Chapter 14

And these are the heritages which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar, the priest, and Joshua, the son of Nun, and the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, gave out to them;

Their heritage by the Lord's decision, as he gave orders by Moses, for the nine tribes and the half-tribe.

For Moses had given their heritage to the two tribes and the half-tribe on the other side of Jordan, but to the Levites he gave no heritage among them.

Because the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim; and they gave the Levites no part in the land, only towns for their living-places, with the grass-lands for their cattle and for their property.

As the Lord had given orders to Moses, so the people of Israel did, and they made division of the land.

Then the children of Judah went to Joshua in Gilgal; and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, said to him, You have knowledge of what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, about me and about you in Kadesh-barnea.

I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to make a search through the land; and the account which I gave him was in keeping with his desire.

My brothers, however, who went up with me, made the heart of the people like water: but I was true to the Lord with all my heart.

And on that day Moses took an oath, saying, Truly the land where your feet have been placed will become a heritage for you and your children for ever, because you have been true to the Lord your God with all your heart.

And now, as you see, the Lord has kept me safe these forty-five years, from the time when the Lord said this to Moses, while Israel was wandering in the waste land: and now I am eighty-five years old.

And still, I am as strong today as I was when Moses sent me out: as my strength was then, so is it now, for war and for all the business of life.

So now, give me this hill-country named by the Lord at that time; for you had an account of it then, how the Anakim were there, and great walled towns: it may be that the Lord will be with me, and I will be able to take their land, as the Lord said.

And Joshua gave him his blessing; and he gave Hebron to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, for his heritage.

So Hebron became the heritage of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, to this day, because with all his heart he was true to the Lord, the God of Israel.

In earlier times the name of Hebron had been Kiriath-arba, named after Arba, the greatest of the Anakim. And the land had rest from war.