Joshua 14

The Division of the Territory West of the Jordan

14What follows is an account of how the land of Canaan west of the Jordan was divided among the people of Israel. Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leaders of the families of the Israelite tribes divided it among the population. ^2*As the Lord had commanded Moses, the territories of the nine and a half tribes west of the Jordan were determined by drawing lots.^{h 3–4*}Moses had already assigned the land east of the Jordan to the other two and a half tribes. (The descendants of Joseph were divided into two tribes: Manasseh and Ephraim.) However, Moses gave the Levites no portion of the territory. Instead, they received cities to live in, with fields for their cattle and flocks. ⁵The people of Israel divided the land as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Hebron Is Given to Caleb

^6*One day some people from the tribe of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. One of them, Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, said to him, “You know what the Lord said in Kadesh Barnea about you and me to Moses, the man of God. ^7*I was forty years old when the Lord’s servant Moses sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out this land. I brought an honest report back to him. ⁸The men who went with me, however, made our people afraid. But I faithfully obeyed the Lord my God. ^9*Because I did, Moses promised me that my children and I would certainly receive as our possession the land which I walked over. ¹⁰But now, look. It has been forty-five years since the Lord said that to Moses. That was when Israel was going through the desert, and the Lord, as he promised, has kept me alive ever since. Look at me! I am eighty-five years old ¹¹and I’m just as strong today as I was when Moses sent me out. I am still strong enough for war or for anything else. ¹²Now then, give me the hill country that the Lord promised me on that day when my men and I reported. We told you then that the race of giants called the Anakim were there in large walled cities. Maybe the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out, just as the Lord said.”

¹³Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him the city of Hebron as his possession. ¹⁴Hebron still belongs to the descendants of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, because he faithfully obeyed the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁵Before this, Hebron was called the city of Arba. (Arba had been the greatest of the Anakim.)

There was now peace in the land.