Joshua 14:6-15

14:6 The men of Judah approached Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said about you and me to Moses, the man of God, at Kadesh Barnea. ¹  14:7 I was forty years old when Moses, the Lord’s servant, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy on the land and I brought back to him an honest report. ²  14:8 My countrymen ³  who accompanied ⁴  me frightened the people, ⁵  but I remained loyal to the Lord my God. ⁶  14:9 That day Moses made this solemn promise: ⁷  ‘Surely the land on which you walked ⁸  will belong to you and your descendants permanently, ⁹  for you remained loyal to the Lord your God.’ 14:10 So now, look, the Lord has preserved my life, just as he promised, these past forty-five years since the Lord spoke these words to Moses, during which Israel traveled through the wilderness. Now look, I am today eighty-five years old. 14:11 Today I am still as strong as when Moses sent me out. I can fight and go about my daily activities with the same energy I had then. ¹⁰  14:12 Now, assign me this hill country which the Lord promised me at that time! No doubt you heard at that time that the Anakites live there in large, fortified cities. ¹¹  But, assuming the Lord is with me, I will conquer ¹²  them, as the Lord promised.” 14:13 Joshua asked God to empower Caleb son of Jephunneh and assigned him Hebron. ¹³  14:14 So Hebron remains the assigned land of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this very day ¹⁴  because he remained loyal to the Lord God of Israel. 14:15 (Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba. Arba was a famous Anakite. ¹⁵ ) Then the land was free of war.

Numbers 13:30

13:30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses, saying, “Let us go up ¹⁶  and occupy it, ¹⁷  for we are well able to conquer it.” ¹⁸ 

Numbers 14:23-24

14:23 they will by no means ¹⁹  see the land that I swore to their fathers, nor will any of them who despised me see it. 14:24 Only my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit and has followed me fully – I will bring him into the land where he had gone, and his descendants ²⁰  will possess it.

Deuteronomy 1:34-36

Judgment at Kadesh Barnea

1:34 When the Lord heard you, he became angry and made this vow: ²¹  1:35 “Not a single person ²²  of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors! 1:36 The exception is Caleb son of Jephunneh; ²³  he will see it and I will give him and his descendants the territory on which he has walked, because he has wholeheartedly followed me.” ²⁴ 

[14:6]  ¹ tn Heb “You know the word which the Lord spoke to Moses, the man of God, because of me and because of you in Kadesh Barnea.”

[14:7]  ² tn Heb “and I brought back to him a word just as [was] in my heart.”

[14:8]  ³ tn Heb “brothers.”

[14:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “went up with.”

[14:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “made the heart[s] of the people melt.”

[14:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “I filled up after the Lord my God,” an idiomatic statement meaning that Caleb remained loyal to the Lord.

[14:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “swore an oath.”

[14:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “on which your foot has walked.”

[14:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “will belong to you for an inheritance, and to your sons forever.”

[14:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like my strength then, like my strength now, for battle and for going out and coming in.”

[14:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “are there and large, fortified cities.”

[14:12]  ¹² tn Or “will dispossess.”

[14:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb son of Jephunneh as an inheritance.”

[14:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Therefore Hebron belongs to Caleb son of Jephunneh for an inheritance to this day.”

[14:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “And he was the great man among the Anakites.”

[13:30]  ¹⁶ tn The construction is emphatic, using the cohortative with the infinitive absolute to strengthen it: עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה (’aloh na’aleh, “let us go up”) with the sense of certainty and immediacy.

[13:30]  ¹⁷ tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive brings the cohortative idea forward: “and let us possess it”; it may also be subordinated to form a purpose or result idea.

[13:30]  ¹⁸ tn Here again the confidence of Caleb is expressed with the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense: יָכוֹל נוּכַל (yakhol nukhal), “we are fully able” to do this. The verb יָכַל (yakhal) followed by the preposition lamed means “to prevail over, to conquer.”

[14:23]  ¹⁹ tn The word אִם (’im) indicates a negative oath formula: “if” means “they will not.” It is elliptical. In a human oath one would be saying: “The Lord do to me if they see…,” meaning “they will by no means see.” Here God is swearing that they will not see the land.

[14:24]  ²⁰ tn Heb “seed.”

[1:34]  ²¹ tn Heb “and swore,” i.e., made an oath or vow.

[1:35]  ²² tn Heb “Not a man among these men.”

[1:36]  ²³ sn Caleb had, with Joshua, brought back to Israel a minority report from Canaan urging a conquest of the land, for he was confident of the Lord’s power (Num 13:6, 8, 16, 30; 14:30, 38).

[1:36]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun (“me”) has been employed in the translation, since it sounds strange to an English reader for the Lord to speak about himself in third person.