עשה לך שתי חצוצרות כסף, “make two silver trumpets for yourself!” The trumpets were to be made of silver instead of gold, in order not to remind Hashem of the golden calf each time they would be used. The sound, otherwise, would be associated with the loud noise the Israelites made when they danced around that idol. (Compare Exodus 32,18)

ונסעו המחנות החונים תימנה, “and the groups encamped to the south shall start marching.” Nachmanides writes that the correct interpretation of our verse is that two blasts of teruah will be trumpeted, one to alert the people of the eastern camp to start moving, followed by another alerting the people in the southern camp to get moving. This is why the Torah wrote:

תרועה יתקעו למסעיהם, after already having written ותקעתם תרועה שנית ונסעו המחנות וגו', “you will trumpet a second teruah and the camps in the south will get moving.” Apparently, there was a third teruah signaling the people encamped on the west side to start moving, and a fourth teruah when the time had come to signal to the fourth group, the ones encamped to the west of the Tabernacle to start moving and to make up the rearguard, as it were. Ibn Ezra writes that there was no trumpet blast after the easternmost camp had began to move. He offers proof for what he writes by pointing out that the Kehatites and with them the priests who did the blowing of the trumpets traveled ahead of the flag (army group) of Ephrayim. [How could they signal to army groups a long way behind them? Ed.] In the Sifrey the opinion is voiced that just as there were trumpets blown for setting the eastern army group and the northern army group in motion, the same may have been done in order to set the two other army groups to get moving. The author does not express a definitive view as to how many such teruot were blown to get the people moving.

וכי תבאו מלחמה בארצכם, “when you go to war against an enemy who has invaded your land, etc.” Onkelos translates this verse as וארי תעלון לאגחא קרבא בארעכון, “when you go out to fight a battle in your land, etc.” If that were correct, then the letter ל as the prefix to the word מלחמה would be absent in our verse and the meaning would be “if you go to war,” or “when you go to war.” This in turn would raise the question why the Torah here uses the word תבא instead of the word תצא that is standard for describing a war fought outside the boundaries of the Land of Israel. (Compare Deut. 20,1; 21,10; 23,10) Possibly, the Torah alludes to the fact that the trumpets were to be made use of in the manner described only in a war which is defined as מלחמת חובה, an obligatory war, not an expansionary war, a מלחמת רשות. All the wars described with the introductory words: כי תצא, are wars which are not obligatory, as proven by the fact that it was possible to dodge the draft and to return home after having answered the original roll call, as elaborated upon in Deut. In our verse the Torah speaks about an obligatory war, and this is why the term יצא is not mentioned here. This is also why the Torah adds the word בארצכם, “in your land,” i.e. you have been invaded. According to Sifrey our verse speaks of wars both within our borders or without, but in either case we are the victims of aggressive neighbors. The letter ו at the end of the word תבאו is therefore quite unnecessary and may be used in lieu of the missing letter ל in front of the word מלחמה.

ויסע דגל מחנה יהודה, “The flag of the camp of the tribe of Yehudah journeyed, etc.” Whereas the Torah writes the word נסע, when reporting the other camps as starting their respective journeys, in reporting that the camp of Yehudah began its journey the Torah wrote ויסע, using the inverted future mode. In terms of the respective numerical value of these two words, it results in Yehudah being shortchanged 40 as the word ויסע=146, whereas the word ונסע amounts to 186. This may be an allusion to the tradition that the bones of Yehudah were constantly in restless motion in their coffin throughout the 40 years that the Israelites wandered in the desert; a delayed retribution for his leading part in the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites.

ועל צבאו, “and in charge of its army, etc.” Nachmanides writes that he did not know why the Torah at this stage mentions the princes in charge of each army group once more. If the Torah meant to tell us that all of these princes were still alive, we already know this from Numbers We have a tradition that from the day of the count reported in that chapter until the beginning of the journey of the Israelites from Mount Sinai not a single Israelite died. Perhaps what the Torah wanted to hint to us is that during the journey the respective prince always marched at the head of his army group and generally performed the functions incumbent upon him, issuing instructions to his tribe and ensuring that these instructions were carried out. Each tribal leader performed the function performed in later periods by the כהן משוח מלחמה, the priest anointed especially for duty during expansionary wars.

והורד המשכן, “The Tabernacle was dismantled.” The meaning of the paragraph starting with ויהי בשנה השנית in 10,11 is to describe the journey of the Tabernacle, i.e. the camp of the Levites traveling surrounded by the various army groups, as Rashi has outlined when he described that as soon as the army group of Yehudah had started marching the sons of Aaron would lower the dividing curtain in the Tabernacle and would wrap up the various sacred furnishings. When these had been wrapped, the Levites, i.e. Gersonides and Merarites, took apart the beams comprising the walls of the Tabernacle and loaded them onto the wagons, etc. These wagons with those Levites would be traveling behind the army group of Yehudah, ahead of the army group of Reuven.

ויאמר משה לחובב, “Moses said to his father-in-law Chovav, etc.” Ibn Ezra writes that Re-uel was the father of Tzipporah, as we know from Exodus 2,18 ותבאנה אל רעואל אביהם, “when they came home to their father Re-uel, etc.” Chovav was the brother of Tzipporah and he is identical with Yitro, for the Torah wrote that Moses said of him: (verse 31) ידעת חנותנו במדבר, “you are familiar with where we are encamped in the desert,” and it is also written in connection with Yitro (Exodus 18,5) אל המדבר אשר הוא חונה שם, “to the desert where he was camping” (Moses). If someone were to argue that Yitro was Moses’ father-in-law, the answer is that it is the custom of the Torah to refer to the father of the girl as well as to her brother as חותן, proof being the line לחובב בן רעואל המדיני חותן משה after it had already been made clear that Chovav was a brother of Tzipporah. Many commentators are of the opinion that Chovav and Yitro are identical, that he was the father of Tzipporah, whereas Re-uel was the grandfather. As far as the words אל רעואל אביהם is concerned, this is no different than when the Torah quotes Yaakov as referring to אלוקי אבי אברהם, the “G’d of my father Avraham,” when we all know that Avraham was Yaakov’s grandfather and not his father. Nachmanides writes that Moses pleaded with Chovav to accompany the Jewish people, saying to him in general terms והטבנו לך, “we will treat you well;” Chovav understood this to mean that the Jewish people would let him share in the spoils of war but that he would not receive a share of the Land of Israel as an ancestral piece of land. This is why Chovav replied that in that case he would prefer to return to a land that was his own, where he was not just tolerated as a newcomer to whom one had accorded a courtesy. When Moses became aware of Chovav having misunderstood the nature of his offer, he changed his approach by begging Chovav not to abandon him and the Jewish people, seeing that he had already become so valuable to them by having served as their eyes. He added that they would share with him all the good G’d were to do for His people on an equal basis. He hinted that Chovav would receive a portion of the land as an ancestral heritage. Nachmanides believes that Chovav accepted this offer and bases himself on the Jerusalem Talmud (Bikkurim 1,5) where the descendants of the Keyni, (Yitro’s offspring) are granted the right to refer to the land of Israel as their heritage and they read the passage about bikkurim just as does any natural born Jew whose ancestors had been slaves in Egypt. Their claim is based on Moses having said to Chovav לכה אתנו, “please join us,” in our verse above.

וארון ברית ה' נוסע לפניהם דרך שלשת ימים, “and the Ark of the Covenant of Hashem journeyed before them a three–day distance.” According to Rashi this was the Ark containing the broken pieces of the first set of Tablets. This Ark traveled ahead of the main body the distance normally covered in three days’ march. Nachmanides writes that according to the plain meaning of the text neither the Ark nor the cloud preceded the people at all in terms of physical distance; the Torah describes that the Ark and the cloud would move for three days uninterruptedly without taking time out to make an even temporary “pit stop” until the evening of the third day. On that evening the cloud came to rest in the desert of Paran, and this is the meaning of the words לתור להם מנוחה, “to espy a suitable resting place for them” in our verse. The people would not make camp until they had reached that location. They then proceeded to re-assemble the Tabernacle and they brought into it the various furnishings, first of all the Holy Ark. What is not clear is whether during these three days the people marched also at night. Ibn Ezra writes that when the Torah wrote in verse 21 that the Kehatites journeyed and erected the Tabernacle before the people arrived, refers to the Kehatites journeying behind the first two flags, (army groups) does not apply to the first time the people moved away from their 11 months encampment at the bottom of Mount Sinai. During that journey the Ark did travel a distance of three days’ march ahead of them.

ויהי בנסוע הארון, “Whenever the Ark would journey, etc.” Rashi writes that this short paragraph that is bracketed within two inverted letters נ has been inserted here in order to separate one unhappy occurrence from the next one. According to his opinion the Israelites deviated from G’d’s path already during the three days of their very first march away from Mount Sinai. The group of people described as אספסוף, rabble, (11,4) already cultivated a craving for meat, thereby rebelling against the manner in which Hashem had fed the people thus far. Nachmanides has difficulty with Rashi’s interpretation, pointing out that the unhappy occurrence mentioned in verse 1 of chapter 11, preceded the craving of the people for a meat diet. This פורענות, is followed by the rabble’s craving for meat immediately, without any intervening verses in verse 4. Where then did the verses 35 and 36 in our chapter separate one unhappy event from another? Nachmanides concludes that what Rashi meant was that the moving away from Mount Sinai (verse 33) was the first of the unhappy events which occurred so frequently from now on. The Midrash describes the moving away of the people from the spiritually lofty environment of Mount Sinai as similar to a child turning its back on the books from which he is supposed to absorb useful information.