Joshua 3:14

The day begins with tents coming down. “Removed” translates nâçaʻ, which properly means to pull up, especially tent pins, and so to set out on a journey. The word for tents, ʼôhel, is the ordinary word for a tent or a dwelling, and Strong’s traces it to ʼâhal, “to be clear” or “to shine”, a tent being something seen clearly from a distance. For forty years Israel had lived in tents in the wilderness. Pulling up the pegs this time meant leaving that life behind, because the people were setting out to cross into the land God had promised to Abraham (Genesis 12:7) and had promised again to Joshua, every place the sole of their foot would tread (Joshua 1:3–4). The whole chapter has been building toward this morning, from the march out of Shittim to the camp beside the river (Joshua 3:1–13).

They moved because God had told them to. The people had consecrated themselves for this day (Joshua 3:5), and the LORD had given Joshua his instructions, including the command for the priests to carry the ark (Joshua 3:7–8). Now the people carry those instructions out, walking toward a river in full flood with no way across that they could see.

The ark (ʼârôwn, a box or chest) of the covenant was the most sacred thing in Israel. It held the tablets of the Law, it stood for God’s throne among his people, and it was there, above the mercy seat, that the LORD said he would meet with Moses (Exodus 25:22). So when the priests carry it at the head of the column, “before the people”, everyone in the camp could understand the picture: the LORD himself is leading the way. He had done the same in the wilderness, when the ark went before Israel on the march (Numbers 10:33). The order of march also told Israel where their success would come from. They entered the land behind God’s presence, and the way was opened by his power alone.

The word for covenant, bᵉrîyth, means a covenant, compact or league. Strong’s explains it from the idea of cutting, after the old custom of making a covenant by passing between pieces of flesh, though the origin of the word is uncertain. The name on the ark reminded Israel that this whole crossing rested on a relationship God had bound himself to, and on promises he had made and meant to keep.

Verse 15 pauses in the middle of the action to explain something: “(for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,)”. The Jordan, Yardên, is the main river of the land. Its name means “a descender”, which fits a river that runs south from Mount Hermon down the Jordan valley to the Dead Sea. The word for harvest, qâtsîyr, means the harvest, the crop that is reaped, or the time of reaping, and here it is the time: the spring barley harvest, around April. Melting snow from Hermon and the season’s rains swell the river then. “Overfloweth” is mâlêʼ, to fill or be full, and the river filled all its banks and spilled over them. The word for banks, gâdâh, is the border of a river as the stream cuts into it.

So the people faced the Jordan at its widest, deepest and fastest, a torrent that a crowd of that size, with children, flocks and possessions, could never have forded. God chose the hardest moment of the year, and the timing leaves all the glory of the crossing with him. A low river might have been put down to an easy ford or a lucky season. A river in flood that stops at the touch of the priests’ feet can only be the work of the LORD.

As the priests’ feet touch the water, the river coming down from the north “stood and rose up upon an heap”. “Stood” is ʻâmad, the plain verb to stand, and the picture is of running water standing still. “Heap” is nêd, a mound or heap, the word used in Exodus 15:8 for the waters of the Red Sea standing up in a heap, in the song Moses and Israel sang after their crossing. The one word puts the two crossings side by side, so that Israel would see the God of the Red Sea at work again, and Joshua following in the steps of Moses.

The heap stood “very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan”. “Very far” is mᵉʼôd with râchaq, a great distance away. The city of Adam, ʼÂdâm, bears the same name as the first man. It is thought to be modern Tell ed-Damiyah, with Zaretan, Tsârᵉthân, probably at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh near it, which puts the place where the water stood about 17 to 20 miles upstream from Jericho. Because the river was held back so far to the north, a long stretch of riverbed lay open for a great multitude to cross at once. The names of real towns also fix the event to a real place on the map.

Below that point, the waters “that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off”. The sea of the plain is the Dead Sea. “Plain” is ʻărâbâh, a desert, the word used with the article for the dry valley the Jordan runs through, and “salt” is melach, so the salt sea (yâm, a sea) is the sea named for its salt. The water already below Adam ran on into that sea and the riverbed emptied behind it. “Failed” is tâmam, to be finished or come to a stop, and “were cut off” is kârath, to cut off. The river above stood still and the river below ran out, and the whole bed lay open.

“And the people passed over right against Jericho.” “The people” is ʻam, the nation gathered as one body, and “passed over” is ʻâbar, the ordinary verb to cross over. They came up out of the river directly opposite Jericho, Yᵉrîychôw, the strong city that stood first in their way in Canaan.

Verse 17 turns back to the priests. “The priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan.” “Stood” is ʻâmad again, the verb used of the waters in verse 16, and “firm” is kûwn, which properly means to be erect, and so to be set up or established. Some translations say the priests “stood still”. They took their place in the very middle of the riverbed with the ark on their shoulders and stayed there, steady, while the water stood off to the north. God’s presence remained in the middle of the river for as long as his people were crossing.

“Dry ground” is chârâbâh, a desert or dry land. The phrase “on dry ground” comes twice in this verse, once for the priests and once for the people. A riverbed that had lain under a flood the hour before was dry enough for a nation to walk on, just as Israel had once walked through the Red Sea on dry ground.

“All the Israelites passed over”, and they kept crossing “until all the people were passed clean over Jordan”. The whole nation crossed, perhaps millions of people, and every one of them reached the far side. “Clean” is tâmam once more, the verb rendered “failed” in verse 16. There the waters came to an end, and here the crossing comes to its end, finished and complete. God held the river back exactly as long as it took for the last person to step out on the other bank.

Israel’s life as a nation began with one crossing through water, and their life in the land began with another. At the Red Sea the LORD brought his people out of Egypt (Exodus 14), and at the Jordan he brought their children in. The letter to the Hebrews remembers the first: “By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land” (Hebrews 11:29). Psalm 114 sings of both in one breath: “The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back” (Psalm 114:1–5). Isaiah speaks of the LORD “which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters”, and promises that he will make a way in the wilderness as well (Isaiah 43:16–19). The God who delivered Israel from Egypt is the same God who brought them into their inheritance, and the Jordan shows his power over creation and his faithfulness from one generation to the next.

The crossing also opened what came after it. Joshua set up a memorial of stones taken from the Jordan (Joshua 4:1–9), and at Gilgal the new generation was circumcised, renewing the covenant before the conquest of Jericho began (Joshua 5:2–9).

The ark carried ahead of Israel points us to Jesus Christ. The ark was the sign of God’s presence among his people, and in Christ God came to dwell among us in person: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). The priests carried the ark into the river and stood in the middle of it until all had crossed. Jesus is our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), who has gone ahead of us and opened “a new and living way” into God’s presence (Hebrews 10:19–20). He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and he came so that his people might have life in abundance (John 10:10).

The name Joshua means “the LORD saves”, and it is the name Jesus bears, so Christ is the true and greater Joshua who brings his people into their inheritance. Jesus was baptised in the Jordan itself at the start of his public ministry (Matthew 3:13–17), taking his place with sinners in their need of cleansing, and he went on to the cross as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

The flooded river that stood between Israel and the land is a picture of the barrier of sin and death between us and God. Christ went down into that deeper water, bearing God’s judgment on sin and dying, and he rose again victorious, so that all who believe in him cross from death to life. Baptism pictures our share in that crossing, for Paul says we are buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3–4). The land Israel entered points ahead to the rest that remains for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9–10) and to the inheritance we have in Christ (Ephesians 1:11–14). Israel entered by walking through the riverbed at God’s command, and we enter that inheritance by faith in the finished work of Christ.

These verses show us a God who goes first. The ark went ahead of the people, the priests carried it into the water while the river was still in flood, and they stood in the middle of the riverbed until the last person was across. God chose the flood season so that the glory would be his alone, and he finished what he began, holding back the water until the crossing was complete. Isaiah gives the same assurance to God’s people in every age: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee” (Isaiah 43:2). The God who kept his word to Abraham at the Jordan keeps it still, and the one who leads us is Christ, who has already crossed the deepest water ahead of us.