These are the inheritances that the people of Israel received in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel gave them to inherit. 2 Their inheritance was by lot, just as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses for the nine and one-half tribes. 3 For Moses had given an inheritance to the two and one-half tribes beyond the Jordan, but to the Levites he gave no inheritance among them. 4 For the people of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. And no portion was given to the Levites in the land, but only cities to dwell in, with their pasturelands for their livestock and their substance. 5 The people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses; they allotted the land. 6 Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. 7 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 him word again as it was in my heart. 8 But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. 9 And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ 10 And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. 11 I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. 12 So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.” 13 Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. 14 Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel.15 Now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba. (Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim.) And the land had rest from war.
Five times in this passage, Caleb refers to what the Lord promises him; that shows you where his hope is. His confidence is not in himself, not in his fighting, but in God’s promise…Faith demands an object, and the object is the Lord and His Word. Caleb’s was a faith that would not be deterred even after long years seeing many battles, victories and defeats and even having to tromp around the wilderness to no fault of his own, and yet…his faith was strong.
And Caleb asks for the land that was still occupied by the Anakim, the giants! He says, give me the mountain. It was his choice to ask for Hebron, he WANTED to go up to those giants, he asked for the land and to face the very giants that had before sent terror to the very bones of God’s people. Dr. Ralph Davis puts it this way: “It is as if Caleb says to Joshua: You remember the sneers you and I heard that day when the other ten spies brought the majority report? Remember all that whimpering about large, fortified cities and large swaggering Anakim? And how all they could say for days was, ‘we are not able, we are not able? Well, Joshua, give me the mountain!”
What caused Israel to shrink from the task is what gave Caleb the desire to take it up. He is running in, when everyone else is running out.
The difficulty of the task is what stimulated Caleb to ask for Hebron. And don’t think that this was because Caleb was an optimist and the others were pessimists. It was because Caleb was a believer and the others were not.
Now, let’s pause for just a minute. What is it in your life that causes your faith to cower? Where is found the fortress in front of which you find yourself discouraged, not encouraged? What causes your faith to seemingly slip away? More than likely, you know what it is, you know the sin that you so long have fought against but have been unable to overcome…the sin that makes you less than you ought to be, the sin that has time and time again sent you to the sidelines. Are you still fighting? Are you taking new ground, possessing new territory? Do you know what AW Tozer was talking about when he commends to us, a holy discontentment?
Are we as individuals, families and as a church saying to the Lord, we do not want to be in the same place in 10 years that we are now? And, as everything else, this is not simply about you as an individual, this has generational implications as all God’s truth does. A generation that takes the land will find a generation growing up to defend that land and push its rights further only if that first generation fights to the end of the day and sets an example for their children, an example like Caleb that shows the godly life as a life of perseverance.
Unfortunately, Israel did not follow Caleb’s example. Just as they did not follow his advice 40 years before, so they will not follow his example now. The book of Judges tells the sad, sad story of this reality. They did not remove all of the enemy in their lands as Caleb did at Hebron. And these who were allowed to remain would rise up and lead God’s people into deep darkness. This stands in contrast to Caleb.
We read in chapter 17 of Ephraim and Manasseh when they were awarded their land, instead of giving thanks to the Lord, they complained about it…they didn’t want to live in the hill country, they wanted to live in the valley. In Caleb’s speech we hear over and over again about all that the Lord had promised and how he would follow the Lord even when it was unpopular and how big obstacles were seen only as an opportunity for the Lord to prove His word again!
What a contrast to what we find from these tribes in chapter 17! In chapter 17 the two tribes make up a large number of fighting men and yet they lack zeal and courage, they lack persevering faith! Joshua said to them in effect, “Well, if you don’t think your land is enough, then take more of the land of the Canaanites who still lived there! That is what you are supposed to do anyway!” And then they complained about the military prowess of those Canaanites still there…they STILL are faithless against their circumstances.” They hadn’t the persevering heart that Caleb had, they hadn’t his readiness to take on the enemies of the church. They are apprehensive, afraid and not trusting of the Lord. They felt they had fought long enough, even though the work was not yet done…they decided that THEY were done.
Will we be content with what we have acquired to this point? Will we lay down our sword, thinking all is well, this is enough, I am tired, this cross is getting heavy and this road is way too narrow. We don’t have a piece of real estate to capture but we do have an old enemy in our heart that still needs to be driven out. Will we be a Caleb in our later years? Will we be one described as wholly following the Lord well into our eighties? There is only one way to be Caleb then and that is to be Caleb now.
Peter says something to us in his second epistle that we often race right by. He tells us that we are to add to our faith, goodness, and to goodness, knowledge and to knowledge, self-control and to self-control, perseverance and to perseverance, godliness and to godliness, brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness, love.
But then he says a most powerful thing, “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of the Lord Jesus Xp.”
It is not enough to know the importance of such virtues or to have them in some distant way. You are to have them in increasing measure. They are to be growing in our lives, deepening, becoming stronger and more and more a part of the very fabric of who we are! Why? Because in persevering we are kept from being ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge of Christ.
Peter is saying something very similar to what Caleb’s life illustrates; to fill our short lives with that which pleases the Lord and to be seeking it in increasing measure. We are tempted to settle for so little, we are tempted to give into self-satisfaction with where we are and to think that is enough, I believe in Jesus, therefore I am going to heaven…the end.
How many of us could say that we were at one time in our lives much more eager to put sin to death than we are today? How many of us can say that we have gotten…well…comfortable maybe even complacent? How many of us have settled in, and have little to no intention of anything changing all that much…no intention of stoking the flames of holiness, awe and wonder of who Jesus is and how to love him more?
I hope Caleb is an encouragement to you, and encouragement to persevere, to stoke the fire of faith so that what at times feels to be small embers can be fed to be ablaze!
Prayer: Father, help me to persevere in holiness; Even this day may I see what is before me as Your gifts and the context in which I live to Your glory, honor and praise. Help me that I would not be distracted, by either the evils and glitter of the world or the wanton desires of my own heart. Father, I would not settle for little when You have called me to inherit all things in Christ Jesus. When it comes to holiness, honor, virtue and being pleasing to my Savior, give me a holy discontentment, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: If You But Trust in God to Guide You
