Numbers 13:6 names Kalev ben Yephuneh (כָּלֵב בֶּן-יְפֻנֶּה) of the tribe of Yehudah as the third of the twelve men chosen by Mosheh to spy out the land of Kena'an (Canaan) from their temporary base at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran. When ten of the spies spoke of the forces they would face if they went into the land, it was Kalev who silenced the people and spoke in favour of going on (13:30). When, after this, the people began wishing they had never left Mitsrayim, Kalev, with Yehoshu'a on this occasion, again tries to rally the people, but is threatened with stoning (14:10). As a reward for his idealism, Mosheh informs the people that, while none of them will ever see the land, Kalev and Yehoshu'a will (14:30 and 38).
In Joshua 15:13 ff, Kalev receives the city of Kiryat Arba, which is here also called Chevron (Hebron) as his inheritance, as promised previously by Mosheh (I need to cite this, but alas I cannot, because other than the promise of entering the land, in 14:30 and 38, the Tanach does not record the giving of this specific bequest, but only its receipt later on), though he has to drive out the Anakim before he can inhabit it. He also takes Kiryat Sepher, which he renames Devir (not to be confused with the Devir which was the Holy of Holies in the Temple), and gives his daughter Achsah (עַכְסָה ) the upper and lower springs adjacent to it. The same story is told in Judges 1 ff, though here, in verse 10, it is the whole tribe of Yehudah which takes Chevron and drives out the Anakim, and only from verse 12 do we get Kalev and the tale as told in Joshua.
However, Numbers 32:12, and Joshua 14:6 and 14, all state that Yephunneh was a Beney Kenaz (Kenizzite), an ancient tribe of Kena'an according to Genesis 15:19.
1 Chronicles 4:15 disputes this, placing Yephunneh firmly in the tribe of Yehudah, and naming Kalev's sons as Iru (עִירוּ), Elah (אֵלָה) and Na'am (נָעַם), with Kenaz (קְנַז) as the son of Elah.
In fact it is entirely possible that both are correct; the Beney Yisra-El in the desert included many non-Beney Yisra-El, as we know from the law created there (Exodus 12:49) which states that "One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and to the stranger who sojourns among you." Given that Chevron was in the tribal territory of Yehudah, and that Chronicles was written by the northern kingdom, either the absorption of Kalev into Yehudah, or the simple assumption from the geography that Kalev must have been a Bene Yehudah, is entirely reasonable.
1 Samuel 25 tells of Avi-Gayil, the wife of Naval at Carmel of Ma'on, who will become one of King David's wives. Naval was a Beney Kalev.
A different Kalev (see the qualifying not below) appears in 1 Chronicles 2, which gives the lineage of Yehudah. One of Yehudah's sons, Parets - or here Perets (פֶרֶץ) - fathers Chetsron (חֶצְרוֹן) and Chamul (חָמוּל); Chetsron fathers Yerach-Me-El (יְרַחְמְאֵל), Ram (רָם) and a third whom the Hebrew text names as Keluvai (כְּלוּבָי), but which most translations render as Caleb, which is to say Kalev, but with a footnote. Verses 18 and 19 of the same chapter both call him Kalev, so it is unclear why verse 9 gives what must be his tribal identity, and should therefore be Keluvi and not Keluvai anyway.
All of this becomes significant later on, because this Kalev's brother, Ram, "begat Ami-Nadav (עַמִּינָדָב), and Ami-Nadav begat Nachshon (נַחְשׁוֹן), prince of the children of Yehudah; and Nachshon begat Salma (נַחְשׁוֹן - the first of a multitude of Salm names that will run through the Davidic stories, from Yeru-Shala'im to Av-Shalom - Absalom - et al), and Salma begat Bo'az (בֹּעַז), and Bo'az begat Oved (עוֹבֵד), and Oved begat Yishai (יִשָׁי - Jesse); and Yishai begat..." King David (1 Chronicles 2:10-13). All of which may be a later-in-history attempt to justify David taking the kingship of Chevron away from Kalev's actual descendants.
This second Kalev himself (1 Chronicles 2:18 ff) "begat children of Azuvah (עֲזוּבָה - a strange name this: "the abandoned one") his wife, and of Yeriy'ot (יְרִיעוֹת); and these were her sons: Yesher (יֵשֶׁר), and Shovav (שׁוֹבָב), and Ardon (אַרְדּוֹן). And Azuvah died, and Kalev took Ephrat (אֶפְרָת - interesting coincidence this name, as we shall see), who bare him Chur (חוּר). And Chur begat Uri (אוּרִי), and Uri begat Betsal-El (בְּצַלְאֵל). After all of which Kalev's father Chetsron dies in, of all coincidental names, Kalev Ephratah (כָּלֵב אֶפְרָתָה).
Qualifying note: The Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 11b) claims that this is the same Kalev, but clearly he cannot be the son of both Chetsron and of Yephuneh, and the accepted time-period of slavery in Egypt would require Yehudah and his descendants to have lived jointly more than four centuries.
1 Chronicles 2:42 ff then gives another, even longer list of Kalev's sons, naming him, interestingly, as the brother of Yerach-Me-El , but not mentioning the somewhat more significant Ram, presumably because it did not want to get involved in all those battles between David and the heirs of the first Kalev over the kingship of Chevron - if it was promised by Mosheh to the heirs of that Kalev, then David had no claim, even in spite of himself being related to another man who also happened to be named Kalev... read my novel "City of Peace" for the full account.
Verse 42 tells us that "the sons of Kalev the brother of Yerach-Me-El were Meysha (מֵישָׁע) his first-born, who was the father of Ziph (זִיף); after which, in verse 46: "Eyphah (עֵיפָה), Kalev's concubine, bare Charan (חָרָן), and Mots'a (מוֹצָא), and Gazez (גָּזֵז); and Charan begat Gazez." Verse 48 then tells us that: "Ma'achah (מַעֲכָה), Kalev's concubine, bare Shever (שֶׁבֶר) and Tirchanah (תִּרְחֲנָה)." Verse 49 adds that: "she bare also Sha'aph (שַׁעַף) the father of Madmanah (מַדְמַנָּה), Sheva (שְׁוָא) the father of Machbena (מַכְבֵּנָה), and the father of Giv'a (גִבְעָא - Gibeah in most English transliterations, but that would be Giv'ah with a Hey and this does not have one); and the daughter of Kalev was Achsah (עַכְסָה)" - which is an extraordinary coincidence, because the daughter of the first Kalev was also called Achsah; which may make you think that, perhaps, the two Kalevs are in fact the same, and only one, but the first Kalev was ben Yephuneh, and this one is ben Chetsron, so that cannot be. Merely one more coincidence in a chapter full of them.
Because, along the way, if you go and read the whole chapter, you will find that every other major town and shrine of Yehudah, and especially every place mentioned in the tales concerning both the spy Kalev and the Beney Kalev of David's time, are given as the sons of this Kalev, including Naval's Ma'on and Carmel, and especially Chevron itself; and several key characters too, such as Chur (חוּר - he who held up Mosheh's hands in the battle against the Amalekites - Exodus 17:12) and Betsalel (בְּצַלְאֵל - who Mosheh appointed as chief architect of the entire religious package in the desert).
Ah, one wonders, what is going on behind the scenes here? Is the Davidic "right to claim" Chevron being given retroactive validation, by creating a princely genealogy to justify it, over the Mosaic bequest to the spy Kalev? It would appear so. What is odd, however, is not that it is happening, but that it is happening in Chronicles, the book of the northern kingdom, and not in either Samuel or Kings, the books of the kingdom of David's tribe, Yehudah.
And then, in 1 Chronicles 2:50, yet another Kalev is introduced, and with him yet more coincidences, all still in the family of Yehudah: "the son of Chur, the first-born of Ephratah (אֶפְרָתָה)". Chur we have already seen. Ephratah is presumably the same woman who was called Ephrat previously (see above), but either way the significance is not in the variation on the name so much as its connection, with Beit Lechem Ephratah, David's birthplace; but earlier in the chapter we saw Kalev buried at Kalev-Ephratah, neatly described by Gesenius as "a place unknown elsewhere".
And who does this Kalev father? Verse 52 tells us "Shoval (שׁוֹבָל) the father of Kiryat-Ye'arim (קִרְיַת יְעָרִים - which just happens to be the place where the Ark was stored, after the Pelishtim returned it - 1 Samuel 7:20, until King David's failed first attempt to bring it to Yeru-Shala'im - 1 Chronicles 13:8 ff), Salma (שַׂלְמָא) the father of Beit-Lechem (בֵית־לָחֶם), Chareph (חָרֵף) the father of Beit-Gader (בֵית־גָּדֵר)..." the list goes on for several verses, until Yehudah has, directly or indirectly, fathered every clan and tribe and town and shrine of significance in the region of Chevron, Yeru-Shala'im and Beit Lechem. Fathered - or suborned - or conquered by literature! The eradication of the claims of Kalev anyway, because every claim he might make in a court of law is now disprovable by document. "Mosheh promised my ancestor Kalev..." "Sorry, wrong Kalev; this one was Chetsron's son, not Yephuneh's." "But Achsah, his daughter..." "Wrong Achsah." "But Naval of Karm-El, of Ma'on...but Kalev-Ephratah...but...but..." And no record anywhere of Mosheh promising a darned thing more than "Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Kalev Yephuneh and Yehoshu'a bin Nun." (Numbers 14:30)
And then, and I deliberately waited to the end to tell you this, there is the meaning of the name Kalev. What would you expect, when King David, or his acolytes, have gone to so much trouble to denigrate and diminish him. Why, "dog" of course.
See my note to Kenaz, which still requires follow-up, but there are hints amongst the comparative mythologists that Kalev may be the Yisra-Eli equivalent of Sirius, which is known as the dog-star, Canis Major; whether or not this too is just a coincidence of names is the point at which further research is needed. Given the unlikelihood of anyone naming their child "dog", and the cosmological associations of every other important name in the Tanach, there is every reason to think the research will prove fruitful.
See my note at Psalm 59:7 for more on this.
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