Exceedingly Good

And they spoke to all the congregation of the Children of Israel, saying: “The Land which we passed through to search it, is an exceedingly good land.” (tova haAretz me’od me’od)                                         Numbers 14:7

We find the phrase “tov me’od” in at the end of the description of God’s creation of the world [Genesis 1:31]:

And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good (tov me’od).

In explaining the emphatic “me’od” (very), Netziv notes that it is possible to have constituent parts which are good individually, yet do not mesh well together. The meaning of “tov me’od”, explains Netziv, is that not only were the individual components of creation good, but they also combined well in their totality, each part complementing the others.

Perhaps we can apply Netziv’s insight to our verse. The doubly emphatic repetition of “me’od” suggests not only that the Land itself is good, but the combination of the Land, the People of Israel and Torah complement each other to achieve the highest level possible.