14
📚And these are the regions which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the tribes of the fathers of the children of Israel allotted as an inheritance to them. 2 📚Their inheritance (for the nine tribes and for the half tribe) was by lot, just as the LORD commanded through Moses.14:2 Num 26:55-56; Prov 16:33. In this way God Himself was the one who allotted an inheritance to each tribe, to each family. It was never a matter of personal choice. Now too God gives to each believer what He, in His wisdom, sees he should have in the matter of spiritual gifts as he serves in the heavenly places (Rom 12:6; 1 Cor 12:4-11). And God determines our place in Christ’s Body, the Church (1 Cor 12:14-26).⚜
3 📚For Moses had given the inheritance of two and a half tribes on the other side of the Jordan. But he did not give any inheritance among them to the Levites 📖. 4 📚For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim 📖; so they gave no portion in the land to the Levites, except cities to live in, with their pasture lands for their livestock and for their property. 5 📚The children of Israel did just as the LORD commanded Moses, and they allotted the land.
Allotment of Hebron to Caleb
6 📚Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said to him, “You know the word that the LORD spoke to Moses the man of God concerning me and you in Kadesh-Barnea.
14:6 Num 14:6-9, 24, 30; 32:11-12. This took place 45 years before but it was still fresh in the mind of the 85-year-old Caleb.⚜
7 📚I was forty years old when the LORD’s servant Moses sent me from Kadesh-Barnea to spy out the land; and I brought him back word just as it was in my heart. 8 📚Nevertheless my brothers who went up with me caused the heart of the people to melt, but I fully followed the LORD my God. 9 📚And that day Moses gave an oath, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance, and your children’s, forever, because you have fully followed the LORD my God.’
10 📚“And now, see, the LORD has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years, ever since the LORD spoke this word to Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the desert. And now, look, today I am eighty-five years old.
14:10 This was 7 years after Israel under Joshua moved into Canaan.⚜
11 📚Yet I am as strong today as I was on the day that Moses sent me. My strength now is the same as my strength was then, for war and to go out and come in. 12 📚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 large and fortified. If the LORD will be with me, then I will be able to drive them out, just as the LORD said”.
14:11-12 Caleb maintained his spiritual vitality and faith right into old age. Even then he did not look for an easy way, but for more opportunities to serve the Lord in difficult places. He is an example to all who are advanced in years. The Bible has messages for the old, as well as for everyone else. See Ps 92:12-15; Isa 40:29-31; 46:4.⚜
13 📚And Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance. 14 📚Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite to this day, because he fully followed the LORD God of Israel.
14:13-14 Caleb was the only individual, except Joshua (Josh 19:49-50), who was permitted to choose his inheritance. These were the only two left alive of all the generation, aged 20 years and over, that came out of Egypt.⚜
15 📚And previously the name of Hebron was Kirjath-Arba (this Arba was a great man among the Anakim). And the land had rest from war.