13:21 So they went up and investigated the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, 1 at the entrance of Hamath. 2
15:32 When the Israelites were 3 in the wilderness they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 4
1 sn Zin is on the southern edge of the land, but Rehob is far north, near Mount Hermon. The spies covered all the land.
2 tn The idiom uses the infinitive construct: “to enter Hamath,” meaning, “on the way that people go to Hamath.”
3 tn The preterite of the verb “to be” is here subordinated to the next, parallel verb form, to form a temporal clause.
4 sn For this brief passage, see A. Phillips, “The Case of the Woodgatherer Reconsidered,” VT 19 (1969): 125-28; J. Weingreen, “The Case of the Woodgatherer (Numbers XV 32-36),” VT 16 (1966): 361-64; and B. J. Bamberger, “Revelations of Torah after Sinai,” HUCA 16 (1941): 97-113. Weingreen argues that there is something of the Rabbinic method of setting a fence around the Law here; in other words, if this sin were not punished, the Law would have been violated in greater ways. Gathering of wood, although seemingly harmless, is done with intent to kindle fire, and so reveals a culpable intent.