God at Work in History 12: Caleb — Give Me This Mountain
Joshua 14
Some biblical stories seem to belong especially to the young.
David faces Goliath. Joseph rises from prison. Joshua leads Israel across the Jordan.
And then there is Caleb.
Caleb is eighty-five years old.
He does not appear in Joshua 14 as a man sitting around telling stories about what he once did. He appears as a man looking ahead, asking what remains to be done.
Forty-five years earlier, Caleb had stood at the edge of the Promised Land with eleven other men. Moses had sent them to explore Canaan. Ten came back frightened. They saw fortified cities, powerful armies, and the descendants of Anak.
Caleb saw something else.
He believed God.
Now, forty-five years later, much of the land has been conquered and divided. Caleb comes before Joshua to remind him of something Moses had promised.
And then he makes his remarkable request:
“Now therefore give me this mountain.”
It is difficult to imagine a better sentence for an eighty-five-year-old man.
Caleb Had Waited a Long Time
Caleb's story is not simply about courage. It is also about waiting.
When Caleb first believed God's promise, he was forty years old. He could reasonably have expected to see the promise fulfilled within a few years.
Instead, he waited.
He watched an entire generation die in the wilderness. He watched Joshua become Israel's leader. He crossed the Jordan. He fought in the campaigns of conquest. He watched the land begin to be divided among the tribes.
And still he waited.
Forty-five years is a long time to carry a promise.
But Caleb did not allow the passing of time to turn God's promise into an old memory.
When he speaks to Joshua, he remembers exactly what Moses had said.
“The LORD has kept me alive, as he said, these forty-five years…”
Caleb had grown older.
God's promise had not.
Caleb Was Not Asking for the Easy Place
There is something almost startling about what Caleb asks for.
He doesn't say, “I've served long enough. Give me a quiet place.”
He doesn't ask for the safest territory.
He doesn't point to some peaceful valley and say, “That will do.”
He asks for the hill country.
And there is a reason.
The Anakim were still there.
These were the very people whose appearance had frightened the ten spies forty-five years earlier.
The cities were fortified. The territory was difficult.
Caleb knew exactly what he was asking for.
“It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said.”
That is not the language of a man who thinks his age has made him useless.
Caleb knows that he is eighty-five.
He also knows that the LORD is with him.
Age Had Changed Caleb—But Not His Faith
The Bible does not tell us that Caleb was physically unchanged after forty-five years.
It says something more important.
Caleb says:
“I am this day eighty-five years old.”
He knows his age.
He isn't pretending to be forty.
But then he adds:
“I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me.”
Whether Caleb means this literally in every physical respect or is speaking particularly about his capacity for the work before him, the point is unmistakable.
He has not allowed age to become an excuse for unbelief.
There is a great difference between acknowledging that we are getting older and deciding that our usefulness is over.
Caleb knows he has lived a long time.
He also knows that God is not finished with him.
The Mountain Was Still There
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Caleb's story is that God did not remove the difficulty before Caleb arrived.
The Anakim were still there.
The mountain was still there.
The fortified cities were still there.
The promise of God did not mean that Caleb would never have another battle.
It meant that the battle did not have the final word.
That is worth remembering.
Sometimes we imagine that if God has called us to something, the obstacles will disappear.
Caleb's experience says otherwise.
Sometimes God gives us the mountain—and then asks us to climb it.
Caleb Finished by Faith
Joshua gives us a simple explanation for Caleb's extraordinary life.
Again and again, he is described as one who “wholly followed the LORD.”
That is the real story.
Caleb did not merely have one courageous moment when he was forty.
He remained faithful through forty-five years of waiting.
He remained faithful through the wilderness.
He remained faithful through war.
And now, at eighty-five, he remained faithful when there was still unfinished work.
His life reminds us that faithfulness is not measured only by how we begin.
It is also measured by whether we keep following.
There Is Still a Mountain
There is something wonderfully encouraging about Joshua 14.
Caleb's great request comes late in his life.
He does not say, “Tell me what I used to be able to do.”
He says, in effect, “Show me what remains.”
That is a different way of thinking about growing older.
The world often measures a person's value by productivity, speed, strength, and achievement. Scripture gives us another measure.
Faithfulness.
Caleb had waited forty-five years.
He had seen much.
He had endured much.
He had grown old.
And he still had a mountain.
Perhaps that is one of the gifts of Caleb's story.
We do not have to pretend that we are young.
We do not have to deny the years.
We do not have to ignore our limitations.
But neither do we need to assume that because we are older, God has nothing more for us.
Caleb's life says otherwise.
At eighty-five, he was still looking ahead.
Still trusting.
Still asking.
Still climbing.
And the Bible records that “Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb.”
The mountain was his.
Not because Caleb was young.
Not because the mountain was easy.
But because he had continued to follow the LORD.
Sometimes the most encouraging word God gives us late in life is not, “You have done enough.”
Sometimes it is:
“There is still a mountain.”
*******************************
All they who put their trust in God
Can never be removed;
They stand secure like Zion’s mount,
By many ages proved.
Refrain
Like the mount of God,
Like the mount of God;
They stand secure like Zion’s mount,
By many ages proved.
They can never be removed, removed;
They stand secure like Zion’s mount,
They can never be removed.
As round about Jerusalem
The rugged mountains lie,
So round about His holy saints
Our God is ever nigh.
Refrain
Tho’ fierce the storm in fury beat
And awful thunders roar,
The children of the mighty God
Are safe forevermore.
Refrain
Thus overshadowed by His love,
Where harm can ne’er betide,
Within this refuge safe and sure
I ever would abide.
Refrain
Clar¬ence M. Sea¬mans, 1902)
They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. Ps 125:1
Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people both now and forevermore. (Psalm 125:1,2 NIV)
Clarence M. Seamans, 1902)
Comments