לזכות ידיד נפשי הרה"ג ר' מאיר זאב שטיינמץ שליט"א וכל ב"ב לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיהם!!!
We established a principal that Yehoshua was a quasi-מלך but not full מלך. Let us now see a gemara [Sanhedrin 8a]:
One text reads: For you [Yehoshua] must go with this people, etc. [implying that he was equal to the people]. And another text says: For you shall bring the Children of Israel [implying that he was greater than they]?
R. Yochanan said [that Moshe said the first pasuk equating Yehoshua to the people] You shall be like the elders of the generation that are among them. But the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Yehoshua [the second pasuk]: Take a stick and strike them upon their head; there is only one leader to a generation not two.
The Brisker Rov asks mechila but it seems that the gemara is almost sacrilegious!! Moshe is having an argument with Hashem?? How can we say that one pasuk was Moshe speaking and another Hashem, when everything in the Chumash is the Word of the Lord!!
He answers that Moshe wanted to appoint Yehoshua as the head of the Sanhedrin but Hashem came and said that he will be more - a full fledged king!! And that is the meaning of "טול מקל והך על קדקדם" - "take a stick and strike them on the head" - Meaning that you can make supra-legal judgment qua king. See the words of the Rov ztz"l in the "Stencil" [it helps your understanding if you have thick Brisker peyos].
However - based on what we have been saying we can revise this understanding and say that Hashem was appointing Yehoshua a shofet-Nasi-quasi-king and therefore the laws of מורד במלכות and שאלה באורים ותומים apply to him as well even though he is not a full fledged king [and we saw this in the Drashos HaRan]. The meaning of "take a stick and knock them upside the head" [my translation:-)] means that as Nasi you also have kingly powers.
[עפ"י באר מרים הל' מלכים ג' א' עיי"ש וינעם לך מאד!]
