Joshuachapter 3
17 verses · Joshua, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · History
And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.
Introduction
Joshua, by tradition, History, Joshua Overview.
This chapter is the first act of Israel inside the promised land, and it is told slowly and with great care for order. The book names no writer, and it writes for a people who would tell this day to their children. The river stood between a nation born in the desert and everything it had been promised. Listen for who goes first and how far behind the people are told to walk. Notice the words spoken about Joshua, and the echoes of an older crossing. The priests and the ark stand at the centre of the day.
Context
- Who
- A nation watching whether the God of Moses would act for Joshua
- What
- The crossing of the Jordan in flood, with the priests carrying the ark into the river ahead of the people.
- Where
- The east bank of the Jordan opposite Jericho, and the riverbed itself.
- When
- The tenth day of the first month by Joshua 4:19, at the harvest season when the river overflows its banks.
- Why
- To show that the God who parted the sea for Moses was with Joshua and would drive out the nations of the land.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Joshua, to the priests who carry the ark and to the whole nation behind them. Micah 6:5 later treats the stretch from Shittim to Gilgal as one act of God, so the move that begins here was remembered whole.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The Jordan below the Sea of Galilee runs in a deep trench, and at the harvest it fills its banks. John Wesley reads the harvest here as the barley harvest, since chapter 5 has Israel keeping the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month a few days later.
A first hearer knew what the ark was and who might carry it. Numbers 4:15 gives the carrying to the Kohathites, and here priests carry it, which Adam Clarke notes happens again at the circuit of Jericho in Joshua 6:6.
The people are told to keep about two thousand cubits behind it, roughly a thousand yards. The verse gives its own reason, that they may know the way they have not passed before. John Wesley notes that the later Jewish measure of a sabbath day's walk was fixed at the same two thousand cubits.
Sanctify yourselves at verse 5 is the preparation Exodus 19:10 to 11 ordered at Sinai before the Lord came down on the mountain. It falls once more in this book, at 7:13, where it goes before a search for the devoted thing instead of before a wonder.
The water stops at a named place, the city Adam beside Zaretan, roughly sixteen miles upstream. The account fixes a location it had no need to supply, and readers differ over the mechanism. Some point to the recorded blockings of the Jordan by bank collapses at that reach, in 1267 and again in July 1927. They read a fall of earth timed to the moment the priests stepped in. Others read a direct holding of the water, and the text gives the place and the hour and no mechanism.
Significance
The crossing was Joshua's accreditation. Joshua 3:7 says the public proof that God is with him as he was with Moses starts that day, and 4:14 reports it done in the same words.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The instrument is a river, which is what accredited Moses at the sea, and the phrase stand upon an heap at verse 13 is Red Sea vocabulary from Exodus 15:8.
For the first hearers the order of march said who was leading. A chest carried on men's shoulders went a thousand yards in front of the nation, and the men with swords walked behind it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The march order changes at the Jordan, and Rashi is the commentator who says why. He is quoted here from the Metsudah Publications Book of Joshua of 1997, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. In the wilderness the pillar of cloud went in front and the ark travelled in the middle of the camp, after two of the four divisions had set out. Rashi marks this crossing as different from every march before it, because here the ark goes first (Rashi on Joshua 3:3:1). Rashi notes in the same verse that the priests are called Levites, and reports the Sages in Bereshit Rabbah counting forty-eight places where Scripture does it (Rashi on Joshua 3:3:2).
The distance the people keep behind the ark is read as reverence rather than logistics. It "was mandated out of respect for Hashem" (Rashi on Joshua 3:4:1). The Hebrew of the same verse reads as a plural where the sense wants a singular, and Rashi gives two answers. One is that Scripture writes such forms, and he cites a line of the Psalms for the pattern. The other is that two arks travelled together, the ark of the Divine Presence and the ark carrying the bones of Joseph (Rashi on Joshua 3:4:2). The second answer is an old tradition about what was in the procession, and a Christian reader meeting it here should know that the text of Joshua itself names one ark.
Rashi keeps the chapter on a clock. The order to prepare came on the third day, and the thirtieth day of mourning for Moses fell on the first of those three (Rashi on Joshua 3:5:1). The word usually rendered sanctify yourselves means prepare yourselves in this verse (Rashi on Joshua 3:5:2). The order to the priests came the next day (Rashi on Joshua 3:6:1). Carrying the ark changed hands for the occasion. "Until now it was carried by the Levites, but today it was to be carried by the Kohanim" (Rashi on Joshua 3:6:2).
Two miracles stand in the chapter for Rashi, and only one of them is the river. At the ninth verse Joshua calls the people near, and Rashi takes the summons literally. "He compressed all of them between the two poles of the Ark." He adds that this is one of the places where a small space held a large amount (Rashi on Joshua 3:9:1). The proof offered in the tenth verse is then the crowding itself, known "by virtue of actually seeing that all of you are compressed here" (Rashi on Joshua 3:10:1). On the phrase for the Master of all the earth he answers a grammatical objection with two parallels from the Prophets (Rashi on Joshua 3:11:1).
The crossing itself he glosses closely and briefly. The twelve men of the twelfth verse are prepared in advance for an order that comes after the crossing (Rashi on Joshua 3:12:1). The waters from above are the ordinary flow of a river off the heights (Rashi on Joshua 3:13:1). The banks of the fifteenth verse are a high edge (Rashi on Joshua 3:15:1). The waters were cut off far from where the priests stood (Rashi on Joshua 3:16:1). The priests stayed at the edge of the riverbed until the people had passed (Rashi on Joshua 3:8:1, 3:8:2 and 3:17:1). The corpus carries six further notes on this chapter without an English text. They stand cited and unquoted at Metzudat David on Joshua 3:1:1, 3:2:1 and 3:7:1, and at Radak on Joshua 3:2:1, 3:7:1 and 3:14:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse, the move from Shittim, it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:22, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 11:16 and Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 6:12. Midrash Tehillim 42:4 stands with them, and the first chapter of the book of Joshua in Sefer HaYashar.
The two thousand cubits behind the ark draw a run of their own. On the fourth verse the corpus holds Bamidbar Rabbah 2:9, Bereshit Rabbah 53:13, Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 2:2:14, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 24:1:2 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 21:16:1. On the fifth, the order to prepare, it holds Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 18:8.
The promise to exalt Joshua in the sight of Israel is the passage the Talmud works. On the seventh verse the corpus holds Avodah Zarah 25a:7, Kohelet Rabbah 1:12:1, Ein Yaakov, Avodah Zarah 2:4 and Taanit 3:4, and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Taanit 3:2. On the ninth, where Rashi set the compression, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 19:9, Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 9:1, Sifrei Devarim 27:7, Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 14:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 7:3. On the tenth it holds Bereshit Rabbah 5:7 and Vayikra Rabbah 10:9.
The ark and the water carry the rest. On the eleventh verse the corpus holds Aggadat Bereshit 17:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 34:1:1, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 7:4 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 7:3. On the thirteenth it holds Zevachim 119b:3, Shemot Rabbah 36:4, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 26:16:3 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 938:55. On the fifteenth, the Jordan at flood, it holds Sotah 34a:1, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 9:6 and a passage of Otzar Midrashim from the baraita on the constellations, at 1:5. On the sixteenth it holds Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 7:5:5 and three passages of Otzar Midrashim. They are the baraita on the work of the tabernacle at 1:5, the midrash of three and four at 3:16, and the midrash on missing and extra letters at 1:29. On the seventeenth, the priests standing firm on dry ground, it holds Berakhot 54a:15 and Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 9:2. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Joshua 3:3:1 to 3:17:1, the Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997, reported CC-BY; Bereshit Rabbah, the count of forty-eight places where the priests are called Levites, as Rashi reports it at Rashi on Joshua 3:3:2; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Joshua 3:1:1, 3:2:1 and 3:7:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Joshua 3:2:1, 3:7:1 and 3:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/joshua/3.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Follow the ark: you have not passed this way before
Joshua 3:1-2
Shittim is the camp of Numbers 25:1 and the place the spies set out from at 2:1. The nation lodges at the river and waits three days, the interval named at 1:11. Micah 6:5 later remembers the whole move, from Shittim to Gilgal, as one act of God.
Joshua 3:1
“I will pass to Joshua the son of Nun, who was previously called Ause, or better, as in the Hebrew, Hoshea, that is, Savior. For he, according to the epistle of Jude, saved the people of Israel and led them forth out of Egypt and brought them into the land of promise.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Against Jovinianus 1.21patristic
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Joshua 3:1
“The acacia groves” (Exo 25:5 note) of Shittim on both sides of Jordan line the upper terraces of the valley (compare 2Ki 6:4). They would be in this part at some six miles distance from the river itself.
Gill takes them to be the officers of 1:10. Barnes fills the three days with preparation, since the host included women and children as well as soldiers. Moving a whole people into hostile country needed arrangements that took time.
Joshua 3:2
“After three days - These three days are probably to be thus understood: As soon as Joshua took the command of the army, he sent the spies to ascertain the state of Jericho; as we have seen Jos 1:12. They returned at the end of three days, or rather on the third day, and made their report. It was at this time, immediately on the return of the spies, that he made the proclamation mentioned here; in consequence of which the people immediately struck their tents, and marched forward to Jordan.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joshua 3:3-4
The people move when the ark moves and keep about two thousand cubits behind it. The verse gives the reason, “so that you can see the way to go”, since a chest on men’s shoulders is hidden from the back of a large camp unless the ground ahead is clear. Adam Clarke adds reverence for the ark, and John Wesley notes the later sabbath walk was the same distance.
Joshua 3:3
“Go after it - Towards Jordan, to go over it in such a manner as I am about to describe. 'Till this time the ark went in the middle of the cloudy pillar, now it goes in the front. Probably the pillar of fire and cloud was still hovering over the ark.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
about two thousand cubits: Barnes adds a further reason: from the heights above the valley the people could watch the ark go down into the river and see how the wonder was done. Henry notes the ark needed no guard of soldiers. It went alone and itself guarded them, and he contrasts the distance kept here with the access believers have through Christ.
Joshua 3:4
“About two thousand cubits - This distance they were to keep, 1. For the greater respect, because the presence of the ark was the symbol and pledge of the Divine presence. 2. That the ark, which was to be their pilot over these waters, might be the more conspicuous which it could not have been had the people crowded upon it.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 3:4
“Two thousand cubits - A thousand yards, at which distance from it the Israelites seem to have been encamped in the wilderness. And because they generally went from their tents to the ark to worship God, especially on the sabbath-days; hence it hath been conceived, that a sabbath-day's journey reached only to two thousand cubits.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joshua 3:5-6
At Exodus 19:10-11 Moses consecrates the people for the day the LORD came down on the mountain, and the same word is paired with tomorrow here. The order recurs at 7:13 after Ai, before a search for the devoted things instead of a wonder. Priests carry the ark in place of the Kohathites of Numbers 4:15, and Adam Clarke notes that they carry it again at Jericho in 6:6.
Joshua 3:5
“Sanctify yourselves - What was implied in this command we are not informed; but it is likely that it was the same as that given by Moses, Exo 19:10-14. They were to wash themselves and their garments, and abstain from every thing that might indispose their minds from a profitable attention to the miracle about to be wrought in their behalf.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Barnes notes that the narrative runs ahead here, since the priests took up the ark on the following day. Clarke reports Calmet's guess that priests carried it because it went uncovered, where the Levites always bore it wrapped. Numbers 4:5-6 sets out that covering.
Joshua 3:6
“Spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark - It is remarkable that the priests, not the Levites, whose ordinary business it was were employed to carry the ark on this occasion. Calmet conjectures that this was because it was probably carried without being wrapped up in its curtains, as it always was when the Levites carried it. Though it was the business of the Levites, the sons of Kohath, to carry the ark; yet on certain occasions the priests alone performed this office. 1. In the present case. 2. When they encompassed Jericho, Jos 6:6.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The waters shall stand in one heap
Joshua 3:7-8
The promise of 1:5 is repeated in the same words, “just as I was with Moses”, and its public proof starts today. The result is reported at 4:14 in the same terms, that Israel revered Joshua as they had revered Moses. The instrument is a river, as the sea had accredited Moses, and Joshua’s part is to tell priests to stand still in the water.
Joshua 3:7
“This day will I begin to magnify thee - One cause why the miracle now to be narrated was performed is here suggested. As Moses was declared to he sent immediately from God with an extraordinary commission by the miracles which he worked, more especially that of dividing the Red Sea in two parts, so was Joshua both sent and accredited in a like manner. (Compare Jos 1:5, and Jos 4:14.) Other reasons are given in Jos 3:10; Jos 5:1.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 3:7
“Some have observed that it was at the banks of Jordan that God began to magnify Joshua, and at the same place he began to magnify our Lord Jesus as Mediator; for John was baptizing at Bethabara, the house of passage, and there it was that when our Saviour was baptized it was proclaimed concerning him, This is my beloved Son.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Wesley reads the edge of the waters as the outer limit of a river spread wider than usual, which verse 15 explains. The priests stopped there first. Once the river divided they moved to the middle of the channel, where verse 17 finds them.
Joshua 3:8
“Ye shall stand still in Jordan - The priests proceeded first with the ark, and entered into the bed of the river the course of which was immediately arrested, the waters collecting above the place where the priests stood, while the stream fell off towards the Dead Sea; so that the whole channel below where the priests were standing became dry.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 3:8
“The brink - Hebrew. to the extremity, so far as the river then spread itself, which was now more than ordinary, ver. 15. In Jordan - Within the waters of Jordan, in the first entrance into the river; Where they stood for a season, 'till the river was divided, and then they went into the midst of it, and there abode 'till all the people were passed over.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joshua 3:9-11
The title “the living God” was used before at Deuteronomy 5:26 of the voice out of the fire, and David uses it next before Goliath at 1 Samuel 17:26. The seven nations are the seven of Deuteronomy 7:1 in a different order, so the list is a standing formula.
Joshua 3:9
“And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, come hither,.... Very probably to the door of the tabernacle: and hear the words of the Lord your God; which he was about to deliver to them as from him, and in his name.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 3:9
“The premonitory address of Joshua, taken in connection with the miraculous result exactly as he had described it, would tend to increase and confirm their faith in the God of their fathers as not a dull, senseless, inanimate thing like the idols of the nations, but a Being of life, power, and activity to defend them and work for them. THE WATERS OF JORDAN ARE DIVIDED.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the living God is among you: Henry points out that the Hebrew doubles the verb, driving out He will drive out, which the Berean gives as surely. The crossing was to serve as a pledge. If the river gave way before God, no nation on the list could stand before Him.
Joshua 3:10
“Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you - The Israelites were apt to be discouraged, and to faint at even the appearance of danger; it was necessary, therefore, that they should have the fullest assurance of the presence and assistance of God in the important enterprise on which they were now entering.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Joshua 3:10
“Ye shall know - By experience and sensible evidence. The living God - Not a dull, dead, senseless God, such as the gods of the nations are; but a God of life, and power, and activity to watch over you, and work for you. Among you - Is present with you to strengthen and help you.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joshua 3:10
“The living God - Compare the marginal reference. The gods of the pagan are “dead idols.” On the names of the seven nations, see Gen 10:16, etc., note.”
the Lord of all the earth: Henry observes that the cloud had guided Israel under Moses and the ark now takes its place. Both were visible signs of God's presence. He sees the difference as grace once veiled in a cloud and now shown openly, a figure he applies to Christ.
Joshua 3:11
“Some observe an accent in the original, which they think directs us to translate it somewhat more emphatically, Behold the ark of the covenant, even the ark of the Lord, or even of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth. (3.) They are told that the ark should pass before them into Jordan.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua 3:12-13
Twelve men are chosen with no reason given, as John Gill points out, and chapter 4 supplies it when they lift twelve stones from the riverbed. The condition is exact: the water is cut off as soon as the priests’ feet touch it, so nothing moves until men walk into a river in flood. To “stand up in a heap” is Red Sea language, from Exodus 15:8 and Psalm 78:13.
Joshua 3:12
“Now therefore take ye twelve men,.... For what end and purpose is not mentioned.”
Wesley explains the cutting off: the water below would run on toward the Dead Sea while the water coming down from the source stood still. Henry carries the image forward. He sets it beside Revelation 16:12, where the Euphrates is dried up to prepare a way.
Joshua 3:13
“Cut off - The waters which now are united now shall be divided, and part shall flow down the channel towards the dead sea, and the other part that is nearer the spring of the river, and flows down from it, shall stand still. An heap - Being as it were congealed, as the Red-Sea was, Exod. xv, 8, and so kept from overflowing the country.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Priests' feet touch Jordan at flood stage
Joshua 3:14-16
Harvest makes the timing hard, since the Jordan “overflows its banks throughout the harvest season”, and the water stops at a named place, Adam, about sixteen miles upstream. Some readers point to bank collapses that blocked the river there in 1267 and 1927 and read one timed to the priests’ step. Others read a direct holding of the water, and the text names the place and hour without a mechanism.
Joshua 3:14
“And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan,.... Which they had pitched very near it, upon their removal from Shittim, and in which they had lodged the night past: and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people; at the distance of two thousand cubits.”
4 more voices on this verse
Joshua 3:14
“Joshua son of Nun made the Jordan River stop, but only as long as the ark was in the water. As soon as the people had crossed to the other side and the ark had come through, he gave the river back its usual flow again. The bottom of the deep in the Red Sea was denuded of water when the sea was driven back to either side by the Spirit, but the duration of the marvel was the passage of the army through the deep on the dry strip.”
Gregory of Nyssa · written before 395 · THE LIFE OF GREGORY THE WONDERWORKER 7.55patristic
Joshua 3:14
“But as seen in harvest, it is twice as broad; and in ancient times, when the hills on the right and left were much more drenched with rain and snow than since the forests have disappeared, the river must, from a greater accession of water, have been broader still than at harvest-time in the present day.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Joshua 3:14
“5 And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the L ORD will do wonders among you. 6 And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua 3:14
“And do not imagine that these deeds are only in former times and nothing so great as this is brought forth in you who are now the hearer of them. For all things are fulfilled in you according to a mystical reckoning. Indeed you who long to draw near to the hearing of the divine law have recently forsaken the darkness of idolatry and are now for the first time forsaking Egypt.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 4.1patristic
Barnes renders the phrase as full up to all its banks, brim full within the lowest terrace of a valley where the stream is usually under a hundred feet wide. Clarke answers readers who thought the river easily forded. He cites 1 Chronicles 12:15 and traces the rise to snow melting on Lebanon.
Joshua 3:15
“Jordan overfloweth all his banks - Rather “is full up to all his banks,” i. e. “brim-full.” This remark strikingly illustrates the suddenness and completeness, not less than the greatness, of the marvel. The Jordan River flows at the bottom of a deep valley, which descends to the water’s edge on either side in two, occasionally in three, terraces. Within the lowest of these the stream, ordinarily less than 100 feet wide in this lower part of its course, is confined.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 3:15
“All the time of harvest - This is meant not of wheat-harvest, but of the barley-harvest, as is manifest from their keeping the passover at their first entrance, chap. v, 10, which was kept on the fourteenth day of the first month, when they were to bring a sheaf of their first-fruits, which were of barley.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Barnes renders the clause as a heap far away, by Adam, so the water stood well upstream of the crossing. He says Adam is named nowhere else and links Zarethan with the hill now called Kurn Sartabeh. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call the exact crossing point unknown.
Joshua 3:16
“Adam - The city Adam being more obscure, is described by its nearness to a more known place, then eminent, but now unknown. The meaning is, that the waters were stopped in their course at that place, and so kept at a distance from the Israelites whilst they passed over. Against Jericho - Here God carried them over, because this part was, 1.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 3:16
“When swollen "in time of harvest," it flows with a vastly accelerated current. the people passed over right against Jericho--The exact spot is unknown; but it cannot be that fixed by Greek tradition--the pilgrims' bathing-place--both because it is too much to the north, and the eastern banks are there sheer precipices ten or fifteen feet high.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
stood firm on dry ground: Dry ground is the Red Sea wording of Exodus 14:16 and 14:22, and Elijah crosses this river on it again at 2 Kings 2:8. The priests stand midstream until everyone is over, keeping the ark between the people and the water, and 4:18 has the river return as they reach the bank. Albert Barnes sets beside it 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, where Paul reads the sea crossing the same way.
Joshua 3:17
“And the priests that bare the ark of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan,.... Which for its breadth Mr. Maundrell, the above mentioned traveller, says (c) might be about twenty yards over, and its depth exceeded his height; but Dr. Shaw (d), a later traveller still, says,"the river Jordan is by far the most considerable river, excepting the Nile, either of the coast of Syria, or of Barbary.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 3:17
“The miraculous passage to the holy land through Jordan is not less pregnant with typical meaning than that through the Red Sea (compare 1Co 10:1-2).”
How this psalm is built
The form: A crossing narrative built around the ark, with the order of march given in advance and the accreditation of the new commander attached, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The Lord of all the earth, twice in one chapter | The title falls at verse 11 and again at verse 13. The site's published exposition of verses 9 to 11 finds it only once more in the King James Bible, at Zechariah 6:5. The living God in verse 10 is rarer still in the narrative books. It stands at Deuteronomy 5:26 of the voice out of the fire, and the next man to use it is David in front of Goliath at 1 Samuel 17:26.John Gill and Matthew Henry, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 3:9-11. | Joshua 3:10, Joshua 3:11, Joshua 3:13 |
| The sea told again at a river | Dry ground at verse 17 is the wording of Exodus 14:16 and 14:22. Stand upon an heap at verse 13 is the wording of Exodus 15:8 and Psalm 78:13. The site's published exposition of verses 12 and 13 finds the phrase upon an heap in the King James Bible only here and at verse 16. The next crossing on dry ground in Scripture is Elijah's at this same river, at 2 Kings 2:8.Albert Barnes and Keil and Delitzsch, Notes on the Old Testament and Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 3:12-13 and 3:17. | Joshua 3:13, Joshua 3:16, Joshua 3:17 |
| Told before it happened | Joshua states the terms at verses 9 to 13 and the narrative carries them out at verses 14 to 17 in the same order. The condition is exact, that the water is cut off as soon as the soles of the priests rest in it. Nothing moves until men walk into a river in flood. John Gill points out that the twelve men are chosen at verse 12 with no reason given, and chapter 4 supplies the answer.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 3:12-13. | Joshua 3:9, Joshua 3:13, Joshua 3:15, Joshua 3:16 |
| Sanctify yourselves, at the mountain and at the river | Exodus 19:10 and 19:11 have Moses sanctify the people today and tomorrow against the third day. The same word is paired with the same tomorrow at verse 5. It falls once more in this book, at 7:13, where it goes before a search for the devoted thing instead of before a wonder. The site's published exposition of verses 5 and 6 sets the three occasions beside one another.Adam Clarke and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 3:5-6. | Joshua 3:5, Joshua 7:13 |
The structure of the accreditation
8 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter is arranged around one promise and its discharge. Joshua 1:5 gave the promise in exact words, that God would be with Joshua as he was with Moses. Verse 7 says the public proof of it starts today. Joshua 4:14 reports the result in the same vocabulary, that the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel.
The instrument is a river, which is what accredited Moses at the sea. Joshua's own part in it is to tell priests to stand still in the water. The site's published exposition of verses 7 and 8 marks that the man being magnified issues no order about fighting anywhere in the chapter.
The historical value
The account fixes a place and a season it had no need to fix. Adam beside Zaretan lies about sixteen miles upstream of the crossing, on a reach where the Jordan runs between high marl banks. Collapses of those banks have twice been recorded as damming the river, in 1267 and again in July 1927. The text names neither a cause nor a coincidence, and the site's published exposition sets the recorded blockings beside the direct reading without choosing between them.
The season is fixed by the flood. Joshua 3:15 says the Jordan overflows all its banks through the harvest, which is the same detail that gave Rahab the flax on her roof at 2:6. Two chapters that were written about different things agree on the time of year.
The New Testament's use
Albert Barnes sets this crossing beside 1 Corinthians 10:1 and 10:2, where Paul reads the sea crossing as a baptism into Moses. The site's published exposition of verse 17 carries that reading. The chapter itself is not quoted in the New Testament, and no apostle names the Jordan crossing, so the link stands in the commentators' names.
The rest this crossing leads to is taken up at Hebrews 4:8, which uses the Greek form of Joshua's name to argue that the rest he gave was not the last word. The site's published dossier carries the same reading under its entry titled Rest.
Keep studying
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 3:17; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 3:1-2 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 3:5-6.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.