23rd Sunday After Pentecost. November 5th, 2023. Series

Joshua 3:7-17, Psalm 107:1-7, Psalm 107:33-37, Micah 3:5-12, Psalm 43:1-5, 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13, Matthew 23:1-12

A). CROSSING JORDAN.

Joshua 3:7-17.

JOSHUA 3:7. Transition from one ministry to another is always challenging, but if the Lord’s people recognise the new incumbent as God’s man then they can agree under God to hearken to him (cf. Joshua 1:17). Moses was dead, but the LORD had appointed Joshua in his place. So now the LORD promised to “begin to magnify” Joshua “in the sight of all Israel.”

Of course, the LORD had already promised Joshua that ‘as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee’ (cf. Joshua 1:5). But now the whole nation would be given the miraculous reassurance that the LORD was with them, and that they should indeed bear the same respect to Joshua’s leadership under God as they had to Moses’ leadership under God (cf. Joshua 4:14). Apart from the grace of God, no-one would be going anywhere.

JOSHUA 3:8. That Joshua is the LORD’s delegate becomes clear when the LORD commands him to “command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant” what to do: “When ye shall come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan.” What will happen when they obey is held in abeyance within the narrative until Joshua 3:13, when Joshua will explain it to all the people.

JOSHUA 3:9. So Joshua summoned all the children of Israel, not just the priests, to “Come hither and hear.” Joshua was the spokesman for the LORD: what he was about to say was not what he thought, but the very “words of the LORD your God.” It is good when the words upon the lips of God’s ministers are His words rather than theirs.

JOSHUA 3:10. The miracle that was about to happen was to stand as evidence that “the living God” would “without fail” drive out the enemies that were, in effect, then squatting in the promised land. The argument is from the greater to the less, echoed in the NT: how can God, who ‘spared not his own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things’ (cf. Romans 8:32). That the LORD is here named “the living God” distinguishes Him from all other so-called deities, such as those of the nations that Israel was about to dispossess.

JOSHUA 3:11. The “ark of the covenant” represents the presence of “the LORD of all the earth” with His chosen people. He passes before His people into the river Jordan.

It is “the LORD of all the earth” who ‘dwells between the cherubim’ above the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant (cf. Exodus 25:22). It is “the LORD of all the earth” who is the creator and sustainer of all things (cf. Colossians 1:16-17). It is “the LORD of all the earth” who is over all people and peoples that ever dwell upon the earth – including the tribes then living in the promised land.

It is “the LORD of all the earth” who embraces death ahead of us. He is ‘Immanuel, God with us’ (cf. Matthew 1:23). His name is ‘Jesus’ (cf. Matthew 1:25).

JOSHUA 3:12. The selecting of a man from each of the tribes of Israel involves the whole community in what is about to happen. Tantalisingly their purpose is not immediately apparent, but it will become clear in Joshua 4:3. After all the people except the priests (who would still be standing in the midst of the water) have passed over Jordan, these men are to collect stones from the place where ‘the ark of the LORD God stood’ and are to set them up in the promised land as a memorial of the crossing of Jordan. (cf. Joshua 4:6-7).

JOSHUA 3:13. Now, at last, Joshua told Israel what ‘wonders’ (cf. Joshua 3:5) they might expect. As soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, “the LORD of all the earth” he again emphasises, then the waters would stand in a single heap upstream. Not two walls of water, as with the Red Sea, but a single heap upstream.

JOSHUA 3:14. It is time to step out in faith. It is only as we do so that we will see God’s purposes “come to pass.” The people broke camp, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant set out half a mile (cf. Joshua 3:4) ahead of them.

JOSHUA 3:15. As “the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped in the brim of the water…” A parenthesis indicates that this was the time of the spring harvest: the river would be in full flood. The date given in Joshua 4:19 corresponds to springtime (a.k.a. Passover) in the Jewish calendar. So the timing of what was about to happen could only be an act of God, a miracle, no less.