Still Strong After All These Years

So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’ “Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. Joshua 14:9-13

As the land is being allotted to the tribes Caleb speaks up to claim the specific land that was promised to him by Moses. Caleb was one of the 12 spies sent into the Promised Land to check out the land and its inhabitants. They left Kadesh-barnea and headed for the hill country before them. They spy out Hebron, about 70 miles from Kadesh-barnea, and the valley of Eshcol north of Hebron where they picked off the cluster of grapes to bring back to Moses. Caleb and Joshua give positive reports of the land, but the rest of the spies fear the giant Anakites and give negative reports that melt the hearts of the people and they rebel against the Lord, resulting in Israel wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Now the wandering is over and Israel has taken the land. Caleb, forty-five years later, still stands on God’s promise to go before them and fight for him and clear out the Anakites as he does not hesitate to take Hebron as his inheritance.