daf bit: Sotah 26

The torah tells us what happens if the sotah (the woman accused of adultery) goes through the trial and is guilty, but what happens if she is innocent? Rabbi Akiva says that if she is barren, she will now bear children. Rabbi Yishmael counters that, in that case, a barren woman is motivated to give her husband reason to accuse her, so that she will be found innocent, and the woman ethical enough to not do this will lose out. Rather, he says, her pain in childbirth will be reduced and she will get children who are preferable in various ways. Rabbi Yishmael's preferences are clear: tall rather than short, fair rather than dark, and boys rather than girls. (This short, darker woman doesn't agree with his criteria, needless to say.) (26a)

The question of consequences for the innocent came up with last week's daf, so I was happy to see an answer here.

Can anyone reading this share the source of the midrash that Channah used the sotah ritual in this way to solve her infertility? (The plain meaning of the account is that it was her prayers that did it.)

questions on Sh'lach L'cha

The rabbi pointed out an oddity in this week's portion this morning (for which he did not have an answer off the top of his head): at the beginning of Sh'lach L'cha, when the spies are enumerated, we have "from the tribe of Ephrayim, Yehoshua bin Nun" and then, later, "from the tribe of Yosef from Manashe, Gadi ben Susi". Yosef, one of the twelve sons of Yisrael, doesn't get his own tribe; instead, his sons Ephrayim and Manashe are elevated to full tribal status. So why does the torah give the extra lineage in one of these cases but not the other -- and especially skipping the first instance (where you would expect it were there only one)? The rabbi checked Mikrot Gedolot but didn't find anything there.

And is it significant that Yosef's name is attached not to one of the heroes of the story (Yehoshua), but to one of the defeatist spies who caused the forty-year delay on entering the land?

And on a much more minor note, why is Yehoshua bin Nun instead of ben Nun? (That's consistent, not just in this passage.)