Crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land - Joshua 3:1 - 5:15

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
​Series: Bible Stories

Rusty's Notes

Joshua 2 left the Israelites standing on the Jordan banks.
 
CROSSING THE JORDAN
JOSHUA 3
1 Joshua started early the next morning and left the Acacia Grove with all the Israelites. They went as far as the Jordan and stayed there before crossing. 2 After three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God carried by the Levitical priests, you are to break camp and follow it. 4 But keep a distance of about a thousand yards between yourselves and the ark. Don’t go near it, so that you can see the way to go, for you haven’t traveled this way before.”

• "The ark serves as a kind of 'divine crossing guard,' stopping the Jordan's flow until all Israel, including the priests, have safely crossed into Canaan."
• The writer of Joshua mentioned the ark 17 times in chapters 3 and 4.
• It was the visible symbol that God Himself was leading His people into the land and against their enemies.
• The people were to keep their distance from the ark, however: about 2,000 cubits, or more than half a mile.

5 Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, because the Lord will do wonders among you tomorrow.”

• It would be easier to understand if he had said, “Sharpen your swords and check your shields!”
• But spiritual not military preparation was needed at this time because God was about to reveal Himself by performing a great miracle in Israel’s midst.[1]
• Rid yourselves of any wrong doing.
• The people of Israel were to expect God to work a miracle.
• They were to be eager, gripped by a sense of wonder.
• Israel was not to lose sight of their God who can do the incredible and the humanly impossible.[2]

6 Then he said to the priests, “Carry the ark of the covenant and go on ahead of the people.” So they carried the ark of the covenant and went ahead of them.
7 The Lord spoke to Joshua: “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so they will know that I will be with you just as I was with Moses. 8 Command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant: When you reach the edge of the water, stand in the Jordan.”
9 Then Joshua told the Israelites, “Come closer and listen to the words of the Lord your God.” 10 He said, “You will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hethites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites 11 when the ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole earth goes ahead of you into the Jordan.

• Evidently the pushing back of the waters of the Jordan was to be a sign to the Israelites that God would push back the Canaanites

12 Now choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe. 13 When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, come to rest in the Jordan’s water, its water will be cut off. The water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass.”
14 When the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carried the ark of the covenant ahead of the people. 15 Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan, their feet touched the water at its edge 16 and the water flowing downstream stood still, rising up in a mass that extended as far as Adam, a city next to Zarethan. The water flowing downstream into the Sea of the Arabah—the Dead Sea—was completely cut off, and the people crossed opposite Jericho. 17 The priests carrying the ark of the Lord’s covenant stood firmly on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed on dry ground until the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan.

• The Israelites crossed the Jordan when the river was at its widest, deepest, and swiftest—in late April or early May.
• As the snow on Mt. Hermon melts and the rainy season ends, the Jordan rises to a depth of 10 to 12 feet, and floods to a width of 300 to 360 feet at this location today.
• Normally it is only 150 to 180 feet wide here.
• However, in Joshua's day, the river may have been full only up to its banks, as the Hebrew text suggests.
• Pictures of the Jordan River (baptisms)
• The people considered swimming across the river at this time of year to be a heroic feat in ancient times (cf. 1 Chron. 12:15).
• This may be how the spies crossed.
• Interestingly, several earthquakes have sent much soil into the Jordan River at this very location in modern times, damming up the river for many hours (in A.D. 1267, 1837, and 1927).
• Perhaps an earthquake is what God used in Joshua's day, too.
• God may have supernaturally used, by divine timing, a natural phenomenon, like an earthquake or a landslide
• The possibility is that the phenomenon was entirely supernatural.
• Two million Israelites could have crossed the river in half a day if their crossing procession was a mile or more wide.
• Since the Jordan River dried up from Adam, 18 miles upstream from where the priests crossed, there would have been plenty of dry riverbeds for two million Israelites to cross.
• To slip away into the wilderness of Sinai by crossing the Red Sea required some faith.
• However, to invade the land of Canaan by crossing the Jordan River took a great deal more faith because, having once crossed the river, there would be no possibility of escape.
• Once in the land, they would have to face the enemy with their armies, chariots, and walled cities. The entire nation took this step together in complete commitment to God."

THE MEMORIAL STONES
4 After the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua: 2 “Choose twelve men from the people, one man for each tribe, 3 and command them: Take twelve stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests are standing, carry them with you, and set them down at the place where you spend the night.”
4 So Joshua summoned the twelve men he had selected from the Israelites, one man for each tribe, 5 and said to them, “Go across to the ark of the Lord your God in the middle of the Jordan. Each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes, 6 so that this will be a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7 you should tell them, ‘The water of the Jordan was cut off in front of the ark of the Lord’s covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan’s water was cut off.’ Therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites.”
8 The Israelites did just as Joshua had commanded them. The twelve men took stones from the middle of the Jordan, one for each of the Israelite tribes, just as the Lord had told Joshua. They carried them to the camp and set them down there. 9 Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant were standing. The stones are still there today.
10 The priests carrying the ark continued standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything was completed that the Lord had commanded Joshua to tell the people, in keeping with all that Moses had commanded Joshua. The people hurried across, 11 and after everyone had finished crossing, the priests with the ark of the Lord crossed in the sight of the people. 12 The Reubenites, Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh went in battle formation in front of the Israelites, as Moses had instructed them. 13 About forty thousand equipped for war crossed to the plains of Jericho in the Lord’s presence.
14 On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they revered him throughout his life, as they had revered Moses. 15 The Lord told Joshua, 16 “Command the priests who carry the ark of the testimony to come up from the Jordan.”
17 So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up from the Jordan.” 18 When the priests carrying the ark of the Lord’s covenant came up from the middle of the Jordan, and their feet stepped out on solid ground, the water of the Jordan resumed its course, flowing over all the banks as before.
19 The people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and camped at Gilgal on the eastern limits of Jericho.

• The notation that the crossing took place on the tenth day of the first month is significant.
• It was exactly 40 years earlier, to the day, that God had instructed Israel to prepare to depart from Egypt by setting apart the paschal lambs.

20 Then Joshua set up in Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken from the Jordan, 21 and he said to the Israelites, “In the future, when your children ask their fathers, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’ 22 you should tell your children, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the Lord your God dried up the water of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, just as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up before us until we had crossed over. 24 This is so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord’s hand is strong, and so that you may always fear the Lord your God.”
 
CIRCUMCISION OF THE ISRAELITES
5 When all the Amorite kings across the Jordan to the west and all the Canaanite kings near the sea heard how the Lord had dried up the water of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, they lost heart and their courage failed because of the Israelites.
2 At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelite men again.”

• God specified knives of flint, even though this was the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 B.C.), and bronze implements were common.

3 So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelite men at Gibeath-haaraloth. 4 This is the reason Joshua circumcised them: All the people who came out of Egypt who were males—all the men of war—had died in the wilderness along the way after they had come out of Egypt. 5 Though all the people who came out were circumcised, none of the people born in the wilderness along the way were circumcised after they had come out of Egypt. 6 For the Israelites wandered in the wilderness forty years until all the nation’s men of war who came out of Egypt had died off because they did not obey the Lord. So the Lord vowed never to let them see the land he had sworn to their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. 7 He raised up their sons in their place; it was these Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised, since they had not been circumcised along the way. 8 After the entire nation had been circumcised, they stayed where they were in the camp until they recovered.
 
9 The Lord then said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the disgrace of Egypt from you.” Therefore, that place is still called Gilgal today.
 
FOOD FROM THE LAND
10 While the Israelites camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month. 11 The day after Passover they ate unleavened bread and roasted grain from the produce of the land. 12 And the day after they ate from the produce of the land, the manna ceased. Since there was no more manna for the Israelites, they ate from the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

• Lord’s Supper

 
COMMANDER OF THE LORD’S ARMY
13 When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua approached him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
14 “Neither,” he replied. “I have now come as commander of the Lord’s army.”
Then Joshua bowed with his face to the ground in homage and asked him, “What does my lord want to say to his servant?”
15 The commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did that.[3]

• The command to remove his sandals would have convinced Joshua that this was the same Person—the LORD God Himself—who had appeared to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:5).
• Where God was, there was holiness, and where holiness was, there was a need for cleanness.

 
MATTHEW 3:13-17
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?”
15 Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed him to be baptized.
16 When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”
 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS
MATTHEW 4
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.[4]

• Some of you are facing the enemy today.
• Some of you need a miracle today.
• Some of you need to experience the wonder and awe of God.
• There is a good, loving God that resides within you.
• He will battle for you.

 
HEBREWS 4:8-11
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 Therefore, a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people. 10 For the person who has entered his rest has rested from his own works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, then, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.[5]

[1] Donald K. Campbell, “Joshua,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 333–334.
[2] Donald K. Campbell, “Joshua,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 333–334.
[3] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Jos 3:1–5:15.
[4] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Mt 3:13–4:1.
[5] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Heb 4:8–11.