[Avodah] Vayikra Moshe l'Hoshea bin Nun Yehoshua

[Marty Bluke]

Rashi comments that Moshe changed his name and davened that Hashem
should save Yehoshua from the sin/plot of the meraglim.

This is very difficult for a number of reasons:
1. We see clearly from Rashi that Moshe knew that the Meraglim would
sin, that is why he davened that Yehoshua would not be caught up in
it. If so, why did he send them at all? After all Rashi comments on
the words, shlach lecha, that Hashem gave Moshe the choice as to
whether to send meraglim or not. If he knew they would sin why didn't
he just cancel the mission?
2. Why daven only for Yehoshua? Yehoshua was probably the greatest of
the meraglim, why would Moshe worry that he would sin? At the time
that they were picked all of the Meraglim were tzadikim, why didn't
Moshe daven for all of them?

I did not find any of the meforshim on Rashi that dealt with the first
question. The Netziv does ask the question and says because of the
question that Rashi's pshat is very difficult. Therefore rejects
Rashi's pshat and offers his own pshat.

The meforshim do deal with the second question but I didn't see any
convincing answers.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.