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8 โ[1] ** ืืจืืคื ืืื ืืืฉื ืืื, "And five of you will put one hundred of them to flight, etc."** The obvious difficulty in our verse is that the enemies will fall before the pursuing Jewish army. This promise included such assurances as that even ten thousand enemy soldiers would fall before as few as two Jewish soldiers. Why did the Torah now limit the blessing contained in the previous verse?
โ[2] I believe the verses have to be explained in accordance with what we learned in *Sotah* 11 that G'd always quantifies a blessing more generously than He quantifies a curse. [We have examples in Deut. 5,9-10 where G'd promises to remember sins for up to 4 generations whereas He will remember good deeds for up to two thousand generations. Ed.] Tossaphot query the fact that the Talmud phrases the principle as one that applies invariably, i.e. ืืขืืื. They refer to Deut. 32,30 where the Torah asks rhetorically: "How was it that one (enemy soldier) could pursue a thousand Israelites and two could put ten thousand to flight?" Surely this is an example of the curse having been quantified as proportionately far more powerful than the blessing in our portion when you compare the numbers in both instances? They answer that in Deuteronomy 32 the Torah speaks only of pursuit and not killing and that this is is hardly a curse. In our portion the pursuit is described as resulting in our enemies dying. I find this an inadequate response to the question. There is a discussion in *Moed Katan* 16 about the exploits of David's heroes one of whom is described as having killed 800 of the enemy with a single arrow. David complained that the assurance that he could kill a thousand of the enemy with one stroke had not been fulfilled. A heavenly voice told him that the reason that G'd's promise had not been fulfilled fully was due to his own involvement with Uriah. It is clear from the Talmud in *Moed Katan* that David understood the promise in our verse to refer not merely to putting the enemy to flight but to killing him. If not, why did he complain about something G'd had never promised?
โ[3] We must assume therefore that both verse 7 and verse 8 speak of enemies dying. The way to answer the query of Tossaphot is best answered by reference to *Torat Kohanim* who understand the word ืืื in verse 8 as a reference to the physically weakest of the Israelites. The wording in *Torat Kohanim* is: "from the weakest amongst you and not from the strongest amongst you." Why did *Torat Kohanim* add the words "and not from the strongest amongst you?" The obvious intention of *Torat Kohanim* was to emphasise that the words "from the weakest" should not be interpreted as "**even** from amongst the weakest amongst you, but should be understood as "the weakest amongst you excluding the strongest." In light of this it is not surprising that in this verse the Torah only speaks of a blessing extended to the physically weak members of the Israelites who are able to mount a pursuit in a ratio of five against a hundred. Amongst the Gentile nations the physically weak specimen do not take part in warfare at all. When the Torah asked rhetorically in Deuteronomy how it is that suddenly one Gentile is able to pursue 1000 Israelites the reference is to the physically strongest Gentiles amongst them. The Torah did not have to make these distinctions amongst the Israelites as we know that the curse is always quantified as proportionately weaker than the corresponding blessing.
โ[4] From all the above it emerges that G'd actually ordered two separate blessings to be effective instead of limiting the blessing of verse 7 in verse 8. First of all the Torah describes the valour of the individual Israelites during generations when the people observe G'd's statutes. Concerning these men of heroic proportions the Torah says that they will pursue their enemies and the enemies will fall before them. In the event you are interested how many enemies a single Israelite can pursue, you only have to refer to the verse in Deuteronomy which describes the exploits of your enemies. Since you are aware that G'd quantifies a blessing more generously than a curse you can draw your own conclusions. The Talmud in *Sotah* 11 only illustrated how David interpreted the blessing. He based himself on the statement that anyone who studied Torah for a single day is considered as if he had done so for a whole year. This statement is proven from the punishment G'd meted out to the people of Israel who had accepted the majority report of the spies. In Numbers 14,34 the Torah condemns the Israelites to wandering in the desert for one year in exchange for every day the spies had toured the land of Canaan and had returned with a devastating conclusion. If G'd's quantification of the curse was 365 to one, then His quantification of a blessing could not possibly be of a lesser ratio. It is not surprising therefore to hear David complain that even the greatest of his warriors had not been able to destroy 1000 of the enemy with a single blow.
โ[5] You will find an interesting remark in Chronicles I 12,15. "These are the leaders (in exploits) of the army of the tribe of Gad (in the time of David) the weakest disposed of 100 of the enemy, the strongest disposed of 1.000. This is sort of proof of what the Torah said here that the weak pursue and kill in a ratio of 5 to 100, and 100 pursue 10.000 must refer to the weaker specimen amongst the Israelites. When the Book of Chronicles speaks of "one to a hundred and one to a thousand respectively, the reason the comparison made by the author of the Book of Chronicles is with "one" i.e. a single warrior, is because these are examples of particularly powerful individuals, not the run of the mill. All of this leads us to the conclusion that verse 7 which does not impose a limit on how many warriors will pursue how many enemies speaks of the Israelites whose physique is of heroic dimensions. The Torah deliberately does not describe their feats in terms of numbers as their prowess is unlimited in principle. For all we know one such Israelite could pursue a half million of the enemy; under no circumstances would he pursue fewer than a thousand as in the reverse situation in the Book of Deuteronomy. Inasmuch as different periods in history produced Israelites of different calibre the Torah did not go into specifics.
โ[6] **ืื ืคืื ืืืืืืื ืืืจื. "and your enemies will fall by the sword."** Why did the Torah repeat this promise both in verse 7 and in verse 8? *Torat Kohanim* explain that the meaning is that the enemies will fall by each other's sword. We may add that the Torah wanted to distinguish between a pursuit by five men of a hundred men of the enemy respectively, and the pursuit by a hundred men of ten thousand. If Israel can dispose of one thousand pursuers, the defeat of the enemies will assume proportions that are greater than a mere arithmetical progression. The word ืืืจื refers to the effectiveness of the avenging sword.
Version: Or Hachayim, trans. Eliyahu Munk
Source: http://www.urimpublications.com/or-hachayim-commentary-on-the-torah-5-vols.html
License: CC-BY