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Caleb

After forty years of wandering in the desert, the Jews finally arrived at the land of promise - the Holy Land, the land of milk and honey. One can only imagine the excitement and the apprehension that must have existed on this day. They had been there forty years earlier, but fear of the enemy had distressed them and prevented them from possessing the land. Now, those who had expressed dire misgivings and reluctance to face the reported "giants" had died off during the wilderness years - all but Moses, Joshua, and Caleb.

It was at this time that God said of Caleb: "... my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereunto he went, and his seed shall possess it."[Nu.14.24[. It was a wonderful promise - a personal blessing of the Lord bestowed as a reward for Caleb's faithfulness and exceptional bravery. For when fear of the Amalekites gripped the Israelites, and bitter dissention arose in the ranks, it was Joshua and Caleb who jointly "stilled the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it..."[Nu.13.30] Caleb's devotion and trust in God continues to be evident when he pleaded with the people: "Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the the land; for they are bread for us; their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us; fear them not."[Nu.14.9].

In the face of imminent danger, Caleb's steadfast loyalty to God armed him with the courage that God expected from from all of his people, and yet, there is some reason to believe that Caleb, the man with "another spirit", the exemplary Jew, actually may have had gentile roots. His father Jephunneh appears to have belonged to an Edomitish tribe called Kenezites [Jos14.6] from Kenaz their founder. Kenaz was the grandson of Esau and one of the dukes of Edom[Gen36.15,42] and the Kenezites was one of the gentile tribes of the Holy Land that inhabited Canaan before the Israelites took it. Perhaps this is how Caleb got his name, because Caleb in Hebrew means "dog", a designation of contempt that the Jews ascribed to all gentiles [although there doesn't seem to be any indication that Caleb was looked upon with contempt by any of the Jewish people.]

Still, we find a paradox beginning to materialize here that seems to indicate that this "dog-man" Caleb could be a figure of the latter day army of God - the Christian believers. It might require a stretch of the imagination, but there are other scriptures that could substantiate this viewpoint. In Judges7 Gideon is about to do battle with the Midianites when the Lord, in order to demonstrate his power and his glory among the heathen, dismissed over twenty-thousand conscripts and chose a mere three-hundred men to gain the victory - and just who did he choose to make up His force? Not the most experienced warriors - not even the strongest - but God selected those men who kneeled at the stream and lapped the water "as a dog lappeth", or do we dare say, as Caleb would lap or, prophetically speaking, as a gentile "dog" would lap - the blood-washed soldiers of Christ?

There is one more scripture that may apply to this discussion: "And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, Hebron for an inheritance."[Jos 14:13]. We know that the name Joshua means "Jehovah is Salvation". It is also another name for "Jesus". Also, Hebron means "association and fellowship". Therefore, this scripture might also be read: "Jesus gave the dogs His fellowship for an inheritance." All this is a loose connection, to be sure, but it is an interesting conjecture.

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