“To Kalev the son of Y’funeh he gave a portion with the descendants of Y’hudah, as Adonai had ordered Y’hoshua, namely, Kiryat-Arba (Arba was the father of the ‘Anak), also called Hevron.”-Joshua 15:13
From verse 13, we’re plunged right back into the history of Caleb.
It’s made clear to us that the land he was given had not yet been conquered.
But let’s keep in mind, Caleb asked for this unconquered territory.
Caleb was about 110 years old at this time and this was a sign of his great courage and faith in the Lord.
Recall I referred to Caleb as the oldest and boldest badass in the history of mankind in one of my previous posts.
The unconquered territory we’re talking about was Hebron and it was controlled by a race of giants known as the Anakites (do you remember those dudes?)
After Joshua passed away, Caleb’s clan would eventually succeed in driving out the 3 ruling clans of the Anakites known as the Sheshai, Achiman and Talmai.
However, from verse 15, it seems like Caleb’s men had some difficulty attempting to take an area called Debir.
Conquering Debir seemed so troublesome that it was decided to seek a courageous volunteer to lead the attack on Debir.
If the attack succeeded, the volunteer would be awarded Caleb’s wife called Achsah.
Now we encounter something interesting here.
In verse 16, Caleb’s daughter goes by the name of “Adar” but in verse 17 she goes by the name of “Achsah”?
And the original Hebrew is the same!
I have no idea why this is so and if anyone knows the reason why, can you please leave a comment letting me know why?
It could be just be some transcription mistake but I’m not sure.
Thanks in advance!
Finally, this actually leads to my next point that they’re actually a lot of double names for many key locations in the Scriptures.
Notice in the CJB, it says in parentheses that “D’vir was formerly called Kiryat-Sefer”.
The reason why is actually simple.
One name is how it was called by the Canaanites and the other was how it was called by the Israelites.
For example, do you know what the Arabs call “Jerusalem”?
They call it AL QUDS.
While in Hebrew, it goes by the name of Yerushalayim.
Let’s not forget that the Middle East possesses a rich and ancient history.
The land there has been ruled by different nations and as a result culture, traditions AND LANGUAGE has changed over the passage of time.
Even today, the exact same location of certain places will go by different names.
Toda raba
!בבקשה