In this week’s parasha, Shlach, we read about the infamous incident of the Spies and the resulting decree that Israel would have to wander in the Wilderness for forty years:

In this desert, your corpses shall fall; your entire number, all those from the age of twenty and up, who were counted, because you complained against Me. You shall [not] come into the Land concerning which I raised My hand that you would settle in it, except Caleb the son of Yefuneh and Joshua the son of Nun… Your children shall wander in the desert for forty years and bear your defection until the last of your corpses has fallen in the desert. According to the number of days which you toured the Land forty days, a day for each year, you will bear your iniquities for forty years; thus you will come to know My alienation. (Numbers 14:29-34)

The plain reading suggests that of all the adults—those over the age of twenty—only Caleb and Joshua merited to enter the Holy Land. Yet, we see from other verses and sources that a number of additional people merited this as well. Who actually entered the Holy Land after the forty years in the Wilderness? Continue reading →