כי תבואו אל ארץ מושבותיכם. למה נסמכה פרשה זו לפרשת מרגלים לפי כששמעו ישראל גזרתו של הקב"ה אמרו אוי לנו לעולם לא נכנס לארץ כי לסוף ארבעים שנה נמי אם אנו חוטאין יגזור גזרה אחרת וא"כ אין לדבר סוף אמר להם הקב"ה בודאי לאחר מ' שנה תבואו אל הארץ: כי תבואו אל ארץ מושבותיכם,”when you come to the land of your permanent settlement, etc.;” what is the reason that this paragraph has been inserted at this point in the Torah? If anything, the legislation added here would not be applicable for at least another forty years! The people at this stage were so frustrated that they did not believe they would ever get to the Land of Canaan and settle there, as they might become guilty of so many more sins, looking back at the less than two years they had been out of Egypt, and what had befallen them during that short period. The wording of the paragraph, i.e. G–d’s promise to Moses at this point, was meant to reassure them that unless the settlement of the people in their ancestral homeland would become a fact, what would be the point in introducing legislation that is capable of being applied only after they were settled in that land? Moses relayed this legislation to the present generation in order to convince them that their children would definitely become residents of the Holy Land.