the warning by his ציציות not to go through with his intention to sleep with a certain harlot.
4. If the person involved not only sinned but caused others to sin.
5. If the nature of the sin is greater than normal; the Talmud in Sanhedrin 103 describes Amon the son of King Menashe as committing such a sin when he slept with his mother against her will. When his mother tried to dissuade him claiming he could not possibly derive any gratification from entering an area of her body which he had come out of at birth and which was unclean, he countered that his objective was not gratification but causing G'd to be angry.

In our situation the Torah informed us that G'd did not extend His customary patience to the ten spies in question as they had been guilty of all the five factors we just enumerated.

1. The Torah described the spies as והאנשים, to remind us that these men used to be looked up to as models of Torah-observance. Bamidbar Rabbah on our verse states that the term אנשים throughout Scripture means that such people were known for their exemplary conduct.
2. They were described as leaders of thousands, i.e. people looked up to them. They were dispatched by a society, i.e., Moses and the children of Israel, all of whom were known to be a healthy Torah-observant environment.
3. Although they were exposed to great dangers in their mission as spies, they had themselves acknowledged that they only returned safely because they had experienced G'd's personal protection. In spite of this they had committed such an ugly sin.
4. The Torah tells us that they not only sinned themselves but caused the whole community to sin, i.e. וילינו עליו את כל העדה, "They caused the whole congregation to murmur against G'd."
5. By slandering the nature of ארץ ישראל they angered G'd although they could not possibly derive any gratification from their sin. It is hardly surprising then that G'd did not extend His patience to such men.