Some random thoughts on the spies in this week's parsha:
a. The Hebrew word used for the spies is מרגלים (meraglim), which contains the root רגל (regel), which means leg. IMO, a better translation might be "hiker", because basically they hiked around the Israeli (and Syrian-Lebanese) countryside.
b. The word תור (tur) which is the word Hashem uses to command their mission seems to have some connection to the word 'tour', though I expect they're false cognates or something like that (unless you believe that Hebrew was the original language, but we won't get into that).
c. Beitar, Bar Kochva's last stronghold, was understood by some 19th century non-Jewish scholars to being Hebrew for "house of spies": The version ביתר is a contraction of בית תר (Beit Tar), as we know from manuscript evidence. Evidently these scholars compared תר (tar) and this week's parsha's תור (tur). I found that somewhat ironic because in the Yerushalmi the downfall of Beitar came through a chain of events and attitudes, and one of the links in the chain was a traitorous Samaritan who snuck into the city to wreak political havoc. Essentially, the "house of spies" was brought down by a spy.
d. As long as we're on the topic of Beitar, the LXX lists that and several other cities in the territory of Yehuda, a grouping of cities that does not appear in the Masoretic Text. Some scholars think it's a legit ancient version of the text preserved in the LXX, but there are also convincing arguments in favor of this being an addition by one of the many Greek-speaking translators of the collection that would eventually become the LXX as we have it today. It should be noted that some Iron Age findings were found at Beitar, but on the other hand, a great deal of Iron Age sites haven't been mentioned in Tanach (only in some cases it may be argued that they were mentioned under different names), such as Gush Chalav (Gischala).
a. The Hebrew word used for the spies is מרגלים (meraglim), which contains the root רגל (regel), which means leg. IMO, a better translation might be "hiker", because basically they hiked around the Israeli (and Syrian-Lebanese) countryside.
b. The word תור (tur) which is the word Hashem uses to command their mission seems to have some connection to the word 'tour', though I expect they're false cognates or something like that (unless you believe that Hebrew was the original language, but we won't get into that).
c. Beitar, Bar Kochva's last stronghold, was understood by some 19th century non-Jewish scholars to being Hebrew for "house of spies": The version ביתר is a contraction of בית תר (Beit Tar), as we know from manuscript evidence. Evidently these scholars compared תר (tar) and this week's parsha's תור (tur). I found that somewhat ironic because in the Yerushalmi the downfall of Beitar came through a chain of events and attitudes, and one of the links in the chain was a traitorous Samaritan who snuck into the city to wreak political havoc. Essentially, the "house of spies" was brought down by a spy.
d. As long as we're on the topic of Beitar, the LXX lists that and several other cities in the territory of Yehuda, a grouping of cities that does not appear in the Masoretic Text. Some scholars think it's a legit ancient version of the text preserved in the LXX, but there are also convincing arguments in favor of this being an addition by one of the many Greek-speaking translators of the collection that would eventually become the LXX as we have it today. It should be noted that some Iron Age findings were found at Beitar, but on the other hand, a great deal of Iron Age sites haven't been mentioned in Tanach (only in some cases it may be argued that they were mentioned under different names), such as Gush Chalav (Gischala).