Joshua 14:6

CALEB’S INHERITANCE, Joshua 14:6-15.

6. Children of Judah came Caleb was of the tribe of Judah, and probably by his request the elders of his own tribe accompany him to Gilgal, lest they might suspect that he was using his office of commissioner to carve out a splendid portion for himself. They may have seconded his petition as having an important bearing on the question of their own portion, which would naturally contain the tract of Caleb, their tribesman, so that the granting of his request would virtually establish southern Canaan as their lot. Caleb was one of the two spies so famous for their faith in Jehovah, and for their courage and independence in making a very unpopular minority report, for which they narrowly escaped stoning at the hands of the infuriated people. Numbers 14:6-10. They were spared in the ensuing plague which swept off the faithless ten, and were also excepted when Moses declared that none who were above twenty years old when they came out of Egypt should enter Canaan. Numbers 14:29-30.

Kenezite That is, a son of Kenaz. He was a pure Hebrew, not an Edomite.

Kadesh-barnea Joshua 10:41, note.

7. Forty years old was I When, in the plains of Moab near the banks of the Jordan, Moses numbered Israel, not a man was left of those who had heard the law thundered from Sinai, save these two veterans who now stand face to face, Caleb and Joshua. Numbers 26:63. The desert of the sojourn had been the nation’s tomb. Joshua had succeeded Moses as leader of the tribes; Caleb now comes forward to claim the patrimony that had been promised by Jehovah to him.

In mine heart Heart means here not the affections solely, but the understanding. See note on Romans 10:10. He made his report a perfect transcript of things as he saw them, uncoloured by cowardice, or faithlessness to Jehovah, or compliance with the people.