Skip to content
Zakhor
The Bible · 37/54

Shelah

The spies, the discouraging report, forty years in the wilderness.

Hebrew name
שְׁלַח
Book
Numbers
Verses
Nb 13,1–15,41
Haftara
Jos 2,1–24

Twelve men reconnoiter the land, ten give an account that condemns the people, two — Joshua and Caleb — argue the opposite. The punishment falls on an entire generation: those who came out shall not enter. Tradition has linked this transgression to the 9th of Av, the day when Jewish Memory gathers its destructions. The section closes with the tsitsit, "so that you may remember yourselves."

Documented figures