Caleb the Son of Jephunneh

2023-03-26

Caleb was one of the toughest men in the Bible, both spiritually and physically. His fame started when he went up to Kadeshbarnea and ten of his companions complained about the strength of the people, the walled villages, and the giants in the land of Canaan. Unlike them, Caleb was ready to fight. “And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30). “If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not” (Numbers 14:8-9).

As a result, the Lord said of Caleb, “But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it” (Numbers 14:24). Let us all be of “another spirit” from our generation. Caleb along with Joshua were the only two of their generation to enter the promised land of hundreds of thousands.

Once in the land, Caleb was given Hebron, formerly Kirjatharba, a land of giants for his possession “...because that he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel” (Joshua 14:14). At the age of 85, he drove out three giants that dwelt there. He promised his daughter Achsah to a man mighty enough to take Kirjathsepher. Othniel took it and became his son-in-law, and later became a judge over Israel. Only such a man would be allowed to marry his daughter. He gave his daughter springs of water also.

Unfortunately, not every descendant of Caleb was as he; Nabal was of his genealogy (1 Samuel 25:3).

Caleb was a man who did what was right even when it was not popular. We see a man of faith and a man of strength. At 85, he was fighting giants. “And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in” (Joshua 14:10-11). Let this be us.