Joshua 14:7

Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadeshbarnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) Forty years old was I . . . and (10) I am this day fourscore and five years old.—In this speech we have the only direct evidence as to the duration of the wars of Canaan under Joshua. The spies were sent from Kadesh-barnea in the second year of the Exodus, about 38½ years before the passage of Jordan (see Deuteronomy 2:14). Thus Caleb would be 40+38=78 years old when they crossed the Jordan. He was 85 when they began to divide the country. Therefore the conquest itself must have extended over a period of seven years. It is manifest that the record of the capture of Jericho and Ai, with the two campaigns of Joshua against the southern and northern confederacies, does not give all the details of the war.

Benson Commentary

Joshua 14:7-8. I brought him word, as it was in my heart — I spake my opinion sincerely, without flattery and fear, when the other spies were biassed by their own fears, and the dread of the people, to speak otherwise than in their consciences they believed. I wholly followed the Lord my God — The Hebrew, מלאתי אחרי יהוה, milleeti acharei Jehovah, is literally, I filled after the Lord my God, which words, as Dr. Dodd justly observes, “give the idea of a traveller, who, attentive to the following of his guide, so treads in his steps, as to leave hardly any void space between his guide and him, and continually fills up the traces of his feet.” This testimony, God himself had borne to Caleb, and his repeating it here is perfectly consistent with modesty, and was even necessary, as being the ground of his petition and claim.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:6-15 Caleb's request is, Give me this mountain, or Hebron, because it was formerly in God's promise to him, and he would let Israel knows how much he valued the promise. Those who live by faith value that which is given by God's promise, far above what is given by his providence only. It was now in the Anakims' possession, and Caleb would let Israel know how little he feared the enemy, and that he would encourage them to push on their conquests. Caleb answered to his name, which signifies all heart. Hebron was settled on Caleb and his heirs, because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. Happy are we if we follow him. Singular piety shall be crowned with singular favour.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The children of Judah - No doubt, in particular, the kinsmen of Caleb, and perhaps other leading men of the tribe. These came before Joshua, with Caleb, in order to make it manifest that they supported his claim, to be secured in the possessions promised him by Moses before the general allotment should be made to the tribes (compare the marginal references).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Jos 14:6-15. Caleb by Privilege Requests and Obtains Hebron.

6-11. Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb … said—This incident is recorded here because it occurred while the preparations were being made for casting the lots, which, it appears, were begun in Gilgal. The claim of Caleb to the mountains of Hebron as his personal and family possessions was founded on a solemn promise of Moses, forty-five years before (Nu 14:24; De 1:36; Jos 14:10), to give him that land on account of his fidelity. Being one of the nominees appointed to preside over the division of the country, he might have been charged with using his powers as a commissioner to his own advantage, had he urged his request in private; and therefore he took some of his brethren along with him as witness of the justice and propriety of his conduct.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Forty years old was I: see Poole "Joshua 11:18".

I brought him word again as it was in mine heart; I spake my opinion sincerely, without flattery and fear, when the other spies were biassed by their own fears, and the dread of the people, to speak otherwise than in their consciences they believed, as appears from Numbers 13:30-32 14:36.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadeshbarnea to espy out the land,.... Not he alone, but eleven more with him, one out of every tribe; his age he mentions, and of which, or near it, it is highly probable the rest of the spies were, to show that he and they were in the prime of their days, both as to bodily strength and intellectual capacity, which were requisite for such service as to spy out the land, of what quality that and its inhabitants were; and Moses he calls the servant of the Lord, because it was by the order and appointment of God, signified to Moses, that this was done; and the place from whence they were sent forth is named, which ascertains what that Kadesh was, where Israel was encamped when the spies were sent, Numbers 13:26,

and I brought him word again, as it was in mine heart; that is, he gave to Moses upon his return a sincere, honest and faithful representation of the land, and its inhabitants, as it appeared to him.

Geneva Study Bible

Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadeshbarnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. to espy out the land] “for to behold the loond,” Wyclif. “Espy” (comp. Genesis 42:27, “And as one of them opened his sack … he espied his money”) comes from Fr. espier, Sp. espiar, which are modifications of the Latin aspicere. The old form was aspy or aspie. See below the quotation from Wyclif, Joshua 14:11, and comp.

“Securely I espy

Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.”

Shakespeare, Richard II. I. 3. 97.

as it was in mine heart] i.e. “according to my thorough conviction,” in the bold confident spirit, which spoke out exactly what it felt. “He had neither courted the favour of any man by his words, nor feared their anger.” He had spoken out what he believed.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - Forty years old. The Hebrew expression is "the son of forty years." Compare the expressions "son of man," "sons of Belial," "son of the perverse re. bellious woman." As it was in my heart. Literally, according as with my heart, i.e., in agreement with what I saw and felt. The LXX. reads "according to his mind," i.e., that of Moses. Houbigant and Le Clerc approve of this reading, but it seems quite out of keeping with the character of Caleb. He did not endeavour to accommodate his report to the wishes of any man, but gave what he himself believed to be a true and faithful account of what he had seen and heard (see Numbers 13:30; Numbers 14:7-9; Deuteronomy 1:36). Joshua 14:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Caleb's Inheritance. - Joshua 14:6. Before the casting of the lots commenced, Caleb came to Joshua along with the sons of Judah, and asked for the mountains of Hebron for his possession, appealing at the same time to the fact, that forty-five years before Moses had promised it to him on oath, because he had not discouraged the people and stirred them up to rebellion, as the other spies that were sent from Kadesh to Canaan had done, but had faithfully followed the Lord.

(Note: The grounds upon which Knobel follows Maurer and others in affirming that this account does not belong to the so-called Elohist, but is merely a fragment taken from the first document of the Jehovist, are formed partly from misinterpretations of particular verses and partly from baseless assumptions. To the former belongs the assertion, that, according to Joshua 14:8, Joshua 14:12, Joshua was not one of the spies (see the remarks on Joshua 14:8); to the latter the assertion, that the Elohist does not represent Joshua as dividing the land, or Caleb as receiving so large a territory (see on the contrary, however, the exposition of Joshua 14:13), as well as the enumeration of all kinds of words which are said to be foreign to the Elohistic document.)

This occurred at Gilgal, where the casting of the lots as to take place. Caleb was not "the head of the Judahites," as Knobel maintains, but simply the head of a father's house of Judah, and, as we may infer from his surname, "the Kenizzite" or descendant of Kenaz ("the Kenizzite" here and Numbers 32:12 is equivalent to "son of Kenaz," Joshua 15:17, and Judges 1:13), head of the father's house which sprang from Kenaz, i.e., of a subdivision of the Judahite family of Hezron; for Caleb, the brother of Jerahmeel and father of Achzah, according to 1 Chronicles 2:42 (cf. 1 Chronicles 2:49), was the same person as Caleb the descendant of Hezron mentioned in 1 Chronicles 2:18. From the surname "the Kenizzite" we are of course not to understand that Caleb or his father Jephunneh is described as a descendant of the Canaanitish tribe of Kenizzites (Genesis 15:19); but Kenaz was a descendant of Hezron, the son of Perez and grandson of Judah (1 Chronicles 2:5, 1 Chronicles 2:18, 1 Chronicles 2:25), of whom nothing further is known. Consequently it was not the name of a tribe, but of a person, and, as we may see from 1 Chronicles 4:15, where one of the sons of Caleb is called Kenaz, the name was repeated in the family. The sons of Judah who came to Joshua along with Caleb were not the Judahites generally, therefore, or representatives of all the families of Judah, but simply members or representatives of the father's house of Judah which took its name from Kenaz, and of which Caleb was the head at that time. Caleb reminded Joshua of the word which the Lord had spoken concerning them in Kadesh-barnea, i.e., the promise of God that they should both of them enter the land of Canaan (Numbers 14:24, Numbers 14:30), and then proceeded to observe (Joshua 14:7): "When I was forty years old, and was sent by Moses as a spy to Canaan, I brought back an answer as it was in my mind," i.e., according to the best of my convictions, without fear of man or regard to the favour of the people.