Israel panicked outside the fertile land
So Moses turned his people back,
A sweating tide to wet the desert
With their unbelieving blood.
Forty years brought children,
A younger generation to stand
On Canaan's edge and gaze again
Upon what might have been...
And to dream what might become.
Doubters' bones scattered in desert graves,
Moses hid in a mountain tomb,
Israel poised a second time
Upon the edge of giant land.
Up stepped old Caleb now past eighty
To speak a word with Joshua,
"I was forty on the day that Moses
Sent me in to spy this milk and honey land,
And though reports of giants made us tremble,
I trusted God to take our people in,
But He, the reader of all hearts, declined
And turned us back to wandering."
"When Moses saw my heart
He knew I stood alone, spear pointing
To the promised land, he swore
The land of giants to me and mine."
Joshua stood beside his elder brother,
Pondering what to say, so Caleb spoke again.
"The promise Moses made was those tall hills,
Now let me go and claim the giants' land.
Perhaps it pleases God."
At 85, still tall and strong,
The giant killer strode into a giant land,
Declared his right to Hebron,
His piece of promised ground,
Gave his fighting men inheritance of water,
By offerings of marriage to his daughters.
So Caleb lived; the story's told
With no Torah record of his passing,
Just the image of a faithful man
Still walking tall into the promised land.