Caleb

Caleb son of Jephunneh was the representative from the tribe of Judah among the twelve spies sent to scout Canaan. When ten spies returned with a fearful report — "we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers" — Caleb and Joshua alone urged the people forward: "We are well able to overcome it." The people rejected the faithful report, and God decreed that the entire generation would die in the wilderness. Only Caleb and Joshua would enter the land, because Caleb had "followed the LORD fully."

Forty-five years later, when the conquest was underway and Caleb was eighty-five years old, he came to Joshua and reminded him of Moses' promise. "I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me," he said, and asked for the hill country of Hebron — the very territory he had walked through as a spy, where the sons of Anak (the giants who had terrified the other spies) still lived. Joshua blessed him and gave him Hebron. Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak and took the city. His story is the Bible's sharpest illustration of a long obedience rewarded.