Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

3:1 Shittim. See note on 2:1.

3:2 three days. In 1:11, the officers alerted the people that they would cross over the Jordan "within three days." Now at the end of three days, the officers appear to give more specific instructions. But how does this sequence fit with the fact that the spies who were sent out in ch. 2 found it necessary to hide in the hills for "three days" (2:22) before returning to Joshua (2:24)? One possible solution is that the three-day periods mentioned in 1:11 and 3:2 are distinct, in which case the crossing of the Jordan would have taken place on the seventh day. Another solution is that Joshua had sent the spies prior to his words in 1:11 (see ESV footnote on 2:1, "had sent").

3:3 On the construction of the ark of the covenant and its significance as symbolizing and mediating the Lord's presence, see Ex. 25:10-22. When not accompanying the Israelites into battle or preceding them through the Jordan, the ark was normally kept in the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle (later the temple). As passages such as 1 Samuel 4-6 and 2 Samuel 6 dramatically demonstrate, the ark was not a magical object and was not to be trifled with.

3:4 Two thousand cubits is just over half a mile (0.8 km). The explicitly stated reason that the Israelites were to maintain this distance between themselves and the ark is in order that you may know the way you shall go. From a distance of half a mile, more people would have been able to see the ark and thus follow its path. The sacrosanct nature of the ark may also have prompted this safe distance, but this is not stated.

3:5 Consecrate yourselves. Compare the Lord's instructions through Moses at Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:10-15). Sanctifying, or "separating," oneself included washing one's clothes and temporarily abstaining from sexual relations (Ex. 19:14-15). The notice that the Lord is about to perform wonders (anticipated in Ex. 34:10-11) among the people further underscores Joshua's role as Moses' successor. The plagues visited on the Egyptians at the time of the exodus under Moses' leadership were described as "wonders" (Ex. 3:20).

3:7 Today I will begin to exalt you. Through Joshua's leading the people safely through the Jordan River, the Lord exalts Joshua so that the people "stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses" (4:14).

3:10-11 God will drive out the seven peoples listed (described in Deut. 7:1 as "seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves"; several of these nations are attested in sources outside the Bible). God's presence with his people is also seen in the expression translated the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth. The literal Hebrew (see ESV footnote) strongly connects the Lord to his ark (cf. Josh. 3:13).

3:12 take twelve men. Anticipating the Lord's instructions in 4:2, this notice alerts the reader that the 12 chosen men will likely have an important role to play as events unfold.

3:15 At the appropriate dramatic moment, the biblical narrator notifies the reader that the Jordan overflows all its banks--caused by spring rains and snowmelt from the Mount Hermon region and the Jordan's headwaters--throughout the time of harvest, the grain harvest of March-April. The Jordan's swollen waters would have been considerably more daunting than the river at its normal 3- to 10-foot (0.9- to 3.0-m) depth and 90- to 100-foot (27- to 31-m) width. Crossing such water would be no less miraculous than crossing the Red Sea (see 4:23).

3:16 "Heap" is the same term used in the poetic celebrations of the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. 15:8; Ps. 78:13; cf. "dry ground" in Josh. 3:17 with Ex. 14:21). It is particularly appropriate in the present passage, which adds the detail that the "heap" of water was very far away, at Adam. This apparently means that the water was stopped as far upriver as Adam, identified with modern Damiya, east of the Jordan and just south of the confluence with the Jabbok River (about 18 miles [29 km] north of the fords of the Jordan). It is a place where mudslides have occasionally completely blocked the Jordan's southward flow, most recently in 1927 for some 20 hours. When the text says that the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap, the implication is a supernatural act: either the waters stopped with no visible physical obstruction holding them back, or else a mudslide blocked the river, supernaturally timed to coincide with the priests' dipping their feet in the brink of the water (Josh. 3:15).

3:17 all Israel . . . the nation. Apart from anticipations such as Ex. 19:6, "you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," and the promise to Abram that God would make him "a great nation" (Gen. 12:2), Israel is not called a "nation" until now. In Egypt and in the wilderness, Israel was a "people"; now, with their having entered the Promised Land, the term "nation" begins to apply.

4:2 The Lord's instruction that Joshua should take twelve men . . . from each tribe a man was apparently already anticipated by Joshua in 3:12 (cf. 4:4, "the twelve men . . . whom he had appointed"). Each of the 12 tribes is represented, which signifies the importance of the Jordan crossing for all Israel.

4:9 Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan. Commentators are divided over whether or not this represents a second group of stones in addition to those set up in Gilgal (vv. 8, 20). A face-value reading of the Hebrew text could suggest a second memorial, but the larger context suggests only one set of stones. Further, some read the Hebrew to the effect that Joshua set up 12 stones "that had been in" the midst of the Jordan. to this day. The first occurrence of a phrase that appears frequently in the book of Joshua. The "day" in question is the day either of the biblical narrator or of his source materials (cf. 2 Chron. 5:9).

4:13 plains of Jericho. The troops passed over a broad plain between Jericho and the Jordan River, some 5 miles (8 km) east of Jericho.

4:14 exalted. Cf. 3:7.

4:19 tenth day of the first month. See note on 5:10. Gilgal is described as lying on the east border of Jericho, thus in its near vicinity. Several site identifications have been considered, but none is yet certain.

4:20 The twelve stones that Joshua set up at Gilgal represent the first of seven stone memorials described in Joshua (see also 7:26; 8:28-29; 8:32; 10:27; 22:34; 24:26-27). See chart. This first one is a reminder of God's faithfulness in bringing Israel safely across the Jordan into the Promised Land.

4:21-23 The narrator so tells the account as to echo Israel's crossing of the Red Sea: the God who led Israel out of Egypt has brought them into Canaan and will fulfill his purpose through them (cf. Gen. 12:3). Psalm 114:3 brings together the crossings of the Red Sea and the Jordan.

4:24 The dramatic manner in which the Lord brought Israel into the land was intended to alert the peoples of the earth to the fact that the hand of the Lord is mighty and to engender true devotion--which is what fear of the Lord connotes--in the hearts of God's people forever, that is, through all the generations that would hear of the river passage.