The Crossing of the Jordan River: Joshua Chapters 3–4

The First Major Miracle in Sefer Yehoshua

We’re reading Yehoshua chapter 3 and then 4. These two chapters are the first big story in Sefer Yehoshua, the first miracle described in Sefer Yehoshua, which is the story of the crossing of the Jordan, the crossing of the Jordan River.

The Two Explicit Purposes of the Miracle

As the story makes very explicit, this crossing has mainly two functions. And these two functions are a continuation of the main goals of the beginning, the speeches in the previous chapter, and as we discussed, also the story of the meraglim [spies] in some sense, are here to tell us. And these are two purposes that can be summarized as:

First: Establishing the authority of Yehoshua. Since Yehoshua is the new leader, he needs to establish that he has the authority, he has the power, or as the pasuk says it, Hashem is with him as He was with Moshe, so he’s not different from Moshe. Hashem is with him, who will help the people through him, by him, just as done to Moshe.

Second: Demonstrating that Hashem is still with the people. Secondarily, or in the same time, but the second articulation of the same thing is to show that Hashem is still with the people, to show the power of Hashem to help them, to help them enter the land and to conquer it.

Of course, these go together, because Hashem is helping them through Yehoshua, but those are the two purposes explicitly named in the speeches at the beginning of the nes [miracle], and that’s the reason why this miracle is here. So it’s the miracle establishing that, like it’s very similar to how it says by the Kriat Yam Suf [splitting of the Sea of Reeds], ויאמינו בה׳ ובמשה עבדו [vaya’aminu ba’Hashem u’veMoshe avdo — and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant], so establishing the power of Hashem, in other words, that Hashem is with the people, that He’s helping them, and establishing Yehoshua now as the correct authority, as the one who Hashem is with him, with the people through him, or with him and therefore with the people.

Comparison to Kriat Yam Suf

So we have this story. Now, one big difference from this story and the story of the Kriat Yam Suf, that the pesukim, the narration explicitly compares this to the Kriat Yam Suf, so the comparison to the Kriat Yam Suf isn’t something that we have to even insert, it’s very explicit that this is modeled on it and it’s presented that explicitly, that is to show that Hashem is with the people and with Yehoshua, just like He was with Moshe and the people, the pesukim, for splitting the sea, in the same way He’s splitting or stopping the Yarden [Jordan], the same way for them.

A Key Structural Difference: Intermediaries in Leadership

But of course, there’s some differences between these two places. One big difference is, in Kriat Yam Suf, we have only Moshe, really, being the leader, with his stick, of course, with Moshe’s rod or stick, mateh [staff], which he raises with his hand and splits the sea, but directly Moshe, there’s nobody else, there’s nobody in between Moshe and the people. This was Moshe’s preferred style of leadership, there’s a lot of stories about this in Sefer Bamidbar and so on, Moshe’s preferred style of leadership was direct from him to the people.

In Sefer Yehoshua, we have explicitly something in between. We’ve discussed where we have shotrim [officers], which of course Moshe himself in Sefer Devarim said they should have shotrim, which we discussed, not clear what that means, but it means some level of governors or leaders or managers, people, that bring the message from Yehoshua to the people.

The Role of the Kohanim

And also, something very important, we have kohanim [priests]. Kohanim, of course, are probably like Aharon, Aharon’s children, right, they’re not named here, the kohanim, so it’s not about a specific kohen, of course we had stories about people like Aharon, and then his sons, Elazar, right, Nadav and Avihu who died, and Elazar and his son and so on, but here we don’t have a specific kohen, the kohanim don’t get to take credit as a specific person, but as the function of kohanim, the function of the kohanim, and specifically in their function of carrying the Aron [Ark], carrying the Ark, that is the kohanim have an important role to play in the story, and they, we could say something like they represent God, they represent the Divine doing these actions for them.

Reading the Stories as Complementary

I don’t think, my general inclination is to read all these kinds of stories as completing one the other, right, so what one hides, the other one reveals. Now of course, it’s important to notice what is hidden and what is revealed, so in the story of the Yam Suf, it doesn’t mention any priests, of course, the official lineage of priests of the Aharon was established afterwards, but we see very clearly in the story of Matan Torah at Sinai, there were priests established amongst the people already before, and, but over here, it’s explicit, it’s made explicit that the kohanim are the ones who are carrying the Aron Hashem [Ark of the Lord], the Ark of God, and through that, cutting or splitting or stopping the Yarden.

I do think that if we want to read in my way, then we can see, of course, in Parshat Beshalach does talk about something, מלאך האלהים [malach ha’Elokim — the angel of God], and the cloud, going between the people and the Egyptians and so on, and if we want to superimpose this story on that story, we can assume that those were the kohanim there, because that’s when it says Hashem, Hashem is going before you, Hashem is always represented by His Aron or by the kohanim who are the ones taking it, so I think it’s pretty obvious that that would be the point. Now, this is the, this is the, what do you call it, this is the, but in here it’s explicit, so unlike in Moshe, which describes everything as directly God to Him and Him to the people, here there’s a third level in between, and this makes also the story a little complicated because we have a lot of narrations, a lot of commands, a lot of statements, and it’s from Yehoshua to the people, from God to Yehoshua, from Yehoshua to the kohanim, from the kohanim to the people, you have three levels, and each time it’s only set at one of them, and we have to figure out what’s going on.

The Non-Linear Structure of the Narrative

Okay. In any case, let’s go through the structure of the story of this chapter, and then the next chapter. There is a difficulty in the way this story is constructed, it’s pretty obviously not written in an entirely linear fashion. I think that we should kind of stop mostly expecting stories in Tanach to be written in a purely chronological linear fashion, there’s almost not even one, I mean, there are many that work that way, but almost always, this is a problem for any narrator, anyone that writes a story, you want to finish one arc before you go back, and then that means you went forward in time, then you go backwards, it’s not a real, it’s a normal way of telling stories, and unless you want to cut up the story into three versions, like critics do and so on, you have to read it in the sense that it’s, of course there’s a chronological structure, you know, there’s the before, the while the crossing, the after the crossing, and so on, but the stories which want to talk about one aspect every time, they say the whole story again and again, so instead of like saying everything that happened before before, and everything that happened while while, and everything that happened after, you could read it as three or four different parts, as I’ve cut it up here with my little flowers that I put in between each part, and each one describes a different aspect of the story, of course, it more or less makes sense, but you’ll see that it goes a little backwards and forwards.

The Journey from Shittim to the Jordan (3:1)

So, in the beginning, we have the first massa [journey], the first travel, the journey of the people from one space to another space, just continuing the logic of the journeys like we had throughout the whole Sefer Bamidbar, they’re journeying through the desert, and there’s always a place where they come from and they go to, and of course, always, the Aron in the Midbar was described usually as a cloud, but I think the cloud is accompanying the Aron, or has something to do with it, and the people following it, so that’s basically what we have here in the first statement, the first passage of this chapter, chapter three.

It says that Yehoshua woke up in the morning, so now we see this is chapter, and as we’ll see all the way in the end, it gives us a date for the crossing of the Yarden, so the story wants us to know that, you know, the time that this happened, there’s like a structuring of time here, it was in the morning, so this morning must go back all the way to the end of Sefer Devarim, and after 30 days of Moshe’s, after Moshe’s death, where they cried for Moshe, they mourned Moshe, and then the morning after, or maybe three days later, because in chapter one, we had a report of Yehoshua telling the shotrim to tell the people that in three days they’re going to cross, to be ready, that in three days they’re going to travel, so probably the next day, in the morning, but this וישכם בבקר [vayashkem baboker — and he rose early in the morning] is like marking time in the morning, they wake up, and Yehoshua wakes up and travels, along with all the people from Shittim, which is where they were, right, what we call Arvot Moav [plains of Moab], or Shittim, we’ve had many stories named as happening in Shittim, and they come to the Yarden, in other words, to the banks of the Yarden, to the banks of the river, and they sleep there, they stay there overnight, before they’re going to cross.

The Instructions Through the Shotrim (3:2-3)

And now the next report, the next part, gives us a report, I think it’s also a report of the travel itself, because I think that this is not only about the crossing of the Yarden, it seems to me to be the report of the travel, but it’s explaining it more at length, like the first part was just giving us the report, like ויסעו ויחנו [vayis’u vayachanu — and they traveled and they camped], ויסעו ויבואו וילינו [vayis’u vayavo’u vayalinu — and they traveled and they came and they lodged], and now it’s telling us more about how it happened, that’s how I would read it, for various reasons.

So we’re going back, now, ויהי מקצה שלשת ימים [vayehi miketseh shloshet yamim — and it was at the end of three days], this is obviously going back to the report in Chapter 1, where it says that Yehoshua told the shotrim to tell the people that in three days they’re going to cross, and at the end of those three days, then, that probably was the same day as וישכם בבקר ויסעו [vayashkem baboker vayis’u — and he rose early in the morning and they traveled], but in the same time, at the end of those three days, the shotrim pass through the people, they go around to the people, ויעברו [vaya’avru — and they passed through], and they tell them this:

They tell them, when you see the Aron, ארון ברית ה׳ אלהיכם [Aron Brit Hashem Elokeichem — the Ark of the Covenant of Hashem your God], the Ark which carries that, the luchot habrit [tablets of the covenant] of Hashem, it’s saying in a short way, carried by the kohanim, the Leviyim [Levites], the priests who are from Shevet Levi [the tribe of Levi], you will travel and go after him, and it explains, and I’m going to read it like this, it explains why you have to follow it, because you don’t know the way, so you should know the way, because you haven’t traveled this way yesterday, you’re not people that know the travel, so the Aron is going to be your guide, so you have to follow it as your guide, but he adds, when you follow it, you have to be careful to keep space between you, keep the

The Mechanics of the Miracle

As they travel to cross the Yarden, following the Kohanim, as the Kohanim carrying [the Aron] go into the Yarden, as soon as their feet touch the water, the water coming from on top stands up. They become one wall, or one hard thing.

And it gives a description which is very interesting. It says they stop, and next to, or across from, a place called, or a city, or a town, called Adam, which is on the side of Tzaretan. And therefore, the ones going all the way down—do you remember, the Yarden spills into the Dead Sea, which is the south part of the Yarden. That’s like the bottom part where most of the waters of the Yarden end up. Then they stopped, because they stopped all the way from this Adam Ha’ir [the city of Adam].

The Geography of the Crossing

So in between that [Adam] and Yericho—and this is quite far, it’s a few kilometers, I remember how many—higher, right, upstream from Yericho. And if the water stops in Adam, then all the way from there to Yericho there’s dry land.

And the people passed by, and the Kohanim are standing there, waiting all through the time, until all the people finished passing by the Yarden.

The Extent of the Dry Riverbed

This is the south part of the Jordan, that’s like the bottom part where most of the waters of the Jordan end up. Then they stopped, because they stopped all the way from this Adam Eir [the city of Adam], so in between that and Jericho, and this is quite far, it’s a few kilometers, I [don’t] remember how many, higher, upstream from Jericho. So if the water stops in Adam, then all the way from there to Jericho there’s dry land, and the people passed by.

The Kohanim Wait as the Nation Crosses

And the Kohanim are standing there waiting all through on the time that until all the people finished passing by, the entire nation, the entire nation finished passing by crossing the Jordan.