Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 2.djvu/72

68 In allusion to this, we are said to obtain an inheritance in Christ, Eph. 1. 11., we have obtained it by lot. So the word signifies; for it is obtained by a divine designation. Christ, our Joshua, gives eternal life to as many as were given him, John 17. 2.

6. Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea. 7. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. 8. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the my God. 9. And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the my God. 10. And now, behold, the hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the  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. 11. 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. 12. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the  will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the  said. 13. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, Hebron for an inheritance. 14. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the God of Israel. 15. And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-arba: which Arba was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war.

Before the lot was cast into the lap for the determining of the portions of the respective tribes, the particular portion of Caleb is assigned him, who was now, except Joshua, not only the oldest man in all Israel, but was twenty years older than any of them, for all that were above twenty years old when he was forty, were dead in the wilderness; it was fit therefore that this phoenix of his age should have some particular marks of honour put upon him in the dividing of the land. Now,

I. Caleb here presents his petition, or rather, makes his demand, to have Hebron given him for a possession, (this mountain, he calls it, v. 12.) and not to have that put into the lot with the other parts of the country. To justify his demand, he shows that God had long since, by Moses, promised him that very mountain; so that God's mind being already made known in this matter, it would be a vain and needless thing to consult it any further by casting lots, by which we are to appeal to God in those cases only which,which - the comma migrated from the next "which" where it was located in the 1811 London edition [sic] cannot otherwise be decided, not in those whichwhich, [sic] like this here, are already determined. Caleb is here called the Kenezite, some think, from some remarkable victory obtained by him over the Kenezites, as the Romans gave their great generals titles from the countries they conquered, as Africanus, Germanicus, &c.

To enforce his petition, 1. He brings the children of Judah, that is, the heads and great men of that tribe, along with him, to present it, who were willing thus to pay their respects to that ornament of their tribe, and to testify their consent that he should be provided for by himself, and that they would not take it as any reflection upon the rest of his tribe. Caleb was the person whom God had chosen out of that tribe to be employed in dividing the land, Numb. 34. 19. And therefore, lest he should seem to improve his authority as a commissioner for his own private advantage and satisfaction, he brings his brethren along with him, and waving his own power, seems rather to rely upon their interest. 2. He appeals to Joshua himself concerning the truth of the allegations, upon which he grounded his petition. Thou knowest the thing, v. 6. 3. He makes a very honourable mention of Moses, which he knew would not be at all unpleasing to Joshua, Moses the man of God, v. 6. and the servant of the Lord, v. 7. What Moses said, he took as from God himself, because Moses was his mouth, and his agent, and therefore he had reason both to desire and expect it should be made good. What can be more earnestly desired than the tokens of God's favour? And what more confidently expected than the grants of his promise?

Caleb, in his petition, sets forth,

(1.) The testimony of his conscience concerning his integrity in the management of that great affair, on which it proved the fate of Israel turned, the spying out of the land. Caleb was one of the twelve that were sent out on that errand, v. 7. and he now reflected upon it with comfort, and mentioned it, not in pride, but as that which, being the consideration of the grant, was necessary to be inserted in the plea. [1.] That he made his report as it was in his heart, that is, he spake as he thought, when he spake so honourably of the land of Canaan, so confidently of the power of God to put them in possession of it, and so contemptibly of the opposition that the Canaanites, even the Anakims themselves, could make against them, as we find he did, Numb. 13. 30.—14. 7··9. He did not do it merely to please Moses, or to keep the people quiet, much less from a spirit of contradiction to his fellows, but from a full conviction of the truth of what he said, and a firm belief of the divine promise. [2.] That herein he wholly followed the Lord his God, that is, he kept close to his duty, and sincerely aimed at the glory of God in it. He conformed himself to the divine will with an eye to the divine favour. He had obtained this testimony from God himself, Numb. 14. 24. and therefore it was not vain-glory in him to speak of it, any more than it is for those who have God's Spirit witnessing with their spirits that they are the children of God, humbly and thankfully to tell others for their encouragement what God has done for their souls. Note, They that follow God fully when they are young, shall have both the credit and comfort of it when they are old, and the reward of it for ever in the heavenly Canaan. [3.] That he did this when all his