“I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.” Joshua 15:16 “谁能攻打基列西弗将城夺取,我就把我女儿押撒给他为妻。” 约书亚记15：16

Caleb was able to drive out the three Anakites, the formidable enemies he faced when he was claiming his inheritance from the Lord, but using his daughter Acsah as a reward, he tried to solicit someone to fight and to capture Kiriath Sepher. I found this interesting because, being a man who was proud of his physical prowess, unless he himself was unable to accomplish the task, he would never have asked someone else to finish the mission that he had started. 当迦勒认领他从神那得的产业的时候，他可以赶出3个族长――他所面对的强大的敌人；却用他的女儿作为奖赏，设法让某个人争战夺取基列西弗城。我觉得这很有意思，因为，作为一个以自己天生的威力为豪的人，除非他不能完成这项任务，否则他决不会要求其他人来完成他已经开了头的任务。

Perhaps Caleb’s age had caught up with him and he finally realized that he needed some help to get the job done. “Even the great Moses did not finish his mission, why should I be embarrassed for asking for help from the young and the brave among the Israelites?” he thought. 可能迦勒的年纪大了，他终于认识到他需要有人帮助他完成这项任务。“即使是伟大的摩西也未能完成他的使命，我为什么不在以色列民中寻找一个年轻勇敢的年轻人帮助我呢？”他想。

It was not why he asked for help in conquering the Canaanites that caused me alarm, it was how he did it. His daughter Acsah would become the “spoils” given to the victor. Do we find this a little bit repulsive? 使我吃惊的不是为什么他在征服迦南人的战争中求助，而是他求助的方式。他的女儿押撒将成为“战利品”送给胜利者。我们是不是觉得这有点难以接受？

It was unlikely that Acsah was consulted concerning the matter beforehand. Obviously the girl had a will of her own, but her opinion wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. Whoever had the bravery and power to conquer Kiriath Sepher had to be a good match for his daughter, Caleb reasoned. 关于这件事，预先跟押撒商量的可能性很小。很明显，这个女子有她自己的意向，但是她的意见别想被认真地考虑。迦勒认为，无论是谁，只要他有勇气和能力占领基列西弗城，对他女儿而言，就是好对象。

This was something routinely done in time past all over the world, in the east as well as the west, and these arranged marriages seemed to work better, statistically at least, than the marriages of our time when most young people choose mates on their own. 在过去，这是全世界常规的做法，东方是这样，西方也一样；比起我们这个时代大部分年轻人自己选择配偶的婚姻，这种包办婚姻看起来似乎运作地更好，――至少从统计数字上来看。

Match-making wasn’t what Caleb was doing, though. He was using his daughter, who was likely very beautiful and desirable, as bait, soliciting people to accomplish the conquering that was dangerous and difficult. “Brave people will emerge when the reward is great,” goes a Chinese saying. Poor Acsah was destined to be the wife of a brave soldier, most likely a perfect stranger. 尽管，做媒不是迦勒要做的。他的女儿可能看起来漂亮又悦人的眼目，他只是用她做诱饵来请人完成这个危险又有困难的战争。中国有句俗语说：“重赏之下必有勇夫”。可怜的押撒注定要成为一个勇敢的战士的妻子，确切说更是一个完全陌生的人。

Acsah might have taken the whole thing in stride though, for she considered her daughterly duty to her father more important than her yeaning for romantic love. Love must be “willful” and it has everything to do with a will to love and should have very little or nothing to do with the ones who are on the receiving end of our love. Love, erotic love included, can be cultivated no matter how undesirable the object of our love is. 虽然押撒可能大致上考虑过整件事，她考虑她作为女儿对父亲的责任比她渴望的浪漫爱情更重要。爱一定是“意志上的”，它与我們爱的意志息息相關，而与接受我们爱的一方很少或几乎没有关系。爱情，包括男女的爱情，是可以被耕耘的，不论这爱的对象是如何难以想象的。

In Acsah’s case, fulfilling her duty to her father was the same thing as fulfilling her duty to God. She was a small piece of the puzzle that completed the picture the Lord was putting together. Her love for God superseded her love for man and through the former, the latter was realized as well. 以押撒的立场，完成她对她父亲的责任就像她實現对神的责任一样。她只是神放在一起的一副拼图中很小的一片。她对神的爱取代了她对男人的爱，通过前者，后者也得到實現。