Shabbos Parashas Chukas - 5779

Shabbos Parashas Chukas - 5779

Rabbi Hal Miller

Do not fear him, for into your hand I have given him, his entire people, and his land.

You shall do to him as you did to Sichon, king of the Amorite, who dwells in Cheshbon.

[Bamidbar 21:34]

The Trans-Jordan, which we know now as the Golan, was at one point in the hands of

Moab. The Israelites were prohibited from attacking Moab. Does that mean that this

land is not part of the land God promised to the Patriarchs? Is it not rightfully ours? But

Reuven, Gad, and half of Menashe took their inheritance there.

We read later in the narrative that the Amorites, under their king Sichon, destroyed

Moab and took their land. At the time of our verse, it was no longer Moabite, but Amorite,

and there was no likelihood it would ever be ceded back by Sichon. Because of this,

Moshe was not violating any previous command. We must consider the land as owned

at the time by Sichon and by Og, king of the neighboring Bashan.

So how do we justify Moshe's attacking those nations and taking the land unless it was

in fact part of the land promised by God?

In Bereishis [15:18-20], God tells Avram, "To your descendants have I given this land, from

the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the Kennite, the Kennizzite, and the

Kadmonite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the

Girgashite, and the Jebusite." This territory runs from Egypt to modern-day Iran and Iraq,

from the middle of the Sinai desert to the territory of the Rephaim, which was Og, and to

Sichon, king of the Amorites, which together is the Golan. Thus, the simple answer is

that, yes the Golan is ours. So why did Moshe feel the need to ask permission to pass

through peacefully and not just take it forcefully?

Rashi and others suggest that Moshe may have been afraid of whatever merit Og had

earned in God's eyes for having warned Avraham of a pending attack years earlier.

Ramban believes that Moshe's fear was instead that the nation would not hold together

if they were too geographically spread. He wanted them all on the western side of the

Jordan together. Rather than fight Sichon and Og, he wished to leave them and pass

through to the west. But in Devarim [2], God tells him, "See I have begun to deliver

before you Sichon and his land. Begin to drive him out."

But we know from earlier in our parsha that Moshe struck the rock in the water episode,

and later was punished with not being able to come to the land. If the Golan is included

in the promised land, how do we understand God's position telling Moshe to conquer it?

God's command was not that Moshe would not enter the land, rather that he would not

cross the Jordan! We cannot learn from this that the land would only begin at the river,

nor is there an inconsistency with God telling Moshe to begin the conquering of the land

before the nation crossed that river. Moshe was not banned from the land, was not

banned from beginning the conquest, and in fact he won the first battles. Moshe our

teacher was buried in the land, in the Golan, just not across the Jordan. Without doubt,

it belongs to the nation of Israel.