BibleTools.info

The Emims dwelt therein - Calmet supposes that these people were destroyed in the war made against them by Chedorlaomer and his allies, Genesis 14:5. Lot possessed their country after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are generally esteemed as giants; probably they were a hardy, fierce, and terrible people, who lived, like the wandering Arabs, on the plunder of others. This was sufficient to gain them the appellation of giants, or men of prodigious stature. See next verse, Deuteronomy 2:11; (note).

For the Emims, Horims, and Anakims, see the marginal references. These verses are either parenthetical or the insertion of a later hand.

“Behold, the Lord hath kept me alive,” he said, “these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses: ... and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day: for thou heardest in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said.” This request was supported by the chief men of Judah. Caleb himself being the one appointed from this tribe to apportion the land, he had chosen to unite these men with him in presenting his claim, that there might be no appearance of having employed his authority for selfish advantage. PP 512.1

His claim was immediately granted. To none could the conquest of this giant stronghold be more safely entrusted. “Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance,” “because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.” Caleb's faith now was just what it was when his testimony had contradicted the evil report of the spies. He had believed God's promise that He would put His people in possession of Canaan, and in this he had followed the Lord fully. He had endured with his people the long wandering in the wilderness, thus sharing the disappointments and burdens of the guilty; yet he made no complaint of this, but exalted the mercy of God that had preserved him in the wilderness when his brethren were cut off. Amid all the hardships, perils, and plagues of the desert wanderings, and during the years of warfare since entering Canaan, the Lord had preserved him; and now at upwards of fourscore his vigor was unabated. He did not ask for himself a land already conquered, but the place which above all others the spies had thought it impossible to subdue. By the help of God he would wrest his stronghold from the very giants whose power had staggered the faith of Israel. It was no desire for honor or aggrandizement that prompted Caleb's request. The brave old warrior was desirous of giving to the people an example that would honor God, and encourage the tribes fully to subdue the land which their fathers had deemed unconquerable. PP 512.2