Parshat Shelach

‘…And Moses called Hoshea bin Nun Yehoshua (Joshua)’ (Bemidbar 13, 16)

Why is Moses’ renaming of Hoshea to Joshua recorded at this point? Why was there a need for this name change?

There is a precedent for a name change, from Abraham who was originally called Abram but whose names was changed to show that he was the father of a multitude of nations (Bereishit 17,5). Joshua, however, has previously been mentioned in the Torah as ‘Yehoshua’, and not Hosea. He is called ‘Yehoshua’ when described as Moses’ assistant in last week’s Sidra, Beha’alotecha (Bemidbar 11,28), and when choosing soldiers to fight against the evil tribe of Amalek (Shemot 17,9).

Rashi, the premier Torah commentator, explains that the phrase ‘called’ is a verb of prayer in this context and not a verb of simple calling. Moses prayed that Joshua would be saved from the evil counsel of the negative spies. To assist Joshua, Moses’ prayer invoked the extra letter ‘hei’ which changes Hoshea to Yehoshua, and put together with the letter ‘yud’ at the start of Yehoshua makes a Name of G-d, to add the blessing of that Name to Yehoshua.

But why did Calev, the other good spy, not receive the same blessing? Perhaps Calev, who when arriving in Israel went alone to Me’arat Hamachpela (the burial ground of Abraham and family in Hebron) to pray for a successful mission, could rely on this merit.

For Yehoshua, another method was appropriate. Moses, when praying during the fight against Amalek, had invoked the Name of ‘yud, hei’. This provided merit for Yehoshua, who was heavily involved in that battle, and it was thus appropriate for Yehoshua to use that merit again, so Moses prayed for him, through use of the phrase Yehoshua, to pray for extra merit for his disciple.