Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joshua 14:10

And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spoke this word unto Moses, while [the children of] Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I [am] this day fourscore and five years old.

10. And now behold ] God had fulfilled His promise, and not only prolonged his life forty-five years, but had preserved his strength in such full vigour, that, though now in his eighty-fifth year, he felt as strong, and as well able to engage in war, as when he was forty years old.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Forty and five years – The word of God to Moses was spoken after the return of the spies in the autumn of the second year after the Exodus Num 13:25; subsequently, 38 years elapsed before the people reached the Jordan Num 20:1; after the passage of the Jordan seven more years had passed, when Caleb claimed Hebron, before the partition of the land among the nine tribes and a half. These seven years then correspond to the long time Jos 11:18 during which Joshua was making war with the Canaanites. They are in the sequel of this verse added by Caleb to the years of wandering, since during them the people had no settled abodes.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 10. These forty and five years] See Clarke on Jos 13:1.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

These forty and five years, whereof thirty-eight years were spent in the wilderness, and seven since they came into Canaan.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said,…. Had upheld him in life, and preserved him from many dangers in the wilderness; and had continued him not only in life, but in health to that day, according to his promise to him, that he would bring him into the land of Canaan, and that he should see and possess it, Nu 14:24 De 1:36;

these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, and while [the children] of Israel wandered in the wilderness; not that the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness forty five years, but it was while they were in the wilderness this word or promise, concerning Caleb, was spoken by the Lord to Moses; and it was in the second year of their coming out of Egypt, after which they wandered in the wilderness thirty eight years, so that they had now been in the land of Canaan seven years; and from hence the Jewish chronologers s gather, that the land was seven years in subduing, and which their commentators in general take notice of. Maimonides t seems to be displeased with the Arabs for calling the wilderness, through which the Israelites travelled, “the desert of wandering”; but it appears from hence to be a very proper epithet of it; and Kadesh the place where they were first threatened, that they should be wanderers in the wilderness for such a time, had the additional name of Barnea, which signifies the son of a wanderer:

and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old; being forty years of age when sent a spy into the land, Jos 14:7; thirty eight years he was with Israel in the wilderness, and seven years more since they entered into the land, in all eighty five; there is no necessity of understanding it that this was his precise birth day, but that about this time, or that he was now completely of such an age, which was more by fifteen years than the age of man in common at that time, see

Ps 90:10.

s Seder Olam Rabba, c. 11. p. 31. t Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c. 50. p. 512.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

10. Kept me alive Not only excepted me from the immediate plague inflicted on the rebellions, and from the death-sentence that laid the nation as corpses in the desert, but from all the decay of years, and the perils of this war of conquest.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jos 14:10 And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while [the children of] Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I [am] this day fourscore and five years old.

Ver. 10. And now, behold, the Lord both kept me alive. ] Which mercy was therefore the greater, because of these many thousands of others whose carcasses had fallen in the wilderness. How oft have the arrows of death come whisking by us, and yet we are alive!

Wandered in the wilderness. ] By God’s command to and fro, backward and forward, as if they had been treading a maze.

I am this day fourscore and five years old. ] Whereby it appeareth that they were near upon seven years in conquering of Canaan. Difficilia quae pulchra.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)