Then the children of Judah came near to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, Thou knowest the word that Jehovah spoke to Moses the man of God, concerning me and thee, in Kadesh-barnea.
Joshua is old, and Israel is dividing the land, when one man steps out of the crowd of Judah and speaks for himself. He does not begin by asking for anything; he begins by reminding Joshua of what God said forty-five years earlier at Kadesh-barnea.
Caleb makes his claim at Gilgal. The name of that camp carries its own history.
A place west of the Jordan, "in the east border of Jericho," where the Israelites camped after crossing the river... Here the reproach of Egypt was "rolled away," and that is how the place got the name Gilgal... Gilgal was the starting point in taking possession of the land. It was also the place to which Joshua returned again and again: it was the place of strength.
The verse calls Caleb "the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite." He comes forward with the people of Judah, yet that name points back to a family from outside Israel.
Caleb the son of Jephunneh was not originally of the people of Judah. He is called Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite... Now in Genesis 36:11 we learn that Kenaz is an Edomite name. So at some point the family of Kenaz, and therefore the family of Caleb, was joined to the tribes of Israel, just like many other foreigners such as Jethro, Rahab, and Ruth, who became members of the people of God by their faith... So Caleb, who by his origin had no right of citizenship in Israel, received that right among Judah by his faith. He was included in the family of Caleb the son of Hezron, as we see in 1 Chronicles 2:49 and in the passages already cited in Joshua.
Caleb does not argue from his own record. He rests his claim on the God who spoke to Moses, and on what happened when Israel refused to believe.
The LORD was the same unchangeable LORD to Caleb, even though forty-five years had gone by and a new era had begun for Israel. He was the same LORD even though Caleb's old companions were now dead and buried in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Caleb alone had believed the faithful promise of the LORD. Forty-five years earlier, in the dark hour of Israel's rebellion against the LORD, Caleb had stood firm for his God. When the faint-hearted spies urged the people to unbelief, Caleb rested on God. He did not care what his old companions thought of him. He answered their mean and unbelieving words by calling Israel to go up at once and take the land, for they were well able to overcome it.
The promise at Kadesh-barnea named two men and no others.
Here, too, we may notice how intensely personal a thing faith is; it was "you and me." Joshua and Caleb were the two who faced the rebellious assembly of unbelieving Israel at Kadesh-barnea. The same two — the same "you and me" — were in earnest conversation about the same possession forty-five years later. The man of faith used the same argument on both occasions, but he was as much alone the second time as the first.
Verse 6 opens a speech, and the speech has an order to it.
He came to Joshua at Gilgal to apply for the inheritance which the LORD had promised him. First he recalled the past (vv. 6-8). Then he reminded Joshua of the promise made to him by Moses (v. 9), showing how he had treasured it up in his heart. Next he testified to the LORD's faithfulness in keeping him alive and in continuing his strength through all his long and varied experiences. Last, asking for the possession of his inheritance, he said he was sure that if the LORD were with him he could drive out the Anakim and take their cities, great and fortified as they were.
Caleb speaks to Joshua because the promise named them both. Their pairing runs deeper than friendship.
From this moment Caleb's name stands so closely linked with Joshua's that one might almost say they are inseparable. Together they search the land, together they cross the desert, together they enter Canaan... Joshua pre-figures Christ, the Saviour Jesus, who brings His people into the rest of the promised land. Caleb walks in company with him... Are we so tied to Christ that our name cannot be spoken without His? Does our very existence owe its value to this: that by grace we have been made companions of the Lord Jesus?
- Place — Gilgal was where Israel's reproach was rolled away, and where Joshua kept returning. It was the place of strength, and the place Caleb chose to speak.
- Person — Caleb the Kenizzite came from an Edomite family. Like other outsiders — Jethro, Rahab, Ruth — faith brought him into the people of God, and won him a place among Judah.
- Promise — He builds his case on what God said to Moses about "you and me." Forty-five years changed nothing about that word.
- Patience — Faith here is personal. Two men stood alone at Kadesh-barnea. The same two stood alone forty-five years later over the same possession.
- Possession — His speech moves from memory, to promise, to God's faithfulness, and then to asking for land still guarded by giants. He asks in confidence that the LORD will be with him.
Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of Jehovah sent me from Kadesh-barnea to search out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in my heart.
Caleb is eighty-five when he steps out from the men of Judah at Gilgal. He asks Joshua to remember a day forty-five years earlier. That was the day Moses sent him from Kadesh-barnea to look over the land. His whole account of that mission fits into one line: he came back and said what was in his heart. Why did his report differ from the reports of the others sent with him?
Caleb is not asking for a favour. He is presenting a record and claiming what Moses promised on the strength of it.
At that time Caleb says he was forty years of age (v. 7), and when sent to spy out the land he brought back a report that fully honoured the Lord. When others discouraged the people, he wholly followed the Lord (vv. 7-8). Because of his faithfulness, Moses had sworn that the land Caleb's feet trod upon would be his inheritance. So his faith, depending on the Word of God, claimed what rightly belonged to him (v. 9).
The phrase points to where Caleb's heart already was before he spoke.
Caleb recognised that it was a pleasant land the Lord gave to the children of Israel, and his heart was set on it. He could tell the difference between that land and Egypt… His treasure was in the land, and that is where his heart was. Others thought Egypt better than the wilderness. Their hearts lost courage for going up to take Canaan, because of the difficulties in the way. But Caleb valued Canaan far above Egypt, even with all the difficulty of getting into it. Egypt offered ease now, but slavery now too. Canaan was in his heart the whole time he crossed the wilderness. He had tasted the fruit of Canaan. His own eyes had seen it. He did not depend on other people's report of the land — his own feet had walked on it. This is what made him tread the wilderness with such a spring in his step.
Caleb looked at the same land as the other spies. What he did with what he saw was the difference.
He believed that God was able to bring them into the land, and that all the difficulties and hindrances were simply bread for faith. And God, as He always does, answered his faith.
The same writer sets Caleb's speech beside the way most people talk about their difficulties.
How refreshing are the words of an artless faith! How edifying! How truly encouraging! How vividly they contrast with the gloomy, depressing, withering tones of dark, God-dishonouring unbelief!
Between the report and the reward lay the wilderness — and Caleb had to walk it with the very people whose unbelief had put him there.
From that day at Kadesh-barnea, Caleb held a special place in Israel. The wilderness had its darkest hours and Israel's wanderings their dreariest nights. Through plague and God's displeasure, the promise of his God held Caleb up. He had to suffer along with the unbelieving crowd and share their affliction. The same principles are as true today as they were then. All suffer together, and one person's unbelief and rebellion affects others. Israel's warriors might die, but Caleb knew his feet would stand on the mountains of Hebron. Thousands might fall at his right hand, but Caleb knew his family would take the great walled cities of the sons of Anak, because the Lord had said it.
Caleb's two ages, here and later in the chapter, also date the fighting itself.
"Joshua made war a long time with all those kings." In the victories God gives, He usually teaches His people endurance and hardship, and so works patience in them. These wars lasted some seven years (see Joshua 14:7, 10).
Caleb's story is placed here for a reason, and the point of it needs little explaining.
No need of many words to enforce the lesson in this case. We see at once how spiritual strength keeps going. And it presses on us that we must lay hold of our promised portion and enjoy it.
- Heart first. Caleb's report came out of a heart already set on the land. His treasure was there, so his report rang true.
- Report follows. Others saw only obstacles. Caleb saw the same facts and called the difficulties "bread for faith."
- Promise carries. For forty-five years God's promise at Kadesh-barnea held him up. He suffered alongside the unbelief that had delayed him.
- Patience trained. The long war after entering the land was God's way of teaching endurance in the very victories He gave.
- Portion claimed. We do not enjoy what God calls ours until we take hold of it — Caleb asked at eighty-five for what he had believed at forty.
And my brethren that had gone up with me made the heart of the people melt; but I wholly followed Jehovah my God.
Caleb looks back to Kadesh-barnea, where two reports met: his fellow spies drained Israel's courage, while he held on to God. Forty-five years later he sums up his life in one phrase — and we ask whether that is boasting, and what it cost him.
Ten men and one man saw the same land and the same strong enemies. What divided them was confidence, not evidence — and the crowd felt it at once.
Caleb stepped forward and, separating himself from his companions, "stilled the people before Moses." He did not contradict the report the others had given — he could not. But he said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it." As the later history shows, this was the language of faith born of confidence in the Lord and His word... When he spoke out his confidence in the Lord, the natural mind only opposed him harder. The men who went up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we." As boldness in testimony gives increased certainty, so the expression of unbelief increases its own power.
Caleb says something about himself that few would dare say aloud. One writer answers the obvious objection.
Do you know what Caleb said? "I wholly followed the Lord my God" (Joshua 14:8). Oh, you say, he was conceited. No, no, he was consecrated, not conceited. Hear what the Lord says about him: "But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it" (Num. 14:24). Further, Moses says to him, "You have wholly followed the Lord my God" (Joshua 14:9). And then his comrade Joshua writes that he "blessed him... because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel" (Joshua 14:14). My friend, if you get three witnesses like the Lord, Moses, and Joshua to testify to your devotion, you will do.
The same loyalty that made Caleb urge Israel forward later kept him back. God's word set the direction, not Caleb's own eagerness.
It is no presumption for any of us to agree with God's own testimony to our souls... Caleb's soul rested entirely on the grace and power of God. That same grace and power had made them triumph at the Red Sea, and had protected the spies while they searched the land... But the very same principle of fully following the Lord, which made him encourage the people to go up, would hold him back from going up after the Lord had said, "Tomorrow turn back toward the Red Sea"; for the Lord had no delight in the people.
In this verse Caleb sets "my brothers" against "I." Both times he stood where the crowd would not. Yet he says nothing bitter about the people whose unbelief delayed him four decades.
Notice, too, how deeply individual a thing faith is; it was "me and you." Joshua and Caleb were the two who faced the rebellious crowd of unbelieving Israel at Kadesh-barnea. The same two — the same "me and you" — were still talking earnestly about the same possession forty-five years later... The difficulties in the way of conquering and possessing it only stirred up Caleb's courage and determination. He had waited forty-five years for the opportunity. In the meantime faith had worked in him. It produced patience, strength, and love for his country. So he had not one hard word to say about his people, even though their unbelief had kept him out of his inheritance so long.
Israel's melting heart did not remove one enemy from Canaan. It only delayed the meeting.
At the end of the forty years Caleb had to subdue, name by name, the very same people who had filled the spies with terror. Even when we are still going to enjoy what God promised, unbelief does not spare us the difficulties.
Something carried Caleb through forty years of desert he had not earned.
But he still had forty years of desert life to walk, and he walks them bravely right to the end. He carries in his heart the memory of the riches and treasure of Canaan. To him the difficulties of the desert are nothing... A hope holds up his courage; and the believer's hope is not merely Canaan, that is to say heaven in a general way, but it is Christ.
- Two reports. The spies spread fear as fast as Caleb spread courage. Unbelief, spoken out loud, gains power over a crowd.
- One follower. Faith at Kadesh-barnea was "me and you," and it was still only "me and you" forty-five years later.
- Whole-hearted, not half. Following fully meant going up when God said go, and staying back when God said turn. His word set the pace, not Caleb's zeal.
- No shortcut. Unbelief removed no enemies. Caleb still had to defeat, one by one, the men who had terrified the ten.
- A hope that outlasts. He crossed forty wasted years with the treasure of the land in his heart. For us that hope is Christ Himself.
And Moses swore on that day, saying, The land whereon thy feet have trodden shall assuredly be thine inheritance, and thy children's for ever! for thou hast wholly followed Jehovah my God.
Forty-five years after the spies came back from Canaan, Caleb stands before Joshua and repeats an oath Moses swore to him. It is his title deed: the land his own feet had walked, held for his children, given because he had wholly followed the LORD.
Caleb did not pick Hebron on the day he asked for it. One writer traces his choice back to the spying journey. The spies came home carrying fruit from the valley of Eshcol, but that was not what won Caleb's heart.
It was not Eshcol, as one might have thought, that caught Caleb's eye and captured his heart. His faith reached on to something better. Hebron, where his feet had walked, is given to him. From that moment its name was engraved on his heart. It stayed there for forty-five years, until the day he would appear before Joshua to claim "this mountain of which the LORD spoke" as his everlasting possession.
The promise did more than wait. It held Caleb up through years of plague and death in the desert.
In the darkest hours of the wilderness, in the dreariest nights of Israel's wanderings, in the middle of plague and divine displeasure, the promise of his God held Caleb up... Israel's warriors might perish, but Caleb knew his feet would stand on the mountains of Hebron. Thousands might die at his right hand, but Caleb knew his family would hold the great fortified cities of the children of Anak, for the LORD had said it.
The oath measures the gift by Caleb's own footsteps. One writer turns that into a prayer for God's people.
Moses swore that day, and promised Caleb the land where his feet had walked. May God give His people the courage to put their feet down on His promises, for every one of them will be made good.
Caleb was not asking for a favour. He was claiming what God had already sworn to him. One writer says believers should claim as boldly.
His faith, resting on the Word of God, claimed what rightly belonged to him (v. 9). This is deeply instructive for believers today. Scripture declares certain things to be ours, as we see in the book of Ephesians. We should claim them with true boldness of faith.
The ground Caleb's feet had walked was the last place anyone would choose. It held the giants, and it held the graves.
To the flesh it could only inspire terror. The formidable Anakim lived there — giants whose name alone made the people's hearts melt. But what a powerful reminder the burial place of the fathers was to Caleb's soul!... Hebron is above all the place of death, and to Abraham first. Sarah died there and was buried there. Abraham too; also Isaac; and then Jacob and the fathers of Israel... What is there in it to attract? Nothing for the natural man, everything for faith. There is one supreme place where the believer learns the end of himself: the cross of Christ.
Caleb says of himself what a boaster might say. One writer answers that charge by naming three others who said the same thing.
Do you know what Caleb said? "I wholly followed the LORD my God." Oh, you say, he was conceited. No, no — he was consecrated, not conceited. Hear what the Lord says about him: "But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it." Then Moses says to him, "You have wholly followed the LORD my God." And then his comrade Joshua writes that he blessed him "because he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel." My friend, if you get three witnesses like the Lord, Moses, and Joshua to testify to your devotedness, you will do.
The oath reaches past Caleb to his children. One writer pictures him telling his daughter Achsah and her brothers what was theirs.
And the father would end the story by saying, "And that is our inheritance. Hebron, the dearest spot in all the land of Canaan, is for us! It is ours! It belongs to you children and to me!"... And I can see little Achsah's eyes shine as she takes it all in, and makes it all her own.
- Promise given. Moses' oath tied Caleb's inheritance to ground his own feet had walked. The promise was personal and measurable long before he held it.
- Promise treasured. For forty-five years Hebron's name stayed engraved on his heart. That promise carried him through a wilderness that buried everyone else.
- Promise claimed. Caleb asked Joshua only for what God had already sworn. Believers can claim what Scripture declares theirs with the same boldness.
- Promise costly. The land he chose held the giants and the graves of the fathers. There is nothing in it for the natural man, and everything in it for faith.
- Promise inherited. The oath ran on to his children. One man's whole-hearted following became the settled portion of his house.
And now behold, Jehovah has kept me alive, as he said, these forty-five years, since Jehovah spoke this word to Moses, when Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now behold, I am this day eighty-five years old.
Caleb stands before Joshua and counts the years since God's promise at Kadesh, where he had searched out the land. Two questions follow: why did this one man outlive a whole generation, and what does his strength at eighty-five teach anyone growing older?
Caleb does not credit a strong constitution or a careful life. He points to a promise, and one writer makes those three words the hinge of the whole speech.
Forty-five years of leaning on God had not lifted his soul in old age into self-reliance. Forty-five years of God's continued favour had in no way weakened Caleb's sense that our strength is in God alone… To live for thirty-eight years surrounded by a constant chorus of complaining and still sing "the Lord is my strength and my song" is a miracle. And a miracle it was, as Caleb admitted: "the LORD has kept me alive, just as He said." "As He said" — three great words, greater than all the murmurings of Israel piled up over thirty-eight years. "As He said," for Caleb had not dropped down like the other men of war and died.
Forty of those years were spent wandering, and Caleb did not choose one of them. Other people's unbelief set the course, and he walked it out with them.
Forty-five years of endurance and faith had passed between that earlier scene and this one. Caleb is now an old man of eighty-five, yet the energy that marked him at Kadesh shows no sign of decay. He had turned back and wandered with his nation for forty years in the wilderness, and that through no fault of his own… But through those forty years of toil and trouble in the wilderness, he carried in his heart the beauty of that good land. His eyes had seen it for only a moment. No long stretch of trial or provocation could wipe the Lord's land from his thoughts or his affections.
Caleb shared the punishment of a rebellious people. It never shook his certainty about the outcome.
Caleb lived through the darkest hours of the wilderness and the dreariest nights of Israel's wanderings. Through plague and God's displeasure, the promise of his God held him up. He had to suffer with the unbelieving crowd and be afflicted with them. These principles hold today just as they did then: all suffer together, and the unbelief and rebellion of one affects others. But while Israel's warriors might die, Caleb knew his feet would stand on the mountains of Hebron.
One writer traces Caleb's unspent strength back to a song he had sung decades earlier.
All the weary round of forty years of toil in the wilderness had not weakened Caleb's strength. He had sung that wonderful note — "The Lord is my strength." He had acted on that strength when he searched out the land , ready in the prime of manhood to go up and take it. Now, at eighty-five, he finds his strength the same. If we take on the smallest difficulty without regard to this power, we are beaten. But if the greatest obstacle appears, we win through faith in the Lord our strength. So the word says, "Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might."
One writer treats Caleb's strong old age as the normal shape of a believer's course, not a rare exception.
At 85 years of age, Caleb was as strong as he had been in his youth. It is the end that tests the strength of a conviction… Many young Christians make a good start in the "marathon" race of faith but fail to last the pace. It is good to see a flourishing old age marked by courage and spiritual fervour. As a rule, the Christian is not heading toward spiritual decay but toward the brightest and best moment. Eternal life is a state of never-ending youth! Caleb, speaking of the Lord having kept him alive, credits his vigour to the mercy of God.
A long service record can become a substitute for daily dependence. Caleb's words refuse that trade.
Few soldiers of Christ can speak like this. Too many an aged Christian soldier seems to treat his long service record as an excuse to drop the hour-by-hour dependence on God that won his early victories. And "if the Lord is with us" gets traded for the boastful and degraded "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free" (Judges 16:20).
- Promise. Caleb's survival rests on "as He said" — the word the LORD spoke to Moses, not on his own vitality.
- Preservation. He outlived the generation that died in the wilderness. He called that survival a miracle, and credited it to God's mercy.
- Patience. Forty years of wandering came through no fault of his own, yet the land stayed alive in his heart the whole way.
- Power. "The Lord is my strength" was the source in the prime of manhood and still the source at eighty-five, so no obstacle was too large.
- Perseverance. The years should end in flourishing, not decline — if the old soldier keeps depending on God as he did at the first.
I am still this day strong, as in the day that Moses sent me as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out and to come in.
Caleb is eighty-five, and instead of asking for rest he asks for the hardest ground in Canaan. He says the desert years took nothing from him — so where did that strength come from, and what is it for?
Caleb measures his strength today against the day Moses sent him out to search the land, and finds no difference. One writer traces that strength to the Lord Caleb sang about, and says the same power is ours by faith.
"My strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming." Forty years of weary toil in the wilderness had not weakened Caleb's strength. He had sung that wonderful note — "The Lord is my strength." He had acted on that strength when he searched the land, and was ready, in the prime of manhood, to go up and possess the land; and now, at eighty-five years, he finds his strength the same… The Lord was his strength. The power that acts towards us and in us is always the same, but it is only known by faith. If we attempt the smallest difficulty without regard to that power, we are defeated. But if the greatest obstacle stands in our way, faith in the Lord our strength carries us through.
Caleb claims this strength "for war and for going and coming." It is not a boast about his health. He wants a mountain the giants still hold, and not every old soldier finishes that way.
All through his wilderness way, and all through his soldier life, the Lord's delight in His people was Caleb's source of courage. That courage drove him at eighty-five to fight the families of the giants of Canaan. He fought with the same eagerness that had enabled him at forty to stand against greater giants than they — the murmuring and unbelief of Israel… Too many an aged Christian soldier seems to treat his long service as a reason to be excused from the hourly dependence on God that won him his victories at the start. So "if the Lord be with us" gives way to the boastful and degenerate cry, "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself" (Judges 16:20).
Caleb asks for the mountain on one condition — that the Lord will be with him. One writer ties that condition to his unbroken strength.
Caleb was eighty-five years old. Neither his great age nor the weary desert journey had lessened his strength in the smallest degree. And why? Because he had no confidence in himself… Do you think from this that he mistrusted the Lord? No; he mistrusted himself. He realised that if anything stood in the way of the Lord being with him, it must come from himself. The more we distrust ourselves, the more strength we know. These two things certainly go together.
The desert is usually blamed for wearing people down. One writer answers that from the tribal numbers counted after those forty years.
It is not true that the wilderness is a place that only weakens. On the contrary, going through it in the right way renews strength — "your pound has made ten pounds." Take Judah, who gains nearly two thousand in those forty years of trial. Did Caleb's faith stimulate them all?… So the numbers of Judah speak of undiminished vigour. May it be so with us at the close.
Caleb says this at the end of a long road. One writer takes it as a test of how a life of faith should finish.
It is the end which tests the strength of a persuasion. The apostle Paul could say at the end of his course, "I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith." Many young Christians make a good start in the "marathon" race of faith but fail to last the pace. It is good to see a flourishing old age marked by courage and spiritual fervour. The Christian is not normally heading toward spiritual decline but toward the brightest and best moment… Caleb, speaking of how the Lord had kept him alive, credits his vigour to the mercy of God.
The strength is a gift. And what holds an older believer up is not the ability to keep serving:
If it is service that dominates our lives, there will come a time when we cannot serve any more because of increasing age… But if God is the One who fills our hearts, whether we are serving or not, He is the One who will support and sustain us.
- Kept. Caleb does not credit his own body. He had sung "The Lord is my strength," and he credits his vigour to the mercy of God.
- Kept through. The wilderness does not only weaken. Gone through in the right way, it renews strength — Judah came out of it nearly two thousand stronger.
- Kept for. Caleb claims his strength "for war." He asks for the mountain the giants hold, not for a quiet retirement.
- Kept humble. Caleb asks for the mountain only if the Lord goes with him. Strength grows as self-confidence shrinks.
- Kept to the end. The end tests faith. Many start the race well and fail to last, but the believer's brightest moment still lies ahead.
And now give me this mountain, of which Jehovah spoke in that day; for thou heardest in that day that Anakim are there, and great fortified cities. If so be Jehovah shall be with me, then I shall dispossess them, as Jehovah said.
Israel is dividing up the land, and Caleb asks for the hill country where the Anakim still live — the giants who once terrified the spies. He is claiming a promise made forty-five years earlier, and he asks for it with the giants still in place.
(The quotes below use older translations. They say "this mountain" where the ESV says "hill country," and "Jehovah" where it says "the LORD.")
He had carried this promise through the whole wilderness journey. One writer notes that he never cut it down to fit the difficulty:
The poor pilgrim got stuck in the Slough of Despond, says the Dreamer. Someone came and showed him stones to step on. They kept him from sinking and brought him to solid ground. The Dreamer's only comment on this picture is the two words in the margin: "The promises." That was why he did not sink into the mire of unbelief like the others. Forty-five years after Caleb had been promised Kirjath-Arba as his own possession, he lodged his claim for it, and got it — giants, walls, and all.
Caleb names the one place the strongest enemy still holds:
Caleb claimed "this mountain," where the Anakim (giants) lived and who had great and fortified cities (v. 12). He did not look for the easiest place to take, but the opposite. It made no difference to him how strong the giants were: God was stronger than they. This was enough for him.
The rest of Israel had left this ground alone, which makes Caleb's choice more striking still:
He had then a right to pick and choose his inheritance from all the best of the land given to the fathers. After forty-five years of patience he chose that city, with the land around it, where the sons of Anak lived. It was there that the spies felt, with terror, how small they were. It is the only city named in Numbers 13 as being in the land, and it was the home of the giants. During seven years of fighting, Joshua and all Israel had left those giants alone.
The conditional phrase sounds like hesitation. Commentators read it the other way:
Caleb is a striking witness to us of one who was strong in the Lord and in the power of His might — here for conflict, as before for patient endurance in the wilderness. The words "if so be Jehovah will be with me" do not imply the least doubt of His presence and help in making God his hope. They are a devout and fitting expression of his own distrust of self. There was no covetousness in this, but confidence in the Lord, which made him value all the more what He had promised.
Long experience of God's help had not shifted Caleb's confidence onto himself:
Forty-five years of habitual reliance on God had not lifted his soul in old age into self-reliance. Nor had forty-five years of God's continued favour lessened in Caleb the sense that in God alone is our strength... Too many an aged Christian soldier seems to treat his long service as an excuse from the hour-by-hour dependence on God that won him his victories at the first. So "if the Lord be with us" gets exchanged for the boastful and degenerate, "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself" (Judges 16:20).
Caleb faces both giants and a mountain without flinching. One writer sees in him the mark of faith itself:
Here we have a man of the right sort, with a faith in God that does not give way before either giants or mountains... It is a faith you cannot measure by days or weeks, months or years. As to Caleb's history, notice that we get no record of his death. The Spirit's mind takes a different direction. It shows us that he neither grew old, nor grew feeble, nor became advanced in years, but wholly followed the Lord God of Israel, and was always young and strong.
The hill country Caleb asks for is Hebron, and its name shapes the application:
In answer to the faith of Caleb, Joshua blessed him and gave him Hebron as an inheritance (v. 13). Hebron means "communion," so Caleb pictures a man blessed with the special sweetness of communion with the One to whom he was devoted. It will be so with us too, if we do not shrink from the conflict of taking hold of what genuine faith obtains.
- Promise. Caleb claims a word spoken forty-five years earlier — and he claims it "giants, walls, and all."
- Choice. He asks for the hardest ground, not the easiest. The enemy's strength made no difference, because God was stronger.
- Dependence. "It may be that the LORD will be with me" is not doubt of God but distrust of self. Long service never excused Caleb from depending on God hour by hour.
- Strength. Faith does not age; Scripture records no decline and no death for Caleb, only that he wholly followed the Lord.
- Reward. The mountain he fought for was Hebron, whose name means communion — what faith gains only by refusing to shrink from the conflict.
And Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed Jehovah the God of Israel.
Joshua 14:14 closes the story of Caleb, who asked for the one part of Canaan still held by giants — and got it. The verse also says why the land was his: he wholly followed the LORD.
Caleb said this about himself. That sounds like a boast until you hear who else said it.
Do you know what Caleb said? "I wholly followed the LORD my God" (Joshua 14:8). Oh, you say, he was conceited. No, no, he was consecrated, not conceited. Hear what the Lord says about him: "But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it" (Num. 14:24). Then Moses says to him, "You have wholly followed the LORD my God" (Joshua 14:9). And then his comrade Joshua writes that he "blessed him … because he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel." If you get three witnesses like the Lord, Moses, and Joshua to testify to your devotedness, you will do.
Why would God honour a man like that?
Caleb, like his father Abraham, was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And we can say with full confidence: faith always honours God, so He always delights to honour faith.
Caleb waited a long time for this land. The wait shaped him.
Here we may notice how personal and individual a thing faith is; it was "me and you." Joshua and Caleb were the two who faced the rebellious assembly of unbelieving Israel at Kadesh-barnea. The same two — the same "me and you" — were talking earnestly about the same possession forty-five years later… Hebron seems to have been a famous stronghold of the Anakim. The difficulties in the way of its conquest only stirred up Caleb's courage and determination. He had waited forty-five years for the opportunity. Meanwhile faith had worked in him, producing patience, strength, and love for his nation. So he had not a hard word to say about the people whose unbelief had kept him out of his inheritance so long.
The name of the city tells what the reward really was.
In answer to the faith of Caleb, Joshua blessed him and gave him Hebron as an inheritance. Hebron means "communion," so Caleb is blessed with the special sweetness of communion with the One to whom he was devoted. It will be so with us too, if we do not shrink from the fight of taking the possessions that genuine faith obtains.
The giants who held that city picture what keeps people from that nearness.
Nowhere does the power of the enemy seem so great as there. Three sons of Anak (the "long-necked") oppose the possession of Hebron. They are children of pride, as we may easily imagine them. For what bars us from communion with God more than pride?
The verse calls Caleb "the Kenizzite." That word points to a family outside Israel.
Caleb was the son of Jephunneh, a Kenizzite. He had probably come from the mountains of southern Canaan and had attached himself to the tribe of Judah. So he was a stranger to the covenants of promise. He was one of the firstfruits of the Gentile harvest, of which there were many samples in the Old Testament. But his birth barrier did not stop him from being an Israelite in spirit. The apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians. He said they were once aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. But now, in Christ Jesus, they had been brought near by the blood of Christ. So they were no longer strangers but fellow citizens with the saints (Eph. 2).
Joshua's blessing reached past Caleb. The city got its old name back, and Caleb's own name suited the man.
Joshua blessed Caleb as he spoke; and a special blessing from Christ, our Leader, rests on every Caleb-like Christian. The Lord honoured Caleb's dependence on Himself. He drove the three sons of Anak out from there and struck Kiriath-arba. He gave the city back its old name, Hebron, which linked the place with the father of the faithful, and not with the great man among the giants. Caleb's name means a whelp — a young dog. Some see this as a mark of his faithfulness, for as the dog follows his master, so Caleb followed the Lord with true purpose. Whatever the name truly means, Caleb, the faithful man, had his portion in the great inheritance of Judah — "Praise."
- Wholly — Hebron came to Caleb because he followed the Lord fully. The Lord, Moses and Joshua all said so of him.
- Waited — other people's unbelief cost him forty-five years. He came through them without a bitter word.
- Won — giants held the land. Whole-hearted faith gets its portion, but never without a fight.
- Welcomed — "the Kenizzite" marks a stranger by birth who became an heir by faith. He is a pattern of all whom the blood of Christ brings near.
- With Him — Hebron means communion, the sweetness of nearness to God. Pride blocks it; faith that will not shrink from the fight takes it.
Now the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-Arba; the great man among the Anakim. And the land rested from war.
Joshua 14 ends with a name and a result. The city Caleb has just won once carried the name of the biggest giant who held it. Then comes one short line about the land resting from war.
The old name pointed to a man. It marked the town as the city of Arba, the greatest of the giants — and that is the man Caleb took it from.
Verse 15 tells us that Hebron was once called Kirjath Arba (city of Arba), and Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. So Caleb did not hesitate to drive out the greatest of the giants. When he did this, "the land had rest from war."
The verse looks back. Commentators point out that "Hebron" is not a new name replacing an old one. It is the first name coming back after the giants had held the city for a time.
The name "Hebron" is as old as "Kirjath Arba," only it appears at first to have been the name of a district. We read in Numbers 13:22, "Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." It had received the name of "Arba" from some great man among the Anakim. But in Genesis 13:18 we have "the plain of Mamre which is Hebron." So it is clear that "Hebron" was the local name of the city — its first name, perhaps from the district. Some great chief among the Anakim attached his name to it. That was only temporary, though it lasted while they held the city, as they did in Caleb's time. Caleb restored its ancient and true name.
The restored name also changed whose story the city belonged to.
The Lord honoured Caleb's dependence on Himself. He drove out the three sons of Anak and struck Kirjath-arba. He restored to the city its old name of Hebron. That name linked the place with the father of the faithful, and not with the great man among the giants.
The two names pull opposite ways. One speaks of fellowship. The other carries a giant's greatness — the very thing God brings down.
The name Hebron comes from a word for companionship, and the city stands throughout as the symbol of communion. But we have heard of it as in the hands of the Anakim, and even in Genesis as the city of Arba, the father of them all. The Anakim are the "long-necked," giants in stature, and children of pride… The word "Arba" is ordinary Hebrew for the numeral four, which easily carries the sense of "square, four-square," suited to the father of a giant race… It is on what is highest in nature that God puts the mark of nothingness and brings it down.
The same line closes chapter 11. Commentators call it a pattern: victory first, then enjoyment. The words that once closed a nation's war now follow one man's battle.
Joshua 11 closes with these words: "And the land had rest from war" (v. 23). It is always like this; peace follows victory. God not only gives us the victory, but lets us enjoy its fruits. The path of conflict, walked in faithfulness under the guidance of the Spirit, ends in the peaceful enjoyment of our heavenly blessings… What was true for the whole nation (see also Joshua 21:44) comes true in the same way for each believer. So after Caleb's victory it says: "And the land had rest from war" (Joshua 14:15).
The rest here follows one man's faith, and the good of it reaches far past him.
The Spirit of God sounds a note of joy after recording Caleb's faith and victory: "And the land had rest from war." When a Great-heart rises up in the church of God and strikes down the giants, there is rest from war.
Caleb's example points forward. Commentators apply his faithfulness to believers who are still waiting for their inheritance.
In our day of departure from God and unbelief, may we be like Caleb, "wholly following the LORD." We too wait in faith and patience for the promised inheritance. One day it will be ours, when He comes to reward His saints. Then, as Israel's land had rest from war (verse 15), we shall enter into our rest from strife and conflict.
- Name — The town was called Kiriath-arba, "city of Arba," after the greatest man among the Anakim. The giant's name lasted only as long as his grip on the place.
- Restored — Hebron was the older, true name. Caleb brought it back, so the city carried the name of the father of the faithful, not of a giant.
- Meaning — Hebron speaks of companionship, the symbol of communion. God marks what is highest in nature as nothing and brings it down.
- Order — Peace follows victory. God gives the win, then gives the enjoyment of it — to the whole nation, and to each believer.
- Reach — One man struck the giants, and a whole land rested. That rest points on to our rest from all conflict, when Christ comes.