The Father Gives Israel Its Inheritance
The land is divided by lot as our Father commanded, but Caleb walks up and asks for a specific piece. At eighty-five he wants the hill country with the giants in it, on the strength of a promise made forty-five years earlier. Joshua gives him Hebron.
14 1These are the inheritances Israel's people received in Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of Israel's ancestral tribes distributed to them. 2By lot, as our Father commanded through Moses, they received their inheritance—for the nine tribes and the half-tribe. 3For Moses had given the two tribes and half-tribe their inheritance beyond the Jordan, but gave the Levites no inheritance among them. 4For Joseph's sons were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. The Levites got no share of the land, only towns to live in, with pasturelands for their livestock and property. 5So the people of Israel did as our Father had commanded Moses, and they divided the land.
Caleb Receives the Father's Promise
6Judah's people came to Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite told him, "You know what our Father said to Moses, the man of our Father, about you and me at Kadesh-barnea. 7I was forty when Moses, servant of our Father, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to scout the land, and I brought him back a report as was in my heart. 8But the fellow scouts who went up with me melted the people's hearts with fear, while I fully followed my Father. 9That day Moses swore to me: 'Surely the land your foot walked will be your inheritance and your children's forever, because you completely followed my Father.'
10Now, our Father has kept me alive forty-five years, as he promised, from the time he spoke this word to Moses when Israel wandered in the wilderness. Here I am today, eighty-five years old. 11Today I'm as strong as the day Moses sent me out; my strength now equals my strength then—for battle, for going out and coming in. 12So give me this hill country our Father spoke of that day. You heard then that Anakim were there, with great, fortified cities. Perhaps our Father will be with me, and I'll drive them out, as he said."
13Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. 14So Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, since he followed our Father, the God of Israel, completely. 15Hebron was formerly named Kiriath-arba, for Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war.
