Now we cannot get too detailed in all this. Each one could probably be a sermon. But we will see some highlights here.
We have to understand that the Israelites arrived at the Jordan at the height of the spring flood. The waters, the snow and such had come off Mount Hermon way to the north and had come down; it drained into what we call the Sea of Galilee and down the Jordan River, all the way into the Dead Sea.
And as it says here, it overflows its banks at that time. And so people come to the edge of the water here, and they see it as an impassable barrier. They cannot get across. It is impossible. It is maybe twice or however many times the amount of water that is normally there. And God brought them at a time so that they could understand that even when the height of the Jordan was at its highest, He could still work with it and bring them across.
Now this is the next generation's Red Sea. And according to the record here in Joshua 3, to their credit, they obeyed Joshua without complaint. You know, the other generation: We need to go back to Egypt. Pharaoh's going to kill us! This generation though, it is kind of like, Yes, sir, Joshua. We'll go.
And the instructions are fairly simple. We have to understand that this is early in their journey. Think of it early in our journey; the simple instructions are helpful to get us started and get us moving in the right direction. So, likewise, Joshua gives some simple instructions. They must follow the ark of the covenant, which is a symbol of God's presence among them. Pretty simple. Just follow the ark.
But it is a little bit more. God will open the way through the waters because He is there with them. But they have to understand that the ark of the covenant is holy and the ark of the covenant typifies, symbolizes God's presence. God is there. He is sitting on His throne, the mercy seat is His throne. That is where He makes His judgments, from the mercy seat. And so the priests are bearing God - think of it as bearers of a portable throne or a portable seat. Porters, yeah, bearing a person of great eminence, and that is what they are supposed to think: that their God is right there being borne across the river, and they stop in the middle and they know, if they are up on the symbolism, that that is their God doing this.
Like I said, they are to respect that, to honor that, to honor its sanctity, honor God's holiness by staying more than a half mile away. That is two thousand cubits by measure. A cubit is about eighteen inches; you can do the math.
So they are supposed to stay about a half a mile away from the ark because that is God. Do not get too close in terms of, you can understand the symbolism there. He is a holy God. He is a strong and powerful God.
So the people sanctified themselves for this, probably by washing themselves and washing their clothes. They did this; their fathers did that in Exodus 19 when they made the Old Covenant with God.
And then they go through the waters or cross over Jordan as a type of baptism, just like going over the Red Sea was a type of baptism for the earlier generation. We can plug in Romans 6 here. Paul says that baptism is imitating Christ, imitating His death and resurrection. He rose to newness of life, and so do we when we are baptized.
And also in this case, they came out on the other side of Jordan as a new people. So Yahweh goes into the water before them, and they follow, just like we go into the water after the example of Jesus Christ who was baptized Himself to make sure that we understood what righteousness is or what the righteous doing of that symbol is.
So, when they get out on the other side, they are truly sanctified people. They have been ritually cleansed and are ready to do God's work.
Now, the miracle occurs in that section we read from verse 14 to verse 17. The waters rose up in a heap at Adam. And we go over that, Yeah, it was at Adam. That's where it happened. Well, that was 19 miles … . . .