He was likely a youth when Caleb and Joshua spied out Canaan. He must have been in middle age in the period after Joshua’s death, when he captured Debir. That’s a time when Caleb was at least eighty-five (Joshua 14:10–14), leaving Othniel somewhere in his fifties. Some thirty years later is likely when the Lord called Othniel to do his greatest work.1
9 But when the people of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel, who saved them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.