CROSSING THE RIVER

“When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.” —Joshua 3:3, 4

Crossing the Jordan River was a deeply symbolic moment for the long-wandering people of Israel, but it was also something much more than that.

They had stood on the banks of this river previously, but they had turned away, afraid of the challenges they might face on the other side and not trusting that God would be with them. But now they were really crossing into their long-promised Promised Land. They had never been this way before, but they knew now that God was leading them.

Only a small number of the people had been part of that group of newly freed slaves who had crossed the Red Sea, but God gave this new generation their own experience of His miraculous intervention. Following God’s instructions, the priest carrying the ark of the covenant, followed by all the people over the course of that day, stepped into the dry bed of the Jordan River at the time of year when it was flooding (see Joshua 3:15–17).

If they needed it made more clear, Joshua pointed out to the people that this was a sign “that the living God is among you” (Joshua 3:10). And this experience was to be remembered. A representative of each tribe was to take a large stone from the riverbed, which would then be used to build a memorial as a cue for retelling the story.

“In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ . . . He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God” (Joshua 4:21–24).