Joshua 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter opens the account of how the land west of the Jordan was divided among the Israelite tribes, assigned by lot by Eleazar the priest, Joshua, and the family heads, with no land share for the Levites beyond towns and pasture. Caleb then comes to Joshua at Gilgal and recalls Moses' oath at Kadesh-barnea that the ground he walked on as a spy would be his. At eighty-five he says his strength is unchanged and asks for the hill country where the Anakim live in walled cities. Joshua blesses him and gives him Hebron, and the land has rest from war.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • These are the inheritances that the children of Israel received in the land of Canaan.
   • Eleazar the priest distributed these inheritances to them.
   • Joshua the son of Nun distributed these inheritances to them.
   • The heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed these inheritances to them.
2. 14:2
   • Their inheritance was assigned by lot.
   • The LORD had commanded this by the hand of Moses.
   • The inheritance by lot was for the nine tribes and the half tribe.
3. 14:3
   • Moses had given the inheritance of two tribes and a half tribe on the other side of the Jordan.
   • Moses gave the Levites no inheritance among them.
4. 14:4
   • The children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim.
   • They gave the Levites no portion in the land.
   • They gave the Levites cities to dwell in.
   • They gave the Levites the open pasture lands around those cities for their livestock and their possessions.
5. 14:5
   • The children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses.
   • They divided the land.
6. 14:6
   • The children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal.
   • Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite spoke to Joshua.
   • Caleb said that Joshua knew the thing the LORD said to Moses the man of God.
   • Caleb said that word concerned Caleb and Joshua.
   • Caleb said that word was spoken at Kadesh-barnea.
7. 14:7
   • Caleb said he was forty years old when Moses sent him.
   • Caleb said Moses the servant of the LORD sent him from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land.
   • Caleb said he brought Moses back word as it was in his heart.
8. 14:8
   • Caleb said his brothers who went up with him made the heart of the people melt.
   • Caleb said he wholly followed the LORD his God.
9. 14:9
   • Caleb said Moses swore an oath on that day.
   • Caleb said Moses swore that the land Caleb's foot had trodden on would be Caleb's inheritance.
   • Caleb said Moses swore that land would be his children's inheritance forever.
   • Caleb said the reason given was that Caleb had wholly followed the LORD, called by Moses 'my God'.
10. 14:10
    • Caleb said the LORD had kept him alive as he said.
    • Caleb said forty-five years had passed since the LORD spoke this word to Moses.
    • Caleb said Israel walked in the wilderness during that time.
    • Caleb said he was eighty-five years old that day.
11. 14:11
    • Caleb said he was still as strong that day as on the day Moses sent him.
    • Caleb said his strength then and his strength now were the same.
    • Caleb said his strength was for war and for going out and coming in.
12. 14:12
    • Caleb asked Joshua to give him this hill country.
    • Caleb said the LORD spoke of it on that day.
    • Caleb said Joshua himself heard on that day that the Anakim were there.
    • Caleb said Joshua heard that the cities were great and fortified.
    • Caleb said that perhaps the LORD would be with him and he would drive them out, as the LORD had said.
13. 14:13
    • Joshua blessed Caleb.
    • Joshua gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance.
14. 14:14
    • Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day.
    • The reason was that Caleb wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel.
15. 14:15
    • The name of Hebron before was Kiriath-arba.
    • Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim.
    • The land had rest from war.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1

"Received as their own" translates a Hebrew legal term (nachalah) for a permanent family holding passed down through the generations. It is not property left by someone who died; it means a portion allotted and held for good. Eleazar was Aaron's son and Israel's chief priest at this time.

14:2

Casting lots meant drawing marked stones or sticks to settle a question. The point was that no human negotiator chose who got what; the outcome was treated as the LORD's decision and so could not be contested.

14:3

The two and a half tribes east of the Jordan were Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh, who had asked Moses for that grazing land (Numbers 32). The Levites were the tribe set apart for duties at the sanctuary; they were supported by the offerings brought by the other tribes rather than by farming a territory of their own.

14:4

This explains the arithmetic. Levi received no territory, which would leave eleven; but Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, each counted as a full tribe, so the land was still divided twelve ways. The pastureland was a belt of open ground around each Levite town, held in common for animals and equipment.

14:6

Gilgal was Israel's base camp near Jericho. "Kenizzite" marks Caleb's clan, which appears elsewhere as an Edomite group (Genesis 36:11) absorbed into the tribe of Judah, so Caleb may have been an outsider by descent and an Israelite by adoption. "Man of God" was a standard title for a prophet. Kadesh-barnea was an oasis in the desert south of Canaan, the staging point for the mission Caleb describes next.

14:7

The mission is told in Numbers 13. Twelve scouts, one per tribe, went into Canaan for forty days; ten came back saying the land could not be taken, and only Caleb and Joshua said otherwise. The people sided with the ten, and that refusal is why the generation spent forty years in the desert.

14:8

"Made the heart of the people melt" is a Hebrew idiom for collapse of nerve, the courage draining out of a crowd. The panic that followed the scouts' report is why that whole generation spent forty years in the desert instead of entering the land.

14:9

"The land where you set your foot" was a standard legal expression for taking legal possession of ground, not a claim about the exact patch Caleb happened to walk on.

14:10

The forty-five years covers thirty-eight more years of desert wandering after the scouting mission plus roughly seven years of fighting in Canaan. Caleb was forty at the mission (verse 7), which makes him eighty-five now.

14:11

"Going out and coming in" is a Hebrew idiom for active service, especially leading troops out on campaign and bringing them home again. Caleb is claiming he can still command in the field.

14:12

The Anakim were a people remembered as unusually tall and formidable; the scouts' report about them in Numbers 13:33 is what frightened Israel off. "Walled" cities were towns ringed by defensive walls, which meant they had to be besieged rather than simply attacked, the reason the scouts thought the land unconquerable. Caleb is asking for the hardest territory, not the easiest.

14:13

A blessing here is a formal spoken act, part of confirming the grant, not just a good wish. Hebron sits in the high country about twenty miles south of Jerusalem; it was where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were buried, and it later became David's first capital.

14:14

"Unto this day" is the writer speaking from his own later time, telling readers that Caleb's descendants still held Hebron when the account was written down.

14:15

Kiriath-arba means "town of Arba," named after the man. The phrase translated "greatest man" can mean greatest in rank or greatest in size, and the Hebrew leaves both open. "The land had rest from war" is a recurring formula in these books marking the end of a campaign and a settled period afterward.