Tag: arabah

53.p. Joshua 3:9-17

 

Jos 3:9-17  And Joshua said to the people of Israel, “Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God.” And Joshua said, “Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into the Jordan. Now therefore take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, from each tribe a man. And when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.” So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho. Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan.

“God extends the force of the miracle beyond their entrance into the land, and properly so, since the mere opening of a way into a hostile country from which there would be no retreat, would be nothing but exposure to death. For they would either easily fall, through being entangled in difficulties and in an unknown region, or they would perish through want. Joshua therefore foretold, that when God drove back the river it would be as if He had stretched out His hand to strike all the inhabitants of the land, and that the proof which He gave of His power in their crossing the Jordan would be a certain presage of victory, to be gained over all the tribes.” (Keil)

 God had apparently revealed to Joshua how the Jordan would become a dry bed and passable by Israel. The waters would not be divided, as they were at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21-22). Instead, the waters of the Jordan would be cut off upstream, leaving a dry riverbed before Israel. This was not the time of year when the Jordan was reduced to a trickle. Because of the spring rains, the time of early harvest, the river was swollen and overflowing its banks.

“In some respects the passage of the Jordan was more strikingly miraculous than that even of the Red Sea. In the latter God was pleased to employ an agent; the sea went back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, Exodus 14:21. Nothing of this kind appeared in the passage of the Jordan; a very rapid river (for so all travellers allow it to be) went back to its source without any kind of agency but the invisible hand of the invisible God.” As well, even with the flow of the river stopped, it was miraculous that the people could cross over on dry ground. God miraculously dried the riverbed so that they didn’t slog through marshy mud. 

In some sense, it took greater faith for Israel to cross the Jordan River than it took for them to cross the Red Sea. At the Red Sea, Israel was pursued by the Egyptian army (Exodus 14:8-28). Crossing the Red Sea was to travel away from danger, and to put a barrier between Israel and the danger pursuing them. In crossing the Jordan River, Israel travelled towards potential danger, the many Canaanites who would war against them. When Israel crossed the Jordan River, they cut off their path of retreat and could be “trapped” and slaughtered in Canaan. Crossing the Jordan River mean that Israel was completely committed to the task of conquering the land of Canaan; they were left with no other option. This was a demonstration of great faith. (Guzik)

49.g. Wilderness – 13.m. “Until they had perished”

 

Deu 2:8  So we went on, away from our brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir, away from the Arabah road from Elath and Ezion-geber. “And we turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab. And the LORD said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession.’ (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim. The Horites also lived in Seir formerly, but the people of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and settled in their place, as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the LORD gave to them.) ‘Now rise up and go over the brook Zered.’ So we went over the brook Zered. And the time from our leaving Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them. For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from the camp, until they had perished.

The Moabites were also distant relatives to Israel; they descended from Lot, who was the nephew of Abraham. And as with Edom, God did not want Israel to harass Moab, nor contend with them in battle – their land was not the land God intended to give Israel. One of the more famous Moabites in the Bible was Ruth. She was a Moabite woman who married an Israelite man named Boaz and became grandmother to King David and one of the ancestors of the Messiah.

The Moabites were of note because they defeated a Canaanite people known as the Emim, who were a large, fearsome race as were the Anakim. The term translated giants here is actually the Hebrew word rephaim. The term rephaim is often translated “giants,” but it actually means “fearsome ones.” The Rephaim were a group of large, warlike people who populated Canaan before the Israelites. In the area east of the Jordan River. (Guzik)

We have the origin of the Moabites, Edomites, and Ammonites. Moses also gives an instance older than any of these; the Caphtorims drove the Avims out of their country. These revolutions show what uncertain things wordly possessions are. It was so of old, and ever will be so. Families decline, and from them estates are transferred to families that increase; so little continuance is there in these things. This is recorded to encourage the children of Israel. If the providence of God has done this for Moabites and Ammonites, much more would his promise do it for Israel, his peculiar people. Cautions are given not to meddle with Moabites and Ammonites. (Henry)

For this reason Israel was to remove from the desert of Moab (i.e., the desert which bounded Moabitis on the east), and to cross over the brook Zered, to advance against the country of the Amorites (see at Numbers 21:12-13). This occurred thirty-eight years after the condemnation of the people at Kadesh (Numbers 14:23, Numbers 14:29), when the generation rejected by God had entirely died out (תּמם, to be all gone, to disappear), so that not one of them saw the promised land. They did not all die a natural death, however, but “the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy them” (Keil)

For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them,…. His power was exerted in a way of wrath and vengeance on them, for their murmurings at the report of the spies; and therefore, it is no wonder they were consumed, for strong is his hand, and high is his right hand; and when lifted up it falls heavy, and there is no standing up under it, or against it: it smote them with one disease or another, or brought one judgment or another upon them: as the sword of Amalek, by which many were cut off, and the plague at Shittim in the plains of Moab, in which died 24,000; besides the destruction of Korah and his company, which was quickly after the affair of the spies, and the plague at that time, of which died 14,700; and thus, by one stroke after another, he went on to destroy them from among the host until they were consumed, even all of them but two. (Gill)