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1 [1] **And these are the names of the tribes** The arrangement of the portions they divide among themselves; the place of each one.
[2] **From the northern end** Dan will receive the northern border from Hazer-enan, which is at the eastern corner, until the border of Damascus (in the northwestern corner).
[3] **and he shall have the eastern side to the sea** i.e., from the eastern side until the sea, Dan [shall have] one portion. Now, he delineated the length but not the width. In the Baraitha of Sifrei in the portion of Ha’azinu (Deut. 32:12), [it says]: “What is the reason for stating, ‘Judah: one portion; Dan: one portion; Asher: one portion?’ It is to teach us that Israel are destined to receive the length, from east to west, measuring 25,000 rods in width, which equal 75 mil.” Now from where did they learn this measurement? From the offering, which is like one of these portions, as is explained above (45:1,6). I found that the following is written: “the length is like one of the portions, and it has a width of 25,000 rods, and a length, from the western side to the eastern side, of twenty-five thousand rods.” [Now, 15, 000 rods] equal 150,000 cubits, for a rod equals six cubits, and every 2,000 cubits equals one mil as we find in Tractate Yoma (67a) regarding the ten sukkot [booths] from Jerusalem to the precipice- behold 150,000 cubits amount to 75 mils. This is what Rabbi Eliezer [Hakalir] established in the liturgical poem, entitled “When I take an appointed time” (the last poem for the second day of Succoth): “At the time of the division of her lands, like a row of a vineyard abroad, in the length from the eastern side to its ends, until the ocean are its commandments, with a width of seventy-five mils are its limits.” (Some editions read: Seventy-five mils to thirteen strips, between the strips of the tribes and the strips of the Sanctuary will amount to 975 mils. Now, according to the figure of 400 parasangs by 400 parasangs for the land of Israel, the mils amount to 1600 [not 975] according to the figuring of the Kalir, who said that four mils equal a parasang. Perhaps the mils of the computation by strips are larger, four of them not fitting into a parasang, and he therefore came to count two and a half mils to a parasang, by which 400 parasangs will equal 1,000 mils. However, the computation of the mils of a strip equal only 975 mils, still leaving the total 25 mils short. The sum of the liturgical poet’s mils of strips does not equal the sum of four hundred parasangs. And whence did Rabbi Eliezer learn that the length of the strips extended to the ocean, which is at the end of the world, whereas Scripture testifies that the western border is [only] until the Great Sea [the Mediterranean], which is quite a distance inland from the ocean?)
Version: The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg
Source: https://www.nli.org.il/en/items/NNL_ALEPH990019164710205171/NLI
License: CC-BY