The bible is a book full of promises. Many of them are made by human beings, and are sadly broken. But there are hundreds made by God as well, and one of the greatest encouragements of our faith is that God keeps them – all of them!
Today’s passage outlines a very personal promise kept. Caleb was one of the two spies (along with Joshua) sent into the Promised Land who faithfully believed that God would help the Israelites to settle there – we reflected on this story early in the series. Most of his colleagues simply looked at the inhabitants they were up against and their faith failed them. As a result, the Israelites had to live in the desert for forty years, and only Joshua and Caleb survived to see the day when the land was finally theirs.
Now, as ‘the land had rest from war’ (v15), is the time for God to honour his promise. Caleb approaches Joshua and asks for a parcel of land – indeed the area where his feet trod when he spied out the country 45 years ago (v9). Looking back at the narrative of the excursion in Numbers 13, the place most explored was Hebron (Numbers 13:22), and this becomes the place given to Caleb (v13): just as God had promised through Moses.
It was a most generous gift, since Hebron has a special place in the biblical narrative: it was where God first revealed to Abraham that he would inherit this land (Genesis 13), and also where he was buried. In time to come it would be the capital of Judah where David would reign for 7 ½ years before he settled in Jerusalem, and later became a ‘city of refuge’. Most probably it was appealing to Caleb because it was very fertile: the Valley of Eshkol is where Caleb and his friends cut a big cluster of grapes to show Moses how good the land was.
What matters here – and our encouragement for today – is that God keeps his promises. He kept them to Caleb and his family; he keeps them to us as well. The consistent theme of much of Scripture is that God is faithful – which is especially good news for us, fragile as we are. As St Paul says later, even when we are faithless, ‘God remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.’ (2 Timothy 2:13).
May God’s faithfulness lift our hearts and our spirits today. Give thanks that God keeps his promises, and then pray these promises confidently for yourself, and others. Amen!