Courage rewarded
Joshua 14:6 – 16:10 Read it here
Most of the land allocations are listed by heads of families, but the reading today begins with a story of courage being rewarded.
If you remember back in Numbers, Moses sent a dozen men as spies into Canaan to explore the land and report back.
All came back with the honest report that the land was as bountiful and promising as expected. Most of them, though, lied and said the people there were too strong to be conquered. Only Joshua and Caleb disagreed. “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it,” they reported.
The fear stoked by the other 10, though made the people fearful and they threatened rebellion. It was then that God decreed that none of those who had seen the great signs in Egypt would live to enter the Promised Land. In Numbers 14:24, God said, “But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.”
In Chapter 14 of Joshua, Caleb asks Joshua to make good on the promise, and Joshua does.
In the same chapter we see that Caleb’s daughter inherits his boldness when she asks him to increase her inheritance of land beyond what he originally gave her. He complies.