I want THIS Mountain

HIstory has seldom seen but rarely forgotten people like Caleb. The Bible says three times in this passage that he wholly followed the Lord his God.

ILL. I think of David Livingstone, the pioneer missionary to Africa, who walked over 29,000 miles. Livingstone had been promised that “...the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary had been before...” awaited him. His goal was to explore and navigate a "Missionary Road"—"God's Highway," which was a 1,500 mile northernly road into the interior of Africa which would bring "Christianity and civilization" to unreached peoples.

He later married Mary Moffat, who later died. He faced continued opposition from his Scottish brethren. He ministered half blind. Later, he was attacked by a lion which mangled his arm.

Yet, in his diary you capture his consecrated heart: Send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever me from any tie but the tie that binds me to Your service and to Your heart.

That is the type of heart that God uses.

whole-hearted:

Numbers 32:12: “Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun: for they have wholly followed the Lord.”

Deuteronomy 1:36: “Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath wholly followed the Lord.”

Joshua 14:8: “Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God.”

Joshua 14:9: “And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children’s for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God.”

Joshua 14:14: “Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.”

WHOLLY- FULFILL, CONSECREATE, REPLENISH (Genesis 1:26)

Caleb and Family History

To put it kindly, Caleb was from a family of dispossessed people. He was a half-Canaanite.

Joshua 14:6: “Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea.”

Numbers 32:12: “Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun: for they have wholly followed the Lord.”

Who, then, were the Kenezites?

Kenaz was the grandson of Esau

Esau was the father of the Edomite people

I Chronicles 4:12-13: “And Eshton begat Beth-rapha, and Paseah, and Tehinnah the father of Ir-nahash. These are the men of Rechah. And the sons of Kenaz; Othniel, and Seraiah: and the sons of Othniel; Hathath.” I Chronicles 4:14: “And Meonothai begat Ophrah: and Seraiah begat Joab, the father of the valley of Charashim; for they were craftsmen.”

no doubt, they were a good friend to have!

later on in the biblical narrative, they were absorbed by the tribe of Judah

it is believed that Jephunneh “may” have married a woman of the tribe of Judah. At the very least, then, the Kenezites were a group of people who would be dispossessed by the children of Israel when they entered Canaan.

Notice what the Lord said to Abraham concerning these people:

Genesis 15:17-19: “And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,”

However, when we fast-forward into the Bible, we notice that a notable man from the tribe of Judah is selected to be a spy— the spy serving as representative for the tribe of Judah.

Numbers 13:6: “Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.”

So, a people who are to be dispossessed of a special tract of land are now represented by a kinsman who wants to possess it as a child of the tribe of Judah. This is interesting stuff here! They who were to be dispossessed have now become those who possess the land…and the land I am talking about will be controlled by a man named Caleb who is not only from the clan of the Kenezites but is also from the tribe of Judah! This is the tribal allotment of Judah!

There are some notable people who will proceed from the tribe of Judah! Ever heard of David? Isaiah? Micah? Solomon? the Lord Jesus?

The Conquest of the Land

Caleb’s Vision for this Mountain

It is not THAT he wanted something that makes this story noteworthy. Rather, it is WHAT Caleb wanted that makes the story so significant. I want THIS mountain.

He wants Hebron.

Hebron had the biggest giants

Its former name was Kirjath-Arba. Who was Arba? Well, he was the king of the Anakims. Who, might you ask, were the Anakims? I’m glad you asked.

Deuteronomy 9:2: “A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!”

Where size it concerned, all giant peoples were likened to the Anakim.

Deuteronomy 2:10: “The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims;”

Deuteronomy 2:21: “A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the Lord destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead:”

Deuteronomy 1:28: “Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.”

Numbers 13:33: “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

They had been around for a long, long time!

Genesis 6:4: “There were giants [nephilim] in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

So, the name of the town signifies that the biggest bully of them all used to rule and reign here! The biggest, baddest, strongest, meanest, tallest, strongest dude used to roam these parts! Arba was the reason the 10 spies said we cannot take the land! Arba was the reason the hearts of the people of Israel quaked!

But now, it is Caleb saying, “I want this mountain! Yes, that one! The one with the biggest on it!”

Caleb, however, did not take time to look at the giants; he looked at the land. What a difference this made!

It has been noted that strongholds often develop in places where faith, revival, and victory once dominated!

I Samuel 17-

Just a few miles away from Hebron, another giant for God took offense at some giants occupying God’s ground. His name was David. Davids would not give to the enemy what was purchased with blood!

Saul clearly did not see things the way David did. Saul was a Benjamite, and his family had family did not fight for Elah…so, he would easily give it up! Once again, David did not look at the giant; he looked at the land…the ground…upon which they stood! And he said, “You can’t have this ground! This is holy Ground! This belongs to my father!”

It seems that places with history, and purpose, and value are those areas where Satan is at war....JERUSALEM…THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...

Hebron had the richest history

Genesis 23:13-16: “And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.”

History of Hebron:

Hebron is mentioned 87X in the Bible

it is the land where Abraham came in Genesis 13:18: “Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord.”

Hebron is the oldest Jewish community in the world, having a continual Jewish residency for over 3,800 years!

Here, Hagar gave birth to Ishmael

It is the area in which God appeared to Abraham to intercede for his nephew and the city of Sodom

It is the place where the rite of circumcision was first cut

and is the place where Sarai miraculously conceived seed of Abraham

Hebron is the place where Abraham was buried, along with Isaac, and Jacob, and matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah are buried.

According to Jewish tradition, it is the place where Adam and Eve were also buried.

It is the place from which Joseph was sent out to check on his brethren

And is the place where David was anointed king twice; once over Judah and second over all the people of Israel. II Samuel 2:1-4 and II Samuel 5:1-3

it is at the end of the valley of eschol from which huge clusters of grapes were observed by the spies in Numbers 13

Hebron was also one of the cities of refuge in Joshua chapter 20

Not surprisingly, it is a thoroughly Jewish place. If you are a Jew and you are looking for the most Jewish of places, in this time, you would not go to Jerusalem. You would not go to Tel aviv…not to Hermon or Beersheba. You’d want Hebron, for Hebron is the anthology of the family of Abraham.

ILL. The Torah recounts the Ephron-Abraham sale in great detail, including the sum of the purchase price—four hundred silver shekels.

Based on this figure, the thirteenth-century Rabbi Yitzchak bar Yehudah (author of Paaneach Raza) makes an interesting calculation. According to Leviticus 27:16, the value of land in biblical times was 50 silver shekels for a beit kor, or 75,000 square amot (cubits). Thus, the area purchased by Abraham was eight beit kor, or 600,000 square cubits. A square cubit is the approximate area occupied by an upright human being.

HOW MANY SOULS LEFT EGYPT? The generation of Jews which left Egypt and received the Torah at Mount Sinai numbered some 600,000 heads of households. Our sages tell us that the Jewish nation consists of 600,000 souls, and that the soul of every Jew who ever lived is an offshoot of one of these 600,000 “general” souls.

Thus the Torah contains 600,000 letters (counting the spaces between letters), for each Jew possesses something of the Torah.

This is kind of like an American claiming Jamestown as their inheritance, except in this case, it was a zillion times more significant!

Hebron was associated with the strongest covenant

You see, there were promises made on this mountain…covenants, rather that were cut on this mountain. There was a land and a seed covenant significant to this place. Clearly, Caleb’s thinking must have been, “If this is the land of Abraham— the land of Isaac— the land of Jacob— they had a promise which God made to them. The covenant was everlasting, without end. And if we can go anywhere and build for ourselves a future, I could think of no greater place to start than here.

ILL. “Gabriel said, if we won the war, we could build a whole new world; just figured we’d get started right here...” This is Caleb’s attitude. This place is the land of a giant God who established a giant family with giant promises and giant history and giant possibilities…and I just figured we’d get started right here! Give me THIS mountain!

Caleb’s Influence on his Family

WHEN YOU CLAIM WHAT GOD WANTS YOU TO HAVE, YOU PRESERVE SOMETHING AWESOME FOR YOUR FAMILY’S POSTERITY!

WHEN YOU CLAIM WHAT GOD WANTS YOU TO HAVE, YOU CREATE A DESIRE IN YOUR CHILDREN TO TRUST GOD IN THEIR LIVES!

Joshua 15:16-19: “And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife. And it came to pass, as she came unto him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wouldest thou? Who answered, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.”

Kiriath-sepher- city of books/WRITING; Greeks called it Polis Grammaton.

Caleb's nephew Othniel, son of Kenaz, rose up to the challenge, captured the city and became Caleb's son in law (Joshua 15:17, Judges 1:12). While Othniel had his mind set on warring and bedding, Achsah opted for settling down, and asked her father Caleb for a field with springs, which she promptly received (Joshua 15:19, Judges 1:15).

It's probably no coincidence that the author of the story depicts the man who conquers the "city of learning" as one who retires from combat and begins to listen to his wife.

Othniel became Israel's first judge. He successfully battled the oppressing king Cushan-rishathaim of Aram-naharaim and governed the land for forty peaceful years (Judges 3:9). CONCLUSION:

18 miles to the North lies another mountain— CALVARY, and on it a promise was made; a covenant was cut by God.

what are you wholly following in your life today?