Joshua 3:17

3:14-17 Jordan overflowed all its banks. This magnified the power of God, and his kindness to Israel. Although those who oppose the salvation of God's people have all advantages, yet God can and will conquer. This passage over Jordan, as an entrance to Canaan, after their long, weary wanderings in the wilderness, shadowed out the believer's passage through death to heaven, after he has finished his wanderings in this sinful world. Jesus, typified by the ark, hath gone before, and he crossed the river when it most flooded the country around. Let us treasure up experiences of His faithful and tender care, that they may help our faith and hope in the last conflict.

And the priests that bare the ark of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan,.... Which for its breadth Mr. Maundrell, the above mentioned traveller, says (c) might be about twenty yards over, and its depth exceeded his height; but Dr. Shaw (d), a later traveller still, says,"the river Jordan is by far the most considerable river, excepting the Nile, either of the coast of Syria, or of Barbary. I computed it to be about thirty yards broad, but the depth I could not measure, except at the brink, where I found it to be three yards.''Now in the midst of this river the priests bearing the ark stood firm on dry ground, the waters above being stopped and those below cut off. This perhaps might give rise to the fables among the Heathens of the river Scamander being swelled for the destruction of Achilles, and dried up by Vulcan, of which Homer (e) makes mention; and of the river Inachus, dried up by Neptune, as the Grecians fable; however, if Heathens can credit these accounts, surely we Christians ought to believe this, attested by divine revelation.

And this may denote the presence of Christ with his people in afflictions, who will not suffer those waters to overflow them, and in death itself, when the swellings of Jordan shall not come near them to distress them; and when the covenant of grace will appear firm and sure, and be their great support; and when also the feet of the ministers of Christ stand firm, and their faith fails not; which is of great use, and very encouraging to the spiritual Israel of God: and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground; the waters being divided to a space large enough for such a body of people to pass over, and which continued until all the people were clean passed over Jordan; perfectly and completely, not one being left behind, or lost in the passage through it; in the midst of which the priests stood until all were passed over.

Joshua 3:17 . Stood firm — That is, in one and the same place and posture; their feet were neither moved by any waters flowing in upon them, nor sunk into any mire, which one might think was at the bottom of the river. And this may be opposed to their standing in the brink of the water when they came to it, as commanded, ( Joshua 3:8 ,) which was but for a while, till the waters were divided and gone away; and then they were to go farther, even into the midst of Jordan, where they were to stand constantly and fixedly, as the Hebrew word signifies, until all were passed over. The midst of Jordan — In the middle and deepest part of the river. This manifests how firmly the priests believed the word of the Lord, and confided in his power, otherwise they would not have dared to stand so long in the midst of the channel of a river, whose rapid waters stood suspended above them in mountainous heaps, ready every moment to overwhelm them unless miraculously withheld by the power of God.

17 . all the Israelites passed over ] Where the passage exactly took place cannot now be determined, but the typical significance of the narrative is very impressive. Whether we consider (i) the solemn inauguration of Joshua to his office; or (ii) his attestation by the waters of the Jordan; or (iii) the choice of twelve men, one from each tribe, to be the bearers of the twelve stones, and the builders of the monument founded therewith ( 1 Corinthians 3:10 ; Revelation 21:14 ), we see types of the other “Joshua,” Who was solemnly inaugurated and divinely attested by the rushing waters of the same stream, and Who ordained His twelve Apostles to be the Pillars of His Church, and the builders of the Spiritual Temple. See above, Introduction, p. 25.

Stood firm, i.e. in one and the same place and posture; their feet neither moved by any waters flowing in upon them, nor sinking into any mire, which one might think was at the bottom of the river. And this may be opposed unto their other standing in the brink of the water when they came to it, commanded Joshua 3:8 , which was but for a while, till the waters were divided and gone away; and then they were to go farther, even into the midst of Jordan, as is here said, where they are to stand constantly and fixedly , as this Hebrew word signifies, until all were passed over . If it be said that what is prescribed Joshua 3:8 , is here said to be executed, and therefore the midst of Jordan here is the same place with the brink of the water of Jordan, Joshua 3:8 ; it may be answered, that the manifest variation of the phrase shows that it is not absolutely the same thing or place which is spoken of there and here; but what is there enjoined is here executed with advantage; for when it is said that they stood firm...in the midst of Jordan, it must needs be supposed that they first came to the brink of the water, and that they stood there for a season, till the waters were cut off and dried up, as appears from the nature of the thing; and that then they went farther, even into the midst of Jordan. In the midst of Jordan : either, 1.

Within Jordan, as it is expressed above, Joshua 3:8 ; for that phrase doth not always signify the exact middle of a place, but any part within it, as appears from Genesis 45:6 Exodus 8:22 24:18 Joshua 7:13 10:13 Proverbs 30:19 . Or rather, 2. In the middle and deepest part of the river. For, 1. Words should be taken properly, where they may without any inconveniency, which is the case here. 2. The ark went before them to direct, and encourage, and secure them in the dangers of their passages, for which ends the middle was the fittest place. 3. In this sense the same phrase is used, Joshua 4:3,8 ; for certainly those stones which were to be witnesses and monuments of their passage over Jordan should not be taken from the brink or brim of the river, or from the shore which Jordan overflowed only at that season, but from the most inward and deepest parts of the river; and Joshua 3:16-17 , where the priests are said to ascend or come up out of Jordan , and out of the midst of Jordan unto the dry land ; whereas had this been meant only of the first entrance into the river, they must have been said first to go down into Jordan , and then to go up to the land .

And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood {g} firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan. (g) Either tarrying till the people were past, or as some read, sure, as though they had been on dry land.

The miraculous passage to the holy land through Jordan is not less pregnant with typical meaning than that through the Red Sea (compare 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 ). The solemn inauguration of Joshua to his office, and his miraculous attestation, by the same waters with which Jesus was baptized on entering on the public exercise of His ministry (compare Matthew 3:16-17 ); the choice of twelve men, one from each tribe to be the bearers of the twelve stones, and the builders of the monument erected therewith (compare 1 Corinthians 3:10 ; Revelation 21:14 ): these were divinely-ordered occurrences, not without a further bearing than their more immediate one upon Israel. Nor must in this point of view the name "Adam," the place where the stream flowed to the people which cut them off from the promises, and the failure for the time under the rule of Joshua of the full and rapid flood which supplies the Dead Sea, be overlooked.

Verse 17. - Firm . The LXX. does not translate this. The Vulgate renders accincti. The original, literally translated, means to cause to stand upright. In the midst of Jordan. That is, they stood surrounded by water, but not in midstream, which would be expressed by בְּקֶרֶב as in ver. 10, where our version has "among" (see note on Joshua 4:9). So Drusius: "In medio Jordanis; i.e. , intra Jordanem. Sic Tyrus legitur sita in corde maris ; i.e. , intra mare nam non procul abest a continente." Clean over. The word is the same as that translated "failed" in the last note. It means completion - "till the people had entirely finished crossing." Origen thus explains, in his fourth homily on Joshua, the mystical signification of this crossing the Jordan: "Cure catechumenorum aggregatus es numero, et praeceptis Ecclesiasticis parere coepisti digressus es mare rubrum, et in deserti stationibus positus, ad audiendam Dei legem, et intuendum Mosei vulture per gloriam Domini revelatum quotidie vacas. Si vero ad mysticum baptismi veneris fontem, et consistente sacerdotali et Levitico ordine initiatus fueris venerandis illis magnificisque sacramentis quae norunt illi quos nosse fas est, hanc etiam sacerdotum ministeriis Jordane digresso terram repromissionis intratis, in qua te post Moysen suscipi Jesus, et ipse tibi efficitur novi itineris dux." Joshua 3:17