Crossing the Jordan River

A new road. The officers told the people, “You have not passed this way before” (3:4). Israel had wandered in the desert for forty years. Now they faced a river in flood and a land they had never seen. Follow the ark. “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it” (3:3). The ark was a wooden chest covered with gold. Inside were the stone tablets of God's law (Hebrews 9:4). It showed that God was with His people. God goes first. The people did not lead the way. They followed God. In the desert the pillar of cloud had gone ahead of them. Now the ark went ahead. Keep your distance. They stayed about two thousand cubits behind, more than half a mile (3:4). The space reminded them that God is holy. It also let everyone see where the ark was going. Get ready. Joshua said, “Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (3:5). Sanctify means to set yourself apart for God and turn away from sin. God's people got ready before God worked. What this means for you. When you face something new, you do not have to know the whole road. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27). Follow Him one step at a time.

From Acacia Grove (3:1-2). Shittim (say: shih-TEEM), the Acacia Grove, was Israel's last camp east of the Jordan. For three days the people waited beside a river in flood. Then the officers gave the order to move. The ark leads (3:3). The Hebrew is aron habberit (say: ah-ROHN hab-beh-REET), the chest of the covenant. A covenant is God's binding promise to His people. The ark held the tablets of the covenant (Hebrews 9:4), and God had said He would meet with Israel above its cover (Exodus 25:22). When the ark moved, Israel followed the God who keeps His promises. Two thousand cubits (3:4). That is about a thousand yards. The distance honored God's holiness, and it let the whole nation see the way: “that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.” Sanctify yourselves (3:5). Qadash (say: kah-DAHSH) means to set apart as holy. At Sinai the people washed and set themselves apart before they met God (Exodus 19:10-11). Before God worked at the Jordan, His people got ready to meet Him. Wonders tomorrow (3:5). The word for wonders, niphla'ot (say: nif-lah-OHT), is used for things only God can do. Joshua promised the wonder before anyone saw a drop of water stop. He trusted God's Word ahead of time. Holy and near. “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16) still describes God's people. Jesus opens the way to God “by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:19-20), and then He calls us to follow Him. He is the Shepherd who “goes before them; and the sheep follow him” (John 10:4).

The people had never walked this way before. They did not know the road. So God gave them a way to know. They would follow the Ark. The Ark was a special gold box. It showed that God was with His people. God was going first! The people had to stay far behind it. That reminded them that God is holy. Joshua told them to get ready. They had to make themselves holy for the Lord. That means turning away from sin. Today we follow Jesus. He knows the way, even when we do not. Jesus says His sheep know His voice and follow Him.

God's people did not know the way. So they followed God's Ark. God went first! We can follow Jesus too.

A promise for Joshua. The Lord said, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you” (3:7). Exalt means to lift up and honor. The same God. Moses was gone, but God was not. God had promised Joshua, “I will not leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5). Leaders come and go. God stays. The living God. “By this you shall know that the living God is among you” (3:10). The nations of Canaan prayed to idols that could not hear or move. Israel's God was alive and about to act. A serious promise. God also said He would drive out the nations of Canaan (3:10). They had done terrible evil for hundreds of years, and God is a fair Judge. Lord of all the earth. “Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan” (3:11). The river, the land and every nation belong to Him. Everyone included. Twelve men were chosen, “one man from every tribe” (3:12). No family was left out of what God was about to do. Told ahead of time. Joshua said the waters would “stand as a heap” (3:13) before it happened. God's Word always comes true. What this means for you. The God who was with Joshua is with you. Jesus promised, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Made great by God (3:7). The Hebrew gadal (say: gah-DAHL) means to make great. Joshua did not make himself great. God did, and He said why: so Israel would know He was with Joshua as He had been with Moses. In 4:14 God did exactly that. Hear the words (3:9). Before anything happened, Joshua called the people to “hear the words of the Lord your God.” Faith comes before sight: “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). The living God (3:10). El chai (say: el KHAI) means the living God. The gods of Canaan were carved and set in place. “They have mouths, but they do not speak” (Psalm 115:5). The God who stops rivers is alive. Seven nations (3:10). God told Abraham that his descendants would return to the land, “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). God waited hundreds of years. His judgment on Canaan was just, and Moses told Israel it was not because they were better people (Deuteronomy 9:5). Lord of all the earth (3:11, 13). The Canaanites believed Baal ruled the storms and the rain. At the Jordan the true God showed that He rules every river and every nation. “The earth is the Lord's, and all its fullness” (Psalm 24:1). Twelve men (3:12). Joshua chose them before the crossing. In 4:2-5 they carried the stones, so every tribe would hold its own witness of what God did. Told before it happened (3:13). Joshua announced the heap of water before the priests took a step. Only the true God declares what He will do and then does it (Isaiah 46:10). That is why His people can trust Him with tomorrow.

Moses had been a great leader. Now Joshua had the big job. Joshua might have felt scared. But God made him a promise. God would be with Joshua, just as He was with Moses. Leaders change, but God never changes. Joshua told the people that the living God was with them. Idols made of wood are not alive. Our God is alive, and He acts! Joshua said the Ark belonged to the Lord of all the earth. The river belongs to God. The whole world belongs to God too. God told the people what He would do before He did it. That helps us trust His Word.

God was with Joshua, just like Moses. God is alive! He is the Lord of all the earth. He is with you too.

Faith takes the first step. The water did not stop until “the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water” (3:15). The priests stepped into a flooding river before anything changed. The hardest time of year. “The Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest” (3:15). Melting snow from the mountains in the north made the river deep and fast. God chose the hardest moment so everyone would know it was Him. Stopped far away. The waters “rose in a heap very far away at Adam” (3:16), a town many miles upstream. The riverbed was empty for miles. Standing in the middle. “The priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan” (3:17). They stayed until every person was across. Promises kept. The men of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh already had land east of the river. They crossed armed anyway, “as Moses had spoken to them” (4:12). They kept their word to help their brothers. The water returns. When the priests' feet touched dry land, the waters “returned to their place” (4:18). God held the river back exactly as long as His people needed. What this means for you. God may ask you to obey before you see how things will work out. He promises, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2).

The soles of their feet (3:13, 15). God tied the miracle to one act of obedience: the priests' feet resting in the water. Faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). The priests stepped forward on God's word alone. Flood season (3:15). The crossing came in the first month (4:19), at barley harvest, when melting snow from Mount Hermon swells the Jordan. Two spies could cross it (2:23), but not a nation with children, the elderly and flocks. A heap at Adam (3:16). The word for heap, ned (say: NED), is used for the Red Sea waters standing up in Exodus 15:8. God showed this generation the same power their parents had seen. Stood firm (3:17). The Hebrew word comes from kun (say: KOON), to be fixed and steady. The priests held their place in the riverbed until the last person crossed (4:10-11). God's presence stayed in the middle of the danger. Forty thousand (4:12-13). These were the fighting men of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh. In Numbers 32 they had promised Moses to cross and fight beside their brothers before going home. They kept that promise. Exalted as promised (4:14). “On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they had feared Moses.” God did exactly what He said in 3:7. The river released (4:18). The moment the priests stepped out, the Jordan came back in flood. The timing shows the crossing was God's work from start to finish. He is still the God who says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2).

Nobody could walk across a flooded river. It was too deep and too fast. But God asked the priests to step in first. They had to trust God before the water stopped. That is what faith looks like. Faith means trusting God and doing what He says. The priests obeyed, and God kept His promise. Then the priests stayed in the middle of the river. They did not leave until everyone was safe. That shows us what God is like. He stays close to His people in scary places. God is with you in hard times too. He says to His people, “I will be with you.”

The priests stepped into the water. Then God stopped the river! Everyone walked across on dry ground. God keeps us safe.

Twelve stones. Each man took up “a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel” (4:5). These were big, heavy stones from the riverbed where the priests had stood. A sign that asks a question. “That this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’” (4:6). God planned for children to be curious. The answer. “The waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord” (4:7). The stones had no power of their own. They pointed to what God did. Two piles. Joshua set up twelve stones at Gilgal (4:20) and twelve more “in the midst of the Jordan” (4:9). One pile stood in the camp, and one stood where the priests' feet had been. Like the Red Sea. “As the Lord your God did to the Red Sea” (4:23). These children had heard how God parted the sea for their parents. Now they had their own story of God's power. Why God did it. God wanted every nation to know His mighty hand, and He wanted His people to honor Him forever (4:24). What this means for you. Jesus gave His church the bread and the cup and said, “do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). Ask your family what God has done for them, and tell someone what He has done for you.

From where the priests stood (4:3). The stones came from the riverbed, a place no one could have reached without God's miracle. Every stone was proof of where Israel had walked. A memorial (4:7). The Hebrew zikkaron (say: zik-kah-ROHN) means a reminder. God gave Israel many reminders: the Passover meal, the jar of manna, the Sabbath. People forget quickly, so God builds remembering into everyday life. Gilgal on the tenth day (4:19). The tenth day of the first month was the day each family chose its Passover lamb (Exodus 12:3). Four days later Israel kept the Passover at Gilgal (5:10), their first Passover in the Promised Land. Parents as teachers (4:21-22). “You shall let your children know.” Moses had said the same: “You shall teach them diligently to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Psalm 78:4 adds, “We will not hide them from their children.” Faith passed from one generation to the next as families told what God had done. The nations heard. Rahab had already heard about the Red Sea (2:10). After the crossing, the kings of Canaan heard that the Lord had dried up the Jordan (5:1). God was making Himself known beyond Israel. Remembering Jesus. Jesus gave the Lord's Supper as His memorial: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Each time we remember the cross, we tell what God has done. A changed life can be a memorial too, a living answer when someone asks what God has done for you.

God told the men to carry rocks out of the river. Why did God want rocks? He did not want His people to forget. One day children would see the rocks. They would ask, “What do these rocks mean?” Then moms and dads would tell them about God. They would tell how God stopped the river. God wants families to talk about Him. God also wanted the whole world to know Him. He wanted everyone to see His great power. Jesus gave us a way to remember Him too. At church we share the bread and the cup. That helps us remember that Jesus died for us.

The men stacked up twelve rocks. The rocks helped them remember. God did great things! We remember Jesus too.