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.