“[Judah] went against the inhabitants of Debir…And Caleb said, ‘He who attacks Kiribati-shepherd and captures it, I will give him Achsah my daughter for a wife.’ And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter for a wife” (Judges 1:11-13).
What is the first thing you think of when you read that passage? You know what occurs to me? How could a man treat his daughter like a commodity, like something to be traded, like goods bought and sold? Sometimes we read passages like this and think that the ancient peoples of these times regarded women as cattle. In fact, that’s not really the case.
Caleb was not pawning off his daughter like a prize to the most powerful warrior. To be sure, he was offering a prize, but it was a prize that he prized greatly. Elsewhere we learned that Caleb valued his daughter and listened to her. So what was Caleb doing? He was offering the daughter he prized to the one God would use to capture land that God had promised. She was a prize of great value to be given to a man also of great value.
There is, in this passage, of picture of Christ. God has offered us a great prize in his Son, Jesus. Except that it is Jesus who has conquered and God gives him us as the prize for his victory on the cross and resurrection from the dead. So, not only is Jesus a prize to us, but we are also regarded as a prize to him.
One of my favorite passages is in II Corinthians 5:19, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” That little word reconcile, is a financial term. It literally means, “An exchange of equal value.” Did you catch that? God considers you as of equal value to his own sinless son. Yes, you are a sinner. Yes, you deserve death and hell for eternity. Yet, God has traded Jesus for you, and given you to one another. Just like Caleb who valued his daughter so highly, so too, God values you.
Memory Verse
“In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (II Corinthians 5:19).
Application
What do you have that you can surrender to God as an act of faith and love, demonstrating that you want to give yourself completely to Jesus? How about trusting God with more than your life, but with your family’s lives as well?