The land of Canaan was to be divided among the tribes and Eleazar, the priest, Joshua and the heads of the tribes met to allocate the land by lot as Moses had been commanded by the LORD (v1,2)
There were the two and a half tribes on the eastern side and nine and a half on the western side. The Levites were not allocated an inheritance but to make the total of twelve, Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh were each allotted an inheritance. The Levites would be allotted cities and and the common lands for their livestock and property (v3-5).
Enter Caleb, (v6-9) the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite. He reminded Joshua of the word of The LORD to Moses and himself at Kadesh Barnea, “I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God. So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.’”
Caleb and Joshua were the two spies, of the twelve sent out by Moses into the Promised Land, who came back with a good report in Numbers 13, when the other ten brought an unfavourable report. The Israelites believed the ten and were discouraged by the report of the giants and doubted and as a result they wondered around in the wilderness, as The LORD ’waited for them to die’. (Numbers 14)
The LORD said that none of the people would enter the land except Caleb and Joshua who were totally confident in the LORD’s ability to defeat the enemy and take them into the land.
How important it is that we ‘wholly follow The LORD’ as Caleb did.
Caleb aged eighty-five, asserts that the LORD had kept him alive for a further forty-five years, since the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness. Here I am, “As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the LORD said.” (v11,12)
What a testimony to The LORD’s keeping power! Strength not diminished, faith in God undeterred. His strength was in God and more so because he didn’t ask for an easy ride, he asked for a mountain and to fight the Anakim (giants). This was because he wholeheartedly followed The LORD.
On hearing this Joshua blessed him and gave him Hebron as an inheritance. Hebron was formerly Kirjath-Arba (Arba the greatest man among the Anakim). Then the land has rest from war. (v10-15)
Age should not be a deterrent to us in the LORD’s service, we may decline bodily but our strength in the LORD must not.
