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1 Chronicles 2 · a question people ask

Is this the Caleb who spied out the land?

In the text

The chapter doesn't say. This Caleb is "Caleb the son of Hezron" (2:18) and "Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel" (2:42). Hezron's sons are first named as "Jerahmeel, Ram, and Chelubai" (2:9), and Strong's calls Chelubai "a form of" the name Caleb. The Caleb who spied out the land is "Caleb the son of Jephunneh" (Numbers 13:6), "the Kenizzite" (Numbers 32:12), and 1 Chronicles names that Caleb two chapters on: "The sons of Caleb the son of Jephunneh: Iru, Elah, and Naam" (4:15). One detail is shared. Here "the daughter of Caleb was Achsah" (2:49), and Achsah is the name of Caleb's daughter in Joshua 15:16-17 and Judges 1:12-13, where that Caleb is "Caleb the son of Jephunneh" (Joshua 15:13). In the Hebrew Bible the name Achsah comes only in these three passages. The chapter gives the name and says no more, and neither does this study.

The verses

“The sons also of Hezron, who were born to him: Jerahmeel, Ram, and Chelubai.”
1 Chronicles 2:9 · World English Bible
“Caleb the son of Hezron became the father of children by Azubah his wife, and by Jerioth; and these were her sons: Jesher, Shobab, and Ardon.”
1 Chronicles 2:18 · World English Bible
“The sons of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel were Mesha his firstborn, who was the father of Ziph, and the sons of Mareshah the father of Hebron.”
1 Chronicles 2:42 · World English Bible
“She bore also Shaaph the father of Madmannah, Sheva the father of Machbena and the father of Gibea; and the daughter of Caleb was Achsah.”
1 Chronicles 2:49 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Chronicles 2

1 Chronicles 2: David the seventh

1 Chronicles gives Judah's family first (2:3), and the line to David keeps passing the firstborn by: Er (2:3), Hezron's firstborn Jerahmeel (2:25), Jesse's firstborn Eliab (2:13), down to "David the seventh" (2:15). Paul says Jesus "was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions