ContradictionsReading order 522Bible context 3 min read
Who survived to see the promised land during the Exodus?
One passage singles out Caleb, while others explicitly include Joshua; the first does not say Caleb is the only faithful exception.
- Textual conflict
- Weak contradiction
- The supplied passages do not establish incompatible claims. Different events, meanings, or conditions may account for the difference.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
The first promise excludes disobedient people without calling Caleb the only exception, so the fuller inclusion of faithful Joshua does not conflict.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Caleb is promised entry while those who provoked God are excluded
Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.
Numbers 14:22-24
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Numbers 14
Joshua and Caleb are both named as surviving exceptions
Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord. But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land,