Theological Commentary: Click Here
Today we meet
Othniel, whom we’ll meet again in the first chapter of judges. While we’ll study this story more deeply
then, we can note one thing right here about this story. Once more we see the repetition of a reoccurring
theme. Caleb’s faith inspires Othniel.
While we don’t
know for certain that Othniel was a mentee of Caleb, we can certainly see that
Othniel was in good hands. Caleb is
given an allotment of land in Judah. He
immediately sets out to conquest the land.
He does so in relatively short order.
He defeats a popular group of sons and then sets his will against the
other inhabitants of his inheritance.
However,
notice that Caleb does not do this alone.
He offers part of his inheritance – as well as a daughter – for the
person who continues the work. In other
words, he wants to have a son in law who has seen his prowess and desires to
imitate it. He wants to have people
living within his inheritance who are like him and who have the same kind of
values.
This is the
same principle at work that we saw with Moses and Joshua. Moses brought Joshua close to him because he
was teachable and shared a common desire as Moses. Caleb and Othniel are no different.
What I think
is neat is that as the Hebrew nation sets up we see example after example of
mentoring. We see example after example
of people looking for commonalities and then investing in them for the next
generation. Caleb’s work with Othniel
directly affects the first judge of Israel and his ability to be used by God to
protect his people.
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