Joshua 14 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~1400 BC, roughly forty five years after the spying mission Moses sent from Kadesh Barnea
Location
Gilgal, where the allotment begins, and Hebron in the southern hill country about 20 miles south of Jerusalem
Audience
Israelites in Canaan, especially the clans of Judah who traced their land back to this moment
Situation
The division of land west of the Jordan begins by casting lots. Caleb, now eighty five, comes forward to claim the hill country of Hebron that Moses promised him for bringing back a faithful report as a spy, including its fortified towns and the intimidating Anakim.
Key Background
Casting lots was understood as letting God decide rather than letting the strongest tribe choose, which removed human favoritism from a decision that would shape families for centuries. Caleb is repeatedly called a Kenizzite, meaning his line joined Israel from outside, so the most prominent individual land claim in the book belongs to someone with a foreign background. The Anakim were remembered as unusually tall inhabitants of the southern hills, and it was fear of them that caused the earlier generation's refusal to enter the land.
Here is what the people of Israel received as their in — what the Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the ancestral clans of the Israelite tribes distributed to them.
Their land was assigned by just as Yahweh had commanded through Moses — for the nine and a half tribes.
Moses had already given land to the other two and a half tribes on the east side of the Jordan, but he hadn't given any land among them to the
The descendants of Joseph had become two tribes — Manasseh and — and the Levites weren't given any territory of their own. They only received towns to live in, with for their herds and flocks.
The people of Israel did exactly what Yahweh had commanded Moses — that's how they divided up the land.
The people of Judah came to Joshua at and Caleb son of Jephunneh the said to him, "You know what Yahweh said to Moses, the of about you and me at
"I was forty years old when Moses, Yahweh's servant, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to out the land. I brought back an honest report — I told him exactly what I thought."
"My brothers who went up with me the their but I my with my
"That day Moses made a 'The land your feet have walked on will belong to you and your descendants forever, because you followed Yahweh my God with your whole heart.'"
"And now look — Yahweh has kept me alive, just as he said he would, for forty-five years since Yahweh made that promise to Moses while Israel was traveling through the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old."
"I'm still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. My for battle and for everything else is exactly the same as it was then."
"So give me this that Yahweh promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the live there in large, But if Yahweh is with me, I'll drive them out, just as he said."
Joshua a of Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him as his
That's why Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this — because he the of with
Hebron used to be called — named after Arba, the among the Anakim. And the from