Caleb Receives Hebron

The event

Forty-five years earlier, Caleb had been one of the twelve spies Moses sent into Canaan, and one of only two — along with Joshua — who brought back a faithful report trusting God to give Israel the land despite its fortified cities and intimidating inhabitants. For that faithfulness, Moses had promised Caleb that the land he had walked as a spy would one day be his inheritance.

Now, at the division of the land, Caleb reminded Joshua of that promise and asked specifically for the hill country around Hebron — territory still held by the Anakim, a people so formidable that the other ten spies had once compared themselves to grasshoppers beside them. At eighty-five, Caleb declared he was as strong as he had been at forty and asked simply for the chance to drive them out himself, which he did, an old man still walking by the same faith he had shown as a young one.

Caleb's daughter Achsah was later given in marriage to Othniel after he captured the town of Debir, and at Achsah's request Caleb granted the couple springs of water alongside their inheritance — a warm, human detail that bridges the conquest generation directly into the era of the judges, since Othniel would become Israel's first judge.

Scripture references

• Joshua 14:6-15
• Joshua 15:13-19