ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע. מדרש תנחומא מה ראה לקרותו יהושע אלא ראה כלב שנטל שכרו בארץ שנאמר ויבא עד חברון וכתיב במקום אחר ויתנו לכלב את חברון ויהושע נטל חלק עשרה אנשים של מרגלים ולכך הוסיף יו"ד בשמו שעולה עשרה. ולפי שקראה תגר כשנתחלקה משמה של שרי ופרע לה בכאן. וי"א שנתחלקה ה"א בשם שרה וה"א בשם אברהם. ובפ' ואלו נאמרין מסיק שאמר לו משה יה יושיעך מעצת מרגלים: ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, “Moses called (changed) the name of Hoshea to Yehoshua son of Nun. The Midrash Tanchuma, section 6 on this portion, in dealing with this change of name, writes as follows: “what prompted Moses to change the name of Hoshea to Y’hoshua by adding the letter י (equivalent the number ten) to his name? Moses foresaw that Calev, another spy who did receive his ancestral share in the Holy Land received one share, as detailed in the Book of Judges 1,20, seeing he had bothered to make a special detour at Chevron (Numbers 13,22) (“he,” sing. came to Chevron) whereas Joshua, who would lead the people to the Land and conquer it, received ten shares, this was hinted at by the change of his name. [Seeing that Joshua personally did not have any children, looking at the matter technically, although his tribe of Ephrayim, did of course receive their share, perhaps Moses wanted to indicate that he in fact, at least, in the spiritual sense of the word, “inherited” the 10 shares of the Holy Land, that would have become the shares of the other ten spies had they not slandered the land. Ed.] According to the Talmud Yerushalmi tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 2, halachah 6, by adding the letter י at the beginning of his name, so that it began with the two letters spelling the name of G–d, Moses hoped to arm him spiritually against becoming spiritually contaminated by the other ten spies. When Sarah’s name שרי had been changed to שרה, she had lost a letter, i.e. the letter י. Joshua now received this letter. Avraham had the letter ה she had lost, added to his name when that was changed from אברם to אברהם. [Seeing that they both no longer needed these two letters, having died long ago, they were used by Moses as helping Joshua to withstand the brainwashing by the ten spies. Ed.]