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Joshua 3

Darby Translation · 17 verses

1And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. 2And it came to pass at the end of three days, that the officers went through the camp; 3and they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then remove from your place, and go after it; 4yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Ye shall not come near it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go; for ye have not passed this way heretofore. 5And Joshua said to the people, Hallow yourselves; for to-morrow Jehovah will do wonders in your midst. 6And Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and go over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. 7And Jehovah said to Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee. 8And thou shalt command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, stand still in the Jordan. 9And Joshua said to the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of Jehovah your God. 10And Joshua said, Hereby shall ye know that the living God is in your midst, and [that] he will without fail dispossess from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. 11Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going over before you into the Jordan. 12And now take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe. 13And it shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan, the waters flowing down from above, shall be cut off, and shall stand up in a heap. 14And it came to pass when the people removed from their tents, to pass over the Jordan, that the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were before the people; 15and when they that bore the ark were come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (and the Jordan is full over all its banks throughout the days of harvest), 16the waters which flowed down from above stood [and] rose up in a heap, very far, by Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan; and those that flowed down towards the sea of the plain, the salt sea, were completely cut off. And the people went over opposite to Jericho. 17And the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of Jehovah stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan. And all Israel went over on dry ground, until all the nation had completely gone over the Jordan.

Darby's Synopsis

And now the people are to enter the promised land; but how enter it? For Jordan, with its flood at the highest, lay as a barrier before the people of God, guarding the territory of those that oppose their hopes. Now Jordan represents death, but death looked at rather as the end of human life, and the token of the enemy's power, than as the fruit and testimony of the just judgment of God.

Read Darby's Synopsis on Joshua 3

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Text: J. N. Darby, The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages, public domain. Emphasized words are Darby's own. Provenance on the sources page.