CALEB

The destroying angel

Was not a type to you -

The blood of the blameless lamb,

And its flesh,

Were a sober reality.

The congealed sea

Was close to you - the cloud

Was in your vision. So were

Living and dying pursuers.

The song was in

Your ears and mouth and heart.

Bitter water, sweet water,

Spring water and rock water:

You experienced them all.

You were there

As they worshipped Jehovah:

Where were you

When they worshipped the calf?

Guilty or not you must have learned

The heart of man.

Then that great journey

Up by the Negeb,

Up into the hill country,

To see the Land

What it is.

What is it?

Hebron, which anticipated Zoan;

And the Valley of the Bunch of Grapes.

Returning you bore substance -

This is the fruit of it -

As it was in your heart.

What was your disappointment

When you trudged on

Thirled to the doomed people,

A broken-hearted man,

Bonded to a fresh generation,

Who could tell them the Land’s terrain.

You did not evade

The serpent, the well,

The Jordan.

You would not have wished to.

“Jehovah has kept me alive,

As He said...

Give me this mountain

Of which Jehovah spoke."

What joy for you to see in the land

The new generation;

To disappear from view

As a blesser.