October 25 – Strength of Body and Holy Confidence

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“And Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance.” Joshua 14:13

All the spies that went up to view the promised land except Caleb and Joshua made a formidable report of the gigantic inhabitants of Hebron, saying, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” “Caleb [answering well to his name, which signifies All-heart] quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.'”

We are told that Caleb had a different spirit in him and followed God fully. Moses, therefore, was commissioned to make him a grant of all the land whereon his feet had trodden, which was the mountain of Hebron.  Caleb was forty when Moses sent him to spy out the land. He was eighty-five-years-old when he reminded Joshua of the promise of land. Thirty-eight years the Lord had kept Caleb in the wilderness: through the plagues of the desert, seven years in Canaan, and through the perils of the war. The city Hebron was already reduced — but the inhabitants had repaired to the refuges of the mountain. These he wanted to dispossess, assuring Joshua that he had now the same strength of body and holy confidence in God to engage in this dangerous enterprise, as he had at forty years of age when he was sent as a spy. “Joshua blessed him” — acknowledged his claim, besought God to prosper him in his undertaking and gave him the country. Thus were his fidelity and uprightness rewarded.

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)