Parshat Chukat5 min read

Moses Sent Peace and Israel Was the Sender

Moses asked Edom for a highway and paid for water he did not need. Against Sihon the same peace became war, and Moses equaled all Israel.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. He Did Not Drop Their Burden
  2. Water for Money on the King's Highway
  3. Moses Is Israel and Israel Is Moses
  4. Gathered for the Fall
  5. Peace First, Then the Road

From Kadesh, Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom with a sentence that still surprises. Thus says your brother Israel (Numbers 20:14). Brother. After Meribah. After the rock. After a punishment that would keep Moses himself from the land he had spent his strength to reach.

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He Did Not Drop Their Burden

Ordinary men drop a partner who has cost them money, blood, or rank. Moses had been struck on Israel's account at the Waters of Meribah, and the psalm still remembers that it went ill with him because of them (Psalms 106:32). He did not unload the people like a bad debt. He kept speaking as their brother and as their head. The messengers went out under his seal carrying their trouble as a shared promissory note written on every face in the camp.

You know all the trouble that has befallen us. Israel said to Edom, When God told Abraham his seed would be alien and oppressed in a land not theirs (Genesis 15:13), it was we who paid that note in brick and lash while you walked free on your hills. Two brothers, one grandfather's debt. One paid in full. Now the payer asks a favor of passage. Do not refuse the one who already settled what belonged to both.

The midrash presses the custom of the world. A man who loses money through a partner's hand turns his face away. Moses turned his face toward Edom with Israel's name still in his mouth.

Water for Money on the King's Highway

Please let us pass through your land. We will not turn into field or vineyard. We will not drink from a well (Numbers 20:17). They had a well that traveled with them from rock to camp. They ate manna that required no market. Still Moses ordered payment in coin. A guest who owns food should buy from the local shop so the host profits and no one sneers at freeloaders. God had said, Food shall you procure from them with money, and you shall eat (Deuteronomy 2:6). Open your purses on the road. Let no one say the former slaves arrived empty and hungry. They went free with great wealth (Genesis 15:14). Show the wealth. Spend what is not scarcity.

We shall go along the king's highway without turning right or left. That clause hurt most in the midrash's ear. Around them, in other borders, plunder was permitted by the rules of war. Inside Edom's line they would walk a straight path of restraint, cattle held in, hands off the vines.

Edom refused. The brotherhood cracked on a closed gate and a drawn sword at the border.

Moses Is Israel and Israel Is Moses

Later the Torah says Israel sent messengers to Sihon (Numbers 21:21). Elsewhere Moses says in his own voice, I sent messengers from the Desert of Kedemoth with words of peace (Deuteronomy 2:26). The verses need each other the way two halves of a seal need each other. Moses is Israel and Israel is Moses. The head of a generation equals the whole generation when the letter is sealed. When the leader speaks peace, the nation speaks. When the nation marches, the leader's will moves in every pair of feet and every spear.

To Sihon the same offer arrived with the same careful coins. Sell us food for money. Water for money, though water is usually free to the traveler. We will keep the king's highway until we cross your land and reach the Jordan. Sihon sat as guard for the kings of Canaan, taking their taxes and confirming their crowns. Let us pass to fight them, Israel said. He answered by gathering every warrior into one fist as if he were the wall of the whole land.

A man who guards a vineyard does not smile when the passerby asks to pick grapes. Sihon was paid to keep Israel out. He did his job until heaven rewrote the job.

Gathered for the Fall

If Heshbon had been full of mosquitoes alone, the midrash jokes with a hard smile, no mortal could have taken it. If Sihon had fought from a valley, no mortal could have overpowered him. A warrior in a fortress is worse still. God gathered his troops into one place so Israel would not wear out town by town, door by door, well by well. See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you (Deuteronomy 2:31). The refusal of peace became the trap that delivered the land without a siege of years.

They met his warriors in the field. Then they returned for the rest without the long exhaustion of scattered forts. The verse that says Sihon gathered all his people becomes, in this reading, a kindness to Israel dressed as enemy strategy.

Peace First, Then the Road

Moses did not open with the sword against brother or against Amorite. He opened with brother, debt, and coin. Edom slammed the gate. Sihon marched out under his own banner into the open. The sender remained both man and people, both Moses and Israel, in every letter that left the camp.

On the far side of those embassies, the camp learned that a generation's head carries every name in the census when he seals a message with peace. The highway they never received from Edom they cut through Sihon. The messengers of peace had done their work even when peace failed and the road had to be taken by another means.

Brother was the first word. The last word on that road was a land beginning to open under their feet.

MosesEdomSihonPeaceWildernessMessengers
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From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 12Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

(Numb. 20:14:) “Then Moses sent messengers [from Kadesh unto the king of Edom], ‘Thus says your brother Israel….’” This text is related (to Ps. 15:3), “nor takes up a reproach against his relative.” By universal custom, when a person is engaged in business with his friend who causes a loss, he separates himself from him and does not want to see him. But although Moses was punished because of Israel, as stated (in Ps. 106:32), “And they provoked wrath at the Waters of Meribah and it went ill with Moses on their account,” he did not unload their burden from himself. Instead (according to Numb. 20:14), “Then Moses sent messengers.”

(Numb. 20:14, cont.) “You know all the trouble that has befallen us.” They said to him, “You know when the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Abraham (in Gen. 15:13), ‘know full well that your seed shall be alien [in a land not theirs where they shall serve them and be oppressed by them],’ it was us who have been enslaved, while you are free.” (Numb. 20:15:) “How our forefathers went down to Egypt [...].” This whole subject is comparable to two brothers against whose grandfather a promissory note appeared. One of them arose and paid it. One day he started to ask a favor from his brother, and he said to him, “You know that debt was incumbent on both of us, but it was I who paid it. Do not refuse any of my favor that I am asking.” (Numb. 20:15:) “How our forefathers went down to Egypt.” What is the relevance of [mentioning] the forefathers here, as stated (in Numb 20:15, cont.), “the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our forefathers.” [It is] to teach you that all the time that Israel is in distress, [the forefathers] are also in distress. (Numb. 20:17:) “Please let us pass through your land; [we will not pass through field or vineyard,] nor shall we drink water from a well.” Should it not have said, "water from cisterns?" [By this use of the singular, “a well”], the Torah has taught you proper conduct, [i.e.,] that though one has at hand his necessities, when he who goes to a land which is not his own, he should not eat from what he has on hand. Rather he should put aside what he has, and buy from the shopkeeper in order to benefit him. So also Moses said to [Edom], “[We have] a well with us, and we eat our own manna; [but] do not say that we are a bother to you. You will make a profit for yourselves.” So also did the Holy One, blessed be He, say to Moses (in Deut. 2:6), “Food shall you procure from them with money, and you shall eat.” And Moses said to Israel, “Open your money to them. So that they do not say, ‘They were slaves and indigents,’ show them your wealth.” They will [then] know, so that they would not say, “You lost by your subjugation.” As the Holy One, blessed be He, already said (in Gen. 15:14), “and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.” And they shall know that you are not lacking anything and that it is not from [that which is] yours that you are [spending], as stated (in Deut. 2:7), “For the Lord has blessed you in all the efforts of your hand...” (Numb. 20:17, cont.) “We shall go along the king's highway,” since we restrain our cattle. (Numb. 20:17, cont.) “Without turning right or left.” This was the most difficult [stipulation] of them all, for they said, “In all [the lands] around us we have permission to plunder and kill, but within your border [we shall walk the king's highway] without turning right or left [until we have passed through your territory].”

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Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 23Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

(Numb. 21:21:) “Then Israel sent messengers.” All the words of Torah are necessary to each other, for what one covers over the other opens up. It is stated here (in Numb. 21:21), “Then Israel sent messengers,” while in another place [Scripture] ascribes the sending to Moses. [Thus] it is stated (in Deut. 2:26), “Then I sent messengers from the Desert of Kedemoth [unto King Sihon of Heshbon with words of peace].” In another place [it is stated (in Numb. 20:14)], “Moses sent from Kadesh messengers to the king of Edom.” These verses require one another, as Moses is Israel and Israel is Moses. [This comes] to teach you that the head of a generation is surely equivalent to the whole generation. (Numb. 20:17:) “Please let us pass through your land.” As he had sent to inform the king of Edom that he would do no damage, so did he send to this one. (Deut. 2:28), “You shall sell me food for money, and water with money….” It is customary for water to be given gratis, but I am giving payment for it. (Numb. 21:22) “We will go by the king's highway [until we have passed through your territory].” But in another place it is written (in Deut. 2:29), “until I have crossed the Jordan.” The matter is comparable to one guarding a vine or fig tree. When someone comes and says, “Let me pass through here, so that I may gather grapes from the vineyard,” he says to him, “It is only because of you that I am sitting on guard, and you would come to gather [the grapes]?” So it was with Sihon. He received wages from all the kings of Canaan; and they would bring taxes up to him, for he would crown them. He and Og were considered the equivalent of them all, since it is stated (in Ps. 136:19-20), “Sihon, king of the Amorites…; And Og, king of Bashan.” Israel said to [Sihon], “Let us pass through your land to conquer the kings.” He said to them, “I am sitting here to guard them from you.” (Numb. 21:23:) “So Sihon did not allow Israel to cross on his territory; instead Sihon gathered all his people together and went out against Israel.” The Holy One, blessed be He, only did this to deliver him into their hand without trouble. As it is written (in Numb. 21:34 = Deut. 3:2), “to Sihon, king of the Amorites who dwelt in Heshbon (i.e., with calculation).” If Heshbon had been full of mosquitos, no mortal could have conquered it; and if Sihon had been in a valley, no mortal could have overpowered him. And it goes without saying [that it could not be conquered], since he was a warrior and dwelt in a fortified city. [Ergo,] (in Numb. 21:34 = Deut. 3:2), “Sihon, king of the Amorites who dwelt in Heshbon.” If he and his troops had dwelt [scattered about] in his towns, Israel would have worn themselves out to prevail against him and conquer each and every town. Instead the Holy One, blessed be He, gathered them together so as to deliver them into their hand without trouble. And so it said (in Deut. 2:31), “See I have begun to give Sihon [and his land] over to you.” They killed all his warriors who had come out against them. Then they returned for the women and infants without exertion. It is therefore written (in Numb. 21:23), “instead Sihon gathered all his people together.”

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