Joshua

The Western Tribes

The land of Canaan was divided among the Israelites by Eleazar, the priest. By Joshua, son of Nun, and by the heads of the families of the tribes of Israel.

They divided the land by drawing lots as the Lord had commanded through Moses for the nine.

(Remember that Moses had given the two and a half tribes beyond the Jordan their property; to the Levites, he had given no land,

but the sons of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim.) The Levites were given no share of the land except in certain towns, with pasturelands nearby for their cattle and property.

The Israelites did as the Lord commanded Moses in dividing the land.

Caleb

When the sons of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal, Caleb, son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, said to him: “You know what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, at Kadesh-Barnea concerning you and me.

I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-Barnea to spy on this land, and I made an honest report about it to him.

But the men who had gone with me discouraged the people, whereas I myself faithfully obeyed the Lord my God.

That day, Moses promised me, ‘Because you have obeyed the Lord my God, the land your foot may walk upon shall be the land which you and your children will own forever.’

From then till now, the Lord has kept me alive by his promise. It is forty-five years since the Lord made this promise to Moses (Israel was then journeying through the wilderness), and now I am eighty-five years old.

Today, I am still as strong as when Moses sent me out on the raid; for fighting, going and coming, I am as strong now.

Give me then the highlands that the Lord promised me. You know they are a race of giants called the Anakim, whose towns are great and strong. But if the Lord is with me, I shall drive them out as the Lord said.”

Joshua blessed Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and gave him the city of Hebron as an inheritance.

And hence Hebron down to the present day belongs to the descendants of Caleb son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite because he obeyed the Lord the God of Israel.

The name of Hebron in earlier times was Kiriath-Arba. Arba had been the greatest man of the Anakim. And the country had rest from war.