we are again reminded that there is no inheritance either in earth or in heaven that is not

associated with the Cross of Christ.

Before the tribe as a whole come forward to receive their portion, Caleb is heard and

rewarded. Caleb makes his appeal to Joshua and bases everything upon "the thing that

the Lord said". He refers to an oath sworn by Moses. Most marginal notes refer back to

Deut. 1: 34-36, but the words quoted by Caleb in Josh. 14: 9 are not found in this

passage. This need not cause us a moment's anxiety, for it is exactly in line with the fact

that nowhere in the O.T. do we read that Abraham had any knowledge of the heavenly

Jerusalem, yet Heb. 11: assures us that he had.

Caleb was forty years old when the promise was made to him in Kadesh-Barnea, and

now he is eighty-five. The Lord had kept His word. Although, as Psalm 90: tells us,

those who fell in the wilderness averaged about threescore years and ten (and any

reaching fourscore years would only find labour and sorrow), yet Caleb found the Lord

his Shield and Buckler, and was delivered from "the snare of the fowler" and the

"noisome pestilence". He had had no need to fear the "terror by night", nor the "arrow

that flieth by day". A thousand might fall by his side and ten thousand at his right hand,

but no harm could come near him. With long life the Lord had promises to satisfy him,

and so at eighty-five years of age he can say:

To Caleb was given the mountain which included the city named Hebron. This city

had hallowed associations. After Abraham's separation from Lot and the command,

"Arise, walk through the land", he removed his tent to the "plain of Mamre, which is in

Hebron" (Gen. 13: 18). Here also Sarah died, as we read in Gen. 23: 2: "And Sarah

died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan". In Hebron, also, in the

cave of Machpelah were buried Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah

(Gen. 49: 29-33). We are reminded both in Gen. 23: and in Josh. 14: that Hebron

had borne another name, Kirjath-arba, the city of Arba, one of the Anakims, or Giants.

At the time of which we are speaking, it was in the possession of three sons of Anak who

were driven out by Caleb (Josh. 15: 14).

There is an important statement in Josh. 14: 15 which we must now consider: "And

the land had rest from war." The same words are found in Josh. 11: 23, when Joshua

"took the whole land". The Companion Bible, in Appendix 50/4: has the following note:

Here we have brought together two features of great importance. The first is the

association of Joshua from this time onward with the Priest. The immediate necessity for

the intervention of Eleazar was probably the fact that he only could divide the country