Then Caleb QUIETED (lit. also “HUSHED“) the people before Moses AND SAID, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.
… The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us …” excerpt frm. Numbers 13:30, 14:7b-8 (NASB)
When the twelve men, each a respective leader from of the tribes of Israel, returned from their forty days of spying out Canaan – their Divinely promised inheritance – bringing back with them a single cluster of grapes which needed two of them to hoist on a pole, along with pomegranates & figs, their words testifying to the abundance of the land were abruptly short-circuited by 10 of them who had viewed all the inhabitants then presently living in their Promised possession as a situation that was going to be impossible for they themselves to possess. The thirty-one words of these leaders (Numbers 13:28-29 in Hebrew) started a firestorm that swept through in a wave of unbelief, almost instantaneously gripping the minds of the people.
Yet before another word of this unbelief being raged against Moses could come out of these ten, Caleb, in a bark that immediately hushed the noise, declared boldly that they should indeed go up to possess their inheritance. (Remember, Beloved; Moses is the set apart leader by YHVH before the Law had even been given, when it was only on the LORD’s heart to deliver His people from out of Egypt in order to bring them into the land He had promised their forefathers that He was going to give to them – see Ex. 3:16-17) What you don’t see in the English text of Caleb’s words is that the Hebrew literally says Caleb “Silenced the people toward Moses ….”; it was literally his bark, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it” that hushed the words of unbelief pouring out of the mouths of the ten other named leaders, fellow spies, against Moses.
Caleb’s name means “dog”. The Hebrew specifically relates his name to the “bark” of a dog. Strong’s Concordance suggests also the connotation of “forcible” to Caleb’s name definition. And it is in the force of his words that reveals the intensity of his belief, his faith, his heart’s persuasion in the unmerited, unearned Promise to them by YHVH, the LORD their Awesome & Mighty God! This, Beloved, is what captured the LORD’s ears and attention (Num. 14:24; Deut. 1:26). In both Numbers 14 & then the recounting of this incident by Moses years later in Deuteronomy 1:34-39, the LORD, YHVH, reveals something of Caleb, which to me speaks louder from how it is said in the Hebrew text. I will show you how the English says it, then how it is in the Hebrew.
“But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully,” Numbers 14:24a (NASB)
It is not incorrect to say the above verse in the way that most translations have it written. But the Hebrew text is a bit stronger in the way it is declared. It is not so much that he had a different spirit, rather that he WAS of a different spirit. The verb used is from the infinitive “to be(come)”. Moreover, it is not so much that he fully followed the LORD, rather he WAS-FULL to follow the LORD. The active verb used in Hebrew is “to be full“; (the “follow” is used in the infinitive). His “being full”, Beloved, wasn’t “effort to follow”, rather was in the boldness to declare, to speak out of his spirit the agreement of his heart to the Spirit (Ruach) of the LORD his God. The Hebrew text, in the body of this verse, leans to this; “And *my servant Caleb—because there was another spirit with him, he was full to follow Me.” Oh Beloved, he was of another Spirit because his breath wasn’t voicing the reality of what his eyes and ears saw in the natural, as was the voice of the other ten. Indeed, Caleb was of another Spirit because, in the face of “reality in the natural” was the greater Grace-Truth reality that Almighty God had already shown to them the awesomeness of His might, THE POWER OF YHVH’s GRACE, in having delivered them all from the strong hand of Egyptian bondage to slavery the day after they all ate from of the sacrificed lamb whose blood on their doorposts had kept out the death angel which had robbed the breath of every uncovered-by-blood first-born of Egypt. Caleb’s spirit, Caleb’s breath, was in the present reality of the Holy Spirit of God (Ruach Elohiym) keeping in his remembrance and thus on his lips the intensity of the Grace-Truth reality of who this Deliverer was and is.
Caleb’s boldness, Dear One, was not “effort to believe“; his heart was already full after the LORD because he was already fully convinced of God’s grace upon them and to them just because of what HE, YHVH, had already done for them. God is not a yesterday God. His “I was, I am, I will be” is wholly under the Grace-truth reality that He is “I-AM”.
“This is My Name forever, and this is My Memorial Name TO ALL GENERATIONS.” Exodus 3:15b (NASB)
What He, the LORD, was, He still is, and accordingly, always will be. Caleb’s anchored faith, his full-to-follow-spirit, was evident in his bark which suddenly silenced the unbelief pouring out of the mouths of the ten other leaders of the people. The Hebrew usage of the verb “to be full” carries the denotation of “intentional”. Again, it is not “effort” to show forth a face of faith. His “intentionally being full” to follow was revealing the already anchored-to-YHVH believing heart, that what He had promised, He, the LORD, intended to bring to pass for them.
Though it is so that the majority voices of the ten leaders overrode Caleb’s bold faith declaration in the ears, minds, & heart of that generation (Num. 14:1-4, 10), the following younger generation was all the while quietly paying attention … The LORD told Moses that his generation would die in the desert, save Joshua and Caleb, and of Caleb specifically, that he would march in, take the land, and that Caleb’s seed would indeed inherit (Num. 14:24) … That young generation watched their unbelieving parents die over the next thirty-nine to forty years … save Joshua and Caleb … then watched these two men of years, to whom the LORD saved their strength of their younger years, lead them into their Divinely Promised inheritance to overcome the land of the “Hittites” – “dreads/fears/terrors” (see https://kairosmark.net/2014/01/11/nuggets-from-the-book-of-joshua-part-3/ ). Even as the LORD declared, their seed rose up in the likeness of the faith of these two lone surviving spies, the true leaders of God’s unmerited, uncompromising, powerful Grace, the two men of a different spirit; and they followed to be conquerors. Caleb’s daughter would be given to a young man named Othniel – “force of God”. Othniel, a young man, after having watched this faithful, full-to-follow man of a different spirit take out the giants who had beset the previous generation with terror, came to be likewise a man of a different spirit, and would accordingly himself knock out the next set of giant terrors, ( see Josh. 15:13-19).
Jesus is our Joshua and our Caleb, Beloved. We have to let be anchored our hearts in the finished work of Jesus’ cross, in what He fully did, having fully been a Man of a different Spirit in following His Father … all the way to the death of the cross, in defeating the Hittites of our lives, the fears and dreads of this age. Our confidence to stand boldly, to proclaim boldly, is anchored in the unprecedented heart and will of Almighty God in giving us grace to be so bold, because our feet are standing on the finished work of Jesus, His Son. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God. The breath we breath out, Beloved, the voice we voice out, must come out of a heart resting, wholly rested, in what Jesus has done for us and as us. Don’t be afraid to declare boldly what all your heart comes to rest in. The work of the cross was a work of yesterday that is still as powerfully “I Am”, today, against every evil force as it was the the day Jesus shed His blood to strip satan and to utterly, wholly, and completely cleanse, forgive, set you free into a broad place, and give you authority as Sons and Daughters of the Living God (Eph. 1:5-7; Col. 2:9-15).
Let your heart and mind, and then your lips, take courage, Beloved, in and because of your Throne-Seated, far-above-all-principality-and-power King of Kings & Lord of Lords, … because you are seated with Him there, with your LORD Jesus Christ, our awesome, awesome Savior! (Eph. 2:6)
You are so loved.
Mark Dingemans
(*underlined portion of Num. 14:24 frm. Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible – EBR 1902)
kairos – (Kahee-ros’) – Strong’s concordance defines this word: “an occasion, I.e. set or proper time.” The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible (NASB) defines this word; “season, time, but not merely as a succession of moments, which is chronos,” [from which we derive the English word ‘chronology’]. “Kairos, however, implies not the convenience of the season, but the necessity of the task at hand, whether the time provides a good, convenient opportunity or not.” This must be understood. Strategic times of the Lord do not necessarily imply good or convenient times. We are in Kairos times. Maybe not good or convenient times, but definitely strategic, opportune times because of the season we are in. We must have “ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,” (Rev. 2:29), so as to respond correctly to the Kairos time.
* Some Scripture for this letter is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, (c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other references translated from Grk. Txt as presented in T. Newberry’s Englishman’s Greek New Testament, Zondervan Publishing – 1982- originally published in London, Eng. 1877