Pastor Riley,
 
Thank you for your 1/25 posts about Joshua & Caleb, and about the 40 and 38 years.
 
You stated in your post at http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/jan2005/fmriley125-2.htm that "A careful study of the Scriptures reveals that it took Israel two years to reach Mt. Sinai. Study it out for yourself.  At Mt. Sinai Israel rebelled against the will of God to go up and take the land.   God punished them by leaving them to wander in the wilderness for another 38 years (a total of 40 years). These are Scriptural facts that can easily be documented by anyone that will seriously study the Word. Therefore at the end of the 38 years of punishment Israel crossed the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua and entered the promised land.   They then engaged in a seven year war (clearly a type of the seven year Tribulation)."
 
I just found the verse about the 38 years in Deut. 2:14 which says, "And the space in which we came from Kadesh-barnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, was thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the Lord sware unto them."  According to Joshua 14:6-7 Caleb was forty years old when Moses sent him from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the Promised Land of Israel.  Therefore, Caleb must have been 78 years old when he crossed over the brook Zered which was located east of the Dead Sea rather than being 80 years old as I stated in my previous post; and according to Joshua 14:10-15, Caleb would have been 85 years old when he was finally given Hebron as an inheritance.
 
God bless,
Donna