ר' יונתן אומר לבאי הארץ נתחלקה הארץ שנאמר לאלה תחלק הארץ בנחלה אלא מה אני מקיים לשמות מטות אבותם ינחלו משונה נחלה זו מכל נחלות שבעולם שכל נחלות שבעולם חיין יורשין מתים וכאן מתים יורשין חיין
the land shall be divided for an inheritance,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Ibid. 53.
');"><sup>6</sup></span> he applied? — Unto these, [means] 'like these',<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Referring to those that were numbered (ibid. 51), who were twenty years of age and upward.
');"><sup>7</sup></span> excluding the minors.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Under twenty. Only those who were at least twenty years of age at the Exodus were included in the number of those to whom the land was divided. Any one under twenty, when leaving Egypt, could only take the share of his father in part or in full according to whether he had brothers or not.
');"><sup>8</sup></span>
Shenei Luchot HaBerit
ונתתי אותה לכם מורשה. The expression מורשה instead of ירושה, inheritance, is puzzling. The people addressed were after all those slated to inherit the land, not the ones slated to pass it on to their children. We must understand the verse as do our sages who have told us that this particular inheritance is of a different nature than all other inheritances. Under normal circumstances the living inherit from the dead. In this instance the dead inherited from the living. Rashi explained this procedure on Numbers 26,55. As a result, the land returned to the generation that had left Egypt as a מורשה, since the people who died in Egypt died on behalf of the land, though they did not merit coming to the land of Israel. Consequently we may view those that left Egypt as inheriting it from their deceased parents. It was therefore a מורשה, something that had been transferred to them by their parents. It is part of G–d's practice to display grace to those who find themselves in pain.
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