Joshua 1:10
in Joshua 1Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people:
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
KJV
Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
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This verse in Joshua 1
Commentary
9 notes on this verseCommanded the officers - שטרים shoterim. These were different from the שפטים shophetim, who were judges among the people, and whose business it was to determine in all civil cases. The shoterim have been supposed to be subordinate officers, whose business it was to see the decisions of the shophetim carried into effect. Calmet conjectures that the shoterim here may have been the heralds of the army like those so often met with in Homer, who were called the messengers both of the gods and men; who bore sceptres, and whose persons were ever held sacred.
This site's exposition
Then Joshua commanded the officers
on Joshua 1:10-11
The officers are the shoterim, the same word used of the Israelite foremen under the Egyptian taskmasters at Exodus 5:14, and Clarke takes them here as heralds carrying orders through the camp rather than judges. Prepare you victuals occurs once in Scripture, and Barnes reads the order against Exodus 16:35, since the manna was to run until they came to an inhabited land and it stops four chapters later at 5:12. Whether these three days are the three days of 3:2, which follow the return of the spies in chapter 2, is disputed among the older commentators, some reading one span reported twice and others reading the three days the spies spend hidden in the hills as falling inside this count.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
At the death of Moses, Joshua received the rule; and when the law ended, our true Lord Jesus obtained the rule of the whole world. Therefore, Joshua who typified the Lord said to the people when he came to the Jordan: "Prepare your provisions until …
For this reason Joshua said to the people, "Prepare your provisions for the journey." Today, if you willingly listen, Christ our Lord says to you, "If you will follow me, prepare food for the journey." This food is good works which accompany us like faithful …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
), as their representatives, concurring with the divine appointment, by which Joshua was set over them, and they did it heartily, and with a great deal of cheerfulness and resolution. They promise him obedience (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation
Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people,.... The same word is used in Deu 16:18; where it seems to design such officers that attended on the judges, and executed their orders; but one would think it should here rather signify officers in the army, as captains, and the like; unless it should design a sort of heralds, who were to make proclamation throughout the camp, each of the orders issued by Joshua, immediately upon his having the above directions and instructions from the Lord: saying; as follows.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
THE story of the passage of the Jordan might instructively be used in many ways. It was a very wonderful event. It occurred on the tenth day of the first month—on the same day of the year as the passage of the Red Sea. Of that glorious miracle it was the fortieth anniversary and you may very properly join the dividing of the Red Sea to that of the Jordan, for so the Holy Spirit has done in the one hundred and fourteenth Psalm—"The sea saw it and fled: Jordan was driven back."
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
THE story of the passage of the Jordan might instructively be used in many ways. It was a very wonderful event. It occurred on the tenth day of the first month—on the same day of the year as the passage of the Red Sea. Of that glorious miracle it was the fortieth anniversary and you may very properly join the dividing of the Red Sea to that of the Jordan, for so the Holy Spirit has done in the one hundred and fourteenth Psalm—"The sea saw it and fled: Jordan was driven back." I am going to use the passage of the Jordan as our forefathers used to employ it, namely, as a type of our passage out of this world into the place appointed for our rest. Canaan is only measurably a type of that better land, for the Canaan-ite was still in the land and Israel had to fight many a battle to obtain possession of the country. In our more perfect Canaan there are no enemies to encounter, no sins to struggle with, and no powers of darkness to conquer. Still, I think the type, if imperfect, has been so long established in the Christian Church and has yielded so much of edification to godly people, that I may safely use it. We cannot afford to give up such a hymn as— "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, And cast a wishful eye To Canaan's fair and happy land, Where my possessions lie." Nor can we cease to sing with Watts— "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green; So to the Jews old Canaan stood While Jordan rolled between." The Israelites, before they crossed the Jordan, had notice given them. The officers went through the host with the message, "Prepare you victuals. For within three days you shall pass over this Jordan." The Lord often favors His people with notice that the time of their departure is at hand. He has fixed the hour of our entrance into rest and it can neither be postponed by skill of physician nor hastened by malice of foe.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Officers - The “scribes.” (See the Exo 5:6 note, and Deu 16:18.)
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
And Yehoshua commanded. He did this on the day that completed the days of mourning for Moshe. 19 Moshe died on the seventh day of Adar and he was mourned for thirty days. See Devorim:8.
1 more on this passage, in their own words ▾
Prepare your travel needs. [Prepare] everything necessary for (traveling) and weapons for the [upcoming] battle, he said to them. You cannot say the צֵדָה refers to food and drink.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וַיְצַ֣ו | vaytzav | and he commanded | H6680 → | 494 times |
| יְהוֹשֻׁ֔עַ | yehoshua' | Joshua | H3091 → | 218 times |
| אֶת־ | ʾet- | <obj.> | H853 → | 10935 times |
| שֹׁטְרֵ֥י | shoterei | [the] officers of | H7860 → | 25 times |
| הָעָ֖ם | haam | the people | H5971 → | 1873 times |
| לֵאמֹֽר׃ | lemor | <to> saying | H559 → | 5305 times |
וַיְצַ֣וand he commanded
vaytzavH6680 →494 times
יְהוֹשֻׁ֔עַJoshua
yehoshua'H3091 →218 times
אֶת־<obj.>
ʾet-H853 →10935 times
שֹׁטְרֵ֥י[the] officers of
shotereiH7860 →25 times
הָעָ֖םthe people
haamH5971 →1873 times
לֵאמֹֽר׃<to> saying
lemorH559 →5305 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
On this page
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Who and where
1 name in this verse with a page on the site.
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Caesarius of Arles, SERMON 115.1; Caesarius of Arles, SERMON 116.2; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2039: “Crossing the Jordan” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.