כי אתם באים אל ארץ כנען, “for when you come to the land of Canaan, etc.” The grammatical construction of the letter ה in front of the word ארץ is similar to Chronicles II 15,8.

זאת הארץ אשר תפול לכם בנחלה, ארץ כנען לגבולותיה; “this is the land which will fall to you as an inheritance; the land of Canaan according to its boundaries.” The reason that the Torah refers to the distribution of the land as נפילה, something that “falls,” is that the lots by means of which the shares were allocated “dropped, fell,” on the ground.

A Midrashic approach based on Tanchuma Massey 4: The word תפול teaches that G’d first deposed the respective celestial representatives of these Canaanite nations; He made fall from heaven these erstwhile celestial representatives and bound them, demonstrating to Moses that they had lost their power.

והיה לכם פאת נגב ממדבר צן על ידי אדום, “Your southernmost point shall be from the edge of the Wilderness of Tzin, at the side of Edom.” The word על יד means the same as אצל, “next to.” We also find this expression in Numbers 13,9. The purpose of this whole list is to tell the Israelites the part of the country they were obligated to conquer. Rashi comments that this is extremely important as there are many commandments in the Torah which are applicable only within the boundaries delineated by the Torah in this chapter. It was critical therefore to know these details precisely.

נחלה מצרים, “to the stream of Egypt.” This means: “to the river dividing Egypt from Palestine,” and not to the river Nile.

הים הגדול, “the Mediterranean,” known in the author’s time as “the Spanish Sea.” וגבול¸”and the western boundary.” The sea itself is the boundary. (Ibn Ezra).

והתאויתם, the word is the same as והתויתם, “draw a line for yourselves for” (תו). Compare Ezekiel 9,4 “draw a line for yourself.” The southern boundary of the land of Israel consists of three countries: a small section of Egypt, the whole land of Edom, the whole land of Moav.” Rashi says so explicitly. [I presume that the reason the author quotes Rashi on this as his authority is that the definition “south” rather than “east” for the land of Moav, sounds peculiar, at least. Ed.]

ומחה על כתף ים כנרת, the word is similar to ימחאו כף, “clapping with one’s hands,” (Psalms 98,8) [i.e. an expression of closeness of two objects, touching].

שני המטות וחצי המטה לקחו נחלתם מעבר לירדן קדמה מזרחה, “and the two and a half tribes took their inheritance on the far side of the river Jordan in a south-easterly direction.” This whole detail is repeated here to describe the exact area of their inheritance.

אלה שמות האנשים אשר ינחלו לכם את הארץ, “these are the names of the men who will take possession of the land for you (on your behalf)”. We have translated this in accordance with Rashi, i.e. that each tribal head acted as the trustee of his tribe. He in turn would distribute the parcel according to the number of families and the number of male members in his tribe. He would personally select these parcels and whatever he did was considered as if their legal representative had done it. The reason that the Torah names Eleazar the High Priest first, although he did not share out anything, is that Joshua was subject to his authority as he could not initiate a war without first obtaining Eleazar’s approval. The Torah here mentions ten of the tribes and their respective princes, omitting the tribes of Reuven and Gad as these tribes had already taken possession of their inheritance. It starts the list of the tribal heads with Yehudah as Yehudah‘s lot was determined first.

Why did the Torah repeat the word נשיא when speaking of the prince of the tribe of Gad, Buki ben Yagli and the princes of the tribes listed after him? Perhaps the reason is that Calev was so well known that there was no need to add his title. He had already been described by that title when the Torah described all the twelve spies in Numbers 13,2 as נשיא. Seeing that the prince of the tribe of Shimon, Zimri, was also well known in the negative sense of the word, a name may not have been mentioned as no replacement had yet been appointed to take the place of the slain Zimri. The title “prince” may have been withheld from the tribe of Binyamin in view of later developments involving the tribe in a civil war as a result of that tribe’s unwillingness to hand over a criminal (Judges, chapter 20,13). We find in Tanchuma Behaalotcha 12 that Elydad ben Kisslon, here mentioned as the prince of Binyamin was identical with Eldad, the colleague of Meidad, both of whom had prophesied as reported in Numbers 11,26. Seeing the man was already known as a prophet there was no need to add another (inferior) title to his name.