Forty years

Caleb grinned. He was happy to enter the promised land. He went to Hebron to claim it for himself and his family. 80 years old, he was still strong enough to go to war. How did the past forty years go pass? he wondered as his mind went back into the past...

                                                     He and Joshua, Simon, and the others were in the prime of their youth. They felt so proud to be selected by Moses to represent their tribes. Caleb knew Joshua as the junior aide of Moses, who was also serious about his faith in Yahweh. But Simon and the others, he just had a nodding acquaintance. Anyway, they were all banded together as Moses commissioned them and sent them. Their work was to scout the land of Canaan, the land at present occupied by the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Amorites. What was the length and breadth of the land and what sort of fields and crops did it have? What are the people like? These are things they were to find out.

                                                     So the motley 12 set out and decided to split up into twos as they scouted the land. Joshua and Caleb went to the hill country of Hebron and saw the lovely vineyards there. They plucked one bunch of grapes which was so heavy they had to share carrying it. They saw the men and women too. Some of them were the Anakim, with huge and tall bodies and formidably built. These people caused terror in the hearts of the ten other spies. But as for Caleb and Joshua, who used their eyes of faith in Yahweh, "these fellows appeared as bread. These people will serve as our food", they said to one another as they carried the grape bunch on their supple shoulders.

                                                     All 12 of them finished their spying and came to report to Moses, their leader, and all the elders of the community of Israel. The 10 were discouraging in their report. "The land is indeed flowing with milk and honey and is very fertile. But the people there are the Anakim. They are so huge that we must appear like grasshoppers to them. So we cannot conquer them at all. The fear they emanated was infections and all Israel got the infection of fear.

                                                     Caleb and Joshua delivered a minority report. They said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it."

                                   But the ten replied negatively, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are."

                                   The people naturally got disheartened. The ten spies further gave details, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."

                                            Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt."

                                            This extreme reaction made Caleb and Joshua to tear their clothes and wear sack clothes and ashes. They had so much of faith in their Yahweh God. They were remembering how the Lord troubled Pharoah and the Egyptians with ten different plagues and brought them out of his hands. They remembered the song of Moses and how the Lord delivered them through the Red Sea and drowned all the armies of Pharoah in it. Their faith was firm despite the ten and their evil report.

                                            The Lord decided that now of those people, the ten who brought the evil report and all the adults of that time who believed it and got discouraged would ever enter Canaan. He singled out Caleb and Joshua, who by their faith got the right to enter Canaan.

                                            Though the people tried to relent, God did not let them do so. He led them through the wilderness for the next forty years. Wandering from place to place like nomads. But with grace, the Lord fed them all with the wonder-food, Manna. When the Israelites grumbled for better food, the Lord rained quail on them till they eat their fill. He provided them water all the days. Till all the people above forty, the adults dropped off dead one by one in the wilderness.

                         Caleb felt sad to see his friends and family slowly die in the wilderness in the forty years. He felt bad as he saw his friend Simon, one of the ten spies also die. But Simon was the spokesman for the ten and had no faith in God at all, that He would deliver Israel. This was the judgment of the Lord God. Caleb accepted it. But the same Lord kept Caleb safe and sound. He also gave him the grace to maintain his strength through the forty years.

                                            He only had Joshua, his friend from the days of the spying, alive. Joshua continued to be the aide of Prophet Moses all through the forty years. And later, the Lord God commissioned Joshua to be the leader of Israel. God wanted Joshua to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, Canaan, a land filled with milk and honey.

                                            Caleb was happy that God chose his friend Joshua to lead Israel into Canaan. He himself had a mission, as he turned into a different eighty-year-old. He was a young eighty-year-old with a mission. To conquer Hebron and live in it. God gave him the grace to do it.

                                            As the time for the entry into Canaan came near, Caleb listened carefully. Moses the Prophet, recounted the Law he had received from God for the people of Israel, for the second time. He also once again sang his song, celebrating the faithfulness of God against Pharoah and his hordes.

                                            Moses asked the people to choose life and the blessings that follow. "Only be faithful to obey the Law and worship only the Lord God Yahweh, who delivered you out of the hand of Pharoah and is bringing you into the land of promise."

                                            Caleb felt reinvigorated at these words and recommitted to the cause. Then came the sad demise of Moses on Mount Pisgah. Joshua took over as the leader of Israel.

                                            Earlier, Moses encouraged Joshua as he took over the reins of Israel. And Caleb, as the senior-most leader of Israel, along with the others, stood to bless, commission, and encourage Joshua. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be dismayed. The Lord God of Israel will be with you wherever you go."

                                            The Lord God also, in his turn encouraged the new leader Joshua. he had words to sheer him up and set him on his way. He said, "Moses my servant is dead; now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you, and all these people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.

                                            From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

                                            Be strong and of good courage: for unto these people shall you divide for an inheritance, the land, which I promised unto their fathers to give them. Only, be strong and very courageous, that you observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded you: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you mayest prosper wherever you go.

                                            This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then you shall make thy way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD your God is with you, wherever you go."

                                            Such a threefold encouragement drove Joshua to take up the mantle of Moses, the man of God, and lead Israel.

                                            Caleb was overjoyed to see his friend become the leader. Then miraculously they crossed the flowing river Jordan and entered into the land of Canaan. Caleb was happy to see that this event was commemorated by the stones, shaped into an altar.

                                            Caleb continued to grin as his reminiscences came to an end. "How great is our God! How lovely are His ways?" he murmured as he set about his conquest of Hebron.