שאו את ראש. לסדרם שיכנסו לארץ מיד איש על דגלו בלתי מלחמה אלא שיפנו האומות מפניהם כמו שעשו קצתם כמו שהעיד באמרו כעזובת החורש והאמיר אשר עזבו מפני בני ישראל אולי היו משפחות מהגרגשי שעליו אמרו ז"ל שעמד ופנה מאליו ובקלקול המרגלים הוסיפו השבע אומות להרע מ' שנה והוצרך להחרימם. שאו את ראש, to organise them so that they could proceed to the land of Israel immediately, without delay, each one of them knowing to which unit (flag) he belonged. At that point, no war of conquest had even been envisaged, the assumption having been that G’d would remove the inhabitants of the land of Canaan so that no face-to-face encounter would even be necessary. Evidence from Isaiah 17,9 suggests that in fact, at least partially, this even occurred after the 40 years in the desert. The prophet there reports that once again, as at the time when the Emorite and the Hittite abandoned their cities in the face of the advancing armies of the Israelites, history will repeat itself. [based on the Septuagint. Our author assumes that Isaiah may have referred to the tribe of the Girgashi, quoting Jerusalem Talmud Sh’viit 6,1 Ed.]
At any rate, due to the sin of the spies the seven Canaanites nations survived another 40 years during which they added to their sins so that at the end of that time G’d did not merely exile them but exterminated them.
במספר שמות. כי היה אז כל אחד מאותו הדור נחשב בשמו המורה על צורתו האשיית למעלתם על דרך ואדעך בשם ולא כן קרה לדור באי הארץ ובכן לא נמנו במספר שמות ולא נזכרו זולתי ראשי המשפחות ומספר האישים. ועם זה הודיע שהיתה הכונה שאותם האישים בעצמם יחיו ויירשו הארץ ולא יפקד מהם איש: במספר שמות, at that time, the names of the individuals reflected their specific individuality, in recognition of their individual virtues. [They were not merely named after their fathers or other departed relatives. Ed.] References to names reflecting an individual’s virtues are found in Exodus 33,17 when G’d said to Moses that He would ואדעך בשם, “I have singled you out by name;” the generation which eventually entered the Holy Land were not described as being counted במספר שמות (Numbers 26,2). The Torah there refers only to the people counted being of military age, i.e. above 20.
[The author, true to his concept of the highpoint of Jewish history having been the revelation at Mount Sinai, followed by an ongoing spiritual descent, only briefly and partially reversed on a few occasions, sees this as a further example of the generation which did enter the Holy Land already being inferior to the ones experiencing the revelation, i.e. before the sin of the golden calf and the spies. Ed.] The count of the Israelites at this point assumed that the very people being counted would each enter the Holy Land unless some sin occurred which would interfere with this lofty vision.