SS09-10-06.
“THE THRILL OF VICTORY.” JOSHUA 4: 1-24.
JOSHUA 4: 1-3, 8, 10-11, 17-18, 19-24.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO JOSHUA 4.
As the Book of Joshua begins, the people of Israel were encamped just outside Canaan on the Plains of Moab, awaiting the Lord’s command to posses the Land of Promise.
Although the journey from Egypt to the Plains of Moab was long and difficult, the struggles, pains, hardships, and experiencing of wilderness life had transformed the nation; the old generation of slaves had died. A new generation of soldiers had emerged.
Joshua 4: 13 says, “these warriors—about forty thousand strong---were ready for battle over the plains of Jericho in the Lord’s presence.”
These 40,000 men were from the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and ½ the tribe of Manasseh. Some scholars suggest that the word translated “thousand” means a military unit of unspecified size, a “contingent.”
Having already been soundly defeated by the Amalekites and Canaanites of the hill country of Canaan, Israel had no appetite for encountering them again on the eve of conquest.
But the last time in Numbers 14: 39-45 they had made the attempt in their own power and without the presence of God, Moses and the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant.
PLEASE READ JOSHUA 4: 1-3, 8.
This time in Deut. 7: 1-6 and 20:1-20 the conquest of Canaan as a whole was initiate by the Lord, led by Him, guaranteed success through Him, and designated to accomplish His purposes.
This war was waged to drive out or kill the illegitimate occupiers of the land lest they corrupt God’s people and thus undermine His covenant purpose for them.
Because the battle was the Lord’s, it was religious in nature and therefore involved the priests and other religious personnel. Especially important was the inclusion of the Ark of the Covenant for it symbolized the presence of the Lord as Israel’s leader and the source of their strength.
Nothing was left to chance in either timing or formation. After a three day wait at the edge of the Jordan, the people were given instruction in Joshua 3: 1-4 as to procedure.
The Ark carried by the priests was to enter the river first and the people were to follow 1,000 yards behind. When the priest’s feet touched the water, the waters would immediately cease flowing, allowing the whole procession to cross on dry ground despite the spring flooding.
Joshua 3: 16 says the waters of the Jordan were damned up by God at Adam, a city 15 miles north of the crossing; and also the tributary creeks. Once the march was completed, God permitted the waters to flow to the Salt Sea again.
All this came to pass as predicted. The priests entered the water, the water piled up in a heap as had the Red Sea at the exodus, and the priests remained in the midst of the dry riverbed until all the people had reached the other side.
The crossing was important because it was the last barrier to entering the Promised
Land. An earlier generation had been at the border of the Land, but they had refused to enter. As a result they perished in the wilderness.
Now their children were poised to enter the Land. Ordinarily crossing the river was not a difficult task because it had several fords used for crossing, but the river was at flood stage having overflowed its banks. Nothing less than a miracle could get he large number of Israelites across.
In Joshua 3: 1-13 God gave instructions and promises to Joshua, who like a good leader, passed them along to the people and the priests. The priests had a key role. They were told to carry the Ark of the Covenant to the edge of the river. The people were to follow at a safe distance. God told the people to sanctify themselves in readiness for the miracle He would perform.
He promised to magnify the name of Joshua as their leader. This victory over the flooded river would show the people that God’s power would give them victory over their enemies. God promised that when the priests’ feet touched the water He would stop the river’s flow.
Joshua 3: 14-17 tells how God kept His promises. When the priests’ feet touched the river water the flow stopped. The priests and the ark stopped in the middle of the riverbed while the people passed over. This called for faith and obedience by the people, especially the priests. The river would not part until the priests began to enter its flooded waters.
Chapter 4 picks up the narrative “when all the people had finished crossing the Jordan.” Chapter 3 tells the story from one side of the Jordan River and chapter 4 tells is from the other. One of the emphases in this passage is on the words “all the people.”
The entire group of the Israelites were together. All were of one accord and all participated. This was crucial to God and to Joshua. Another mark of the Israelites unity is in the selection of twelve men, one from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. Forty years earlier Moses had sent out such a party and the scouts who explored Canaan brought back a mixed report, which was very divisive. The 12 men in vs. 2 were of one accord.
The Lord instructed Joshua what to tell these representatives from each tribe. Their task was to go back into the riverbed and each man was to carry a stone out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm. The priests had shown their faith and courage in entering the flooded river and in remaining in the riverbed while the people passed by. Now they remained while the 12 men took their stones from where the priests stood.
The 12 men also showed faith and obedience in doing what they were told to do.
Their response was immediate and unquestioning. They could have feared reentering the Jordan. After all, how long would it stay dry? Whatever fears they may have had were laid aside and they unhesitatingly obeyed God’s instructions.
In Joshua 4: 9 Joshua joined the 12 men on their strange mission. While they were wrenching up great stones from the bed of the river, Joshua set another pile of 12 stoned in the riverbed itself to mark the precise spot where the priests stood with the Ark of the Covenant.
Joshua evidently wanted to have a personal reminder of God’s faithfulness at the very beginning of the conquest of Canaan. The stones would not only remain there as reminders of God’s marvelous deliverance but they also would evoke covenant overtones.
After the Lord had made His covenant with Israel at Sinai, it was confirmed and celebrated by a conclave at the base of the mountain. Moses, in Exodus 24:3-8 set up an altar there and surrounded it by 12 stone pillars. The altar represented the Lord and the pillars, of course, stood for the 12 tribes of Israel.
The 12 stones at the Jordan therefore reminded Israel of its covenant relationship with the Lord and of His faithfulness to them from that time to this.
Whenever their descendants looked upon them in the future, they would recall the mighty acts of God in choosing, delivering, and preserving their fathers and would take heart from it. What the Lord had done for the nation long ago He could do for it anytime in the present.
The selection of 12 men from the people also calls to mind another episode, this time one with not such a happy outcome but nonetheless worth remembering. Israel had arrived at the southern border of Canaan following the sojourn at Sinai and Moses, in Numbers 13: 1-25 had sent spies to criss-cross the land to determine its strengths and weaknesses.
Among these men was Joshua, who now was responsible to choose 12 men for another task. The men in the past represented the 12 tribes as did the 12 on this occasion. Those 12, except for Joshua and Caleb, brought back a negative report because of their lack of faith. These 12 exhibited extraordinary faith for they were willing to stand in the middle of the Jordan, not knowing when the dammed-up waters of the raging current might return to fill the riverbed once again.
The priests also stand as models of faith. They were first to place their feet into the flooding stream and the last to take them out. The stone monument must also recall their total commitment to the Lord’s promises.
When God’s children found them selves caught up on the overwhelming vicissitudes of life, they could look upon the stones and be reminded that men of faith preceded them and triumphed through God’s protective grace.
Besides displaying faith, the priests and the 12 men of each of the Israelite tribes demonstrated obedience. They took stones from the middle of the Jordan and carried them to the camp---just as they Lord had told Joshua.
When Joshua instructed the 12 men, he told each man to carry his stone to Gilgal, the place where they would spend the night. Gilgal was about 1 ¼ mile from Jericho. Its name means circle. Joshua said that the stones would become “a sign” and “a memorial” for them, their children, and future generations.
Vs. 8 shows that the 12 men did exactly what they had been told to do. The actions of the 12 represented the actions of the people of their tribes. Thus vs. 8 says that the children of Israel did as Joshua commanded.
PLEASE READ JOSHUA 4: 10-11.
Human progress and achievement often is attributed to mankind’s own genius and resources. This is true even of believers who ought to be first to recognize that even the most elementary accomplishments of human endeavor find their source in God’s providential enablement.
The crossing of the Jordan River was made possible only by God’s power, but it involved the faith and obedience of the people and their leaders. The stopping of the raging floodwaters at the moment when the priest’s feet touched the water and its continuing flow after the last priest was out of the water indicates that it was a miracle.
One can imagine what it must have been like for the Israelites to stand on the west bank, watching the hurrying torrent covering their path, and then lifting their eyes to look at the opposite wide where they had stood that morning. There was no returning now; a new exciting chapter in their history had begun.
The presence of the Ark of the Covenant in the narrative of the crossing of Jordan is not a minor detail to be overlooked. The Ark, which contained the stone tablets of the Decalogue, was covered by the mercy seat guarded by two cherubim. It thus represented the throne of God who sat invisibly upon it as Ruler over and among His people Israel.
When the Lord initiated holy war, the Ark was always there in the forefront, suggesting that He was commander of the heavenly hosts and that victory was assured. At times the Ark came to be viewed as a powerful instrument in its own right, possessing as it were a magical capacity to bring about a desired end. This perversion of the Ark not only failed to bring victory but resulted in God’s distancing Himself from His people.
In this passage, however, the Ark was properly understood to be symbolic of the Lord’s presence. The priests, as brave and committed as they were, could take no credit for the damming of the river, the drying up of its bed, and the successful crossing of the people.
They, like the Ark itself, were merely God’s instruments in achieving this remarkable feat. It was He who, in effect, led the way into the chaotic waters, tamed them to do His bidding, and allowed them to return once His purpose was accomplished. It was He who stood in the middle of the Jordan, holding it back until everything was completed that He had commanded Joshua. Only then did He, in the symbol of the Ark, leave the riverbed and cross to the other side.
The point of this is clear: The Lord will never command His children to be anything or to go anywhere apart from His presence and power. He led Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan. He accompanied Abraham’s servant on his quest to find a wife for Isaac, and He promised Moses He would go before Him and the people to guide them to the Promised Land.
At the end of Jesus’ Great Commission to His disciples He said in Matt. 28:20; “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
There can be little doubt that though the people of Israel understood the ark to be a sign of God’s presence they nevertheless experienced anxiety to some degree. After all, the Jordan was in flood stage in the spring of the year, its normal volume from the rains being augmented by the melting snow of the Lebanon Mountains.
This however, cannot explain the fact that the people hurried across. This does not mean that they acted like a panicky mob. It does mean that they moved as quickly as possible while maintaining good order. More likely they were eager to reach the Land of Promise, the place to which they had been heading for 40 years. Besides, the Lord was there as were the courageous priests who, by their very presence, inspired the people to a grater measure of confidence.
The kind of leadership that leads by example and not merely by decree is bound to be contagious. People are willing to follow someone who can say by deed as well as by word, “Do what I say because I do what I say.”
Another important principle of leadership reflected in the account is that effective leaders not only take positions in front but also behind. The priests did not blaze the trail into the river and then scurry across to safety on the other side. Instead, they stood in the midst for as long as it took to get the people across and then they themselves followed. They were true pastors, that is, shepherds who both lead their flocks and also tend to the strays who lag behind.
The people must indeed have been impressed when once across the river they could see the priests still standing in the place of danger. Then at last the priests with the ark of the Lord crossed in the sight of the people. The narrator wants to make the point that good leadership is always noted with appreciation.
Verse 11 tells us what the people were doing after they crossed the river. They were watching the 12 men gather the stones and the priests come out of the river. We see this in the words in the presence of the people.
The people had experience crossing the riverbed; now they were eyewitnesses to the final stages of the deliverance.
In Joshua 3: 15-18 the conclusion of the miracle is described with the focus still on the Ark. In Joshua 4: 16 the Ark of the Covenant, also called the ark of the Testimony, contained the Ten Commandments as a testimony to the agreement God made with Israel.
PLEASE READ JOSHUA 4: 17-18.
The priests were so committed to their task that they remained in place until they received new instruction to do something else. Only when Joshua commanded them “Come up from the Jordan” did they do so. Joshua was, of course, the theocratic administrator, the one upon whom the mantle of Mosaic leadership had fallen. The priests, in this circumstance at least, were answerable to him and not the chief priest to whom they ordinarily would have been accountable.
Once more the priests reveal a positive characteristic of effective leadership. They were willing to acknowledge the will of God for a particular situation and adjust accordingly. Without questioning the role of Joshua a non-priestly figure, they complied immediately with his request to leave the riverbed and make their way to the western shore. Only then did the people witness the final act of God’s victory.
Having done that, the waters of the Jordan resumed their courts, flowing over all the banks as before.
Obedience to the will of God produced a response on His part, a return to the natural course of events. Once more the text is careful to point out that the priests were carrying the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant. The intent is clear. The ministry of God’s leaders---the priests---could not be divorced from the presence of the Lord. They may have risked their lives in the midst of the river, but as long as the Lord was there, even symbolically, there was really no danger at all. The priests were safer with the ark in the middle of the Jordan than they would have been high and dry on the banks of the river. Good spiritual leadership recognized its dependence on God and takes comfort in His affirming presence.
We sometimes may easily believe we brought about our victory through our own wit, cunning, and courage. We may give ourselves the credit and twist our shoulder out of socket patting ourselves on the back. But we cannot produce spiritual victories ourselves by any combination of wit, cunning, or courage. Victory comes only as God works in our lives. When we think we produce results, we move toward spiritual defeat.
Leaders bear the responsibility of keeping God’s people focused on God’s work. Their role includes more than leading others to obey God and to act boldly on God’s leading. Their role includes leading God’s people to give God all the glory for His miraculous intervention.
The timing of the river stopping and starting again is striking. As already noted, it is evidence of the Lord working a miracle and of the faith, courage, and patience of the priests who carried the Ark.
The waters of the flooded river stopped at precisely the time when the priests stepped into the water, and they resumed when the feet of the priests left the riverbed. When the priests “stepped out on solid ground, the waters of the Jordan resumed their course, flowing over all their banks as before.
Finally, the priests-—and Joshua as well----exhibited strong leadership traits by following the will of God in every detail. Joshua commanded the priests because he had first been commanded by the Lord. A Christian leader who leads out of personal whim or as a manifestation of personal ambition falls short of the biblical model.
Like Paul, a leader of God’s people must first be willing to ask the question, “What should I do Lord?”
PLEASE READ JOSHUA 4: 19-24.
For the most part the author of the Book of Joshua was not concerned to pinpoint chronological information, but here he drew special attention to the fact that Israel crossed the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month.
Their calendar at the time named Nisan as the first month. Nisan corresponded to the last part of March and the first part of April in our calendar. (Israel later adopted another calendar, the calendar Jews use today, that placed the first month in the fall.)
After crossing the Jordan, the Israelites camped at Gilgal, described as lying on the eastern limits of Jericho.
At Gilgal, Joshua set up the 12 stones the selected men had brought from the Jordan River. The Bible does not tell us how Joshua arranged the stones for this memorial, but he probably set them in a circle. The word Gilgal refers to a circle. Stone circles consisting of tall stones standing on end remain in Israel to this day. As suggested earlier in the lesson, the 12 stones probably stood for the 12 tribes of Israel. This demonstrated that God has no favorites, but He had chosen to bless all the tribes alike.
Joshua explained the purpose of this memorial. In the future, Israelite children naturally would ask about the meaning of the circle of 12 stones. Parents then would honor the Lord by telling the amazing story of His drying up the Jordan and allowing the Israelites crossing the river on dry ground.
We must not assume that because God works miraculously in our lives our children will know about these mighty deeds. Often children know little or nothing of God’s work in their parents’ lives. Few children can tell how God worked in their parents’ lives before their births. Few children know what God is doing in their parents’ present lives. Part of parents’ rearing children and guiding grandchildren is to share frequently all God does in their lives. Children hearing of the victories God gives their parents and grandparents can powerfully encourage and inspire them to recognize God’s mighty work in the victories.
The stones at Gilgal were designated to be a powerful witness to God’s presence in Israel for generations to come. Later Gilgal was an important place of sacrifice. Samuel judged from Gilgal, and Samuel anointed Saul king at Gilgal. Memorials to God’s presence and mighty acts among us also can have long-enduring effects. Joshua reminded Israel again that the Lord God had dried up the Jordan so they could cross into Canaan. The word Lord in small capital letters is the translation of Yahweh, the Hebrew name by which God revealed Himself to Israel. Joshua reminded the people that God previously had dried up the Red Sea until all of them crossed safely. These two miraculous acts God did on Israel’s behalf framed their wilderness experience. God dried up the Red Sea to make way for the Israelites to journey into the wilderness of Sinai. Then He dried up the Jordan River to enable them to leave the wilderness and enter into the promised land. Thus Israel’s wilderness experience began and ended with similar miracles.
The stones Joshua set up as a witness to God’s mighty acts were, however, more than just a witness to the nation of Israel. They were placed at Gilgal as a witness to all the people of the earth. Then every person would know the Lord, the God of Israel, was a mighty miracle-working God.
The stones at Gilgal would serve as a perpetual reminder to all the people of Israel to fear the Lord their God. Fear means to revere and honor the Lord God, not to cower before Him in terror as if He delights in hurting people.
This passage points up the importance of history for faith. The entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation shows that God reveals Himself through His acts in history. God acted in Israel’s history in the exodus and their entry into and conquest of Canaan. God revealed Himself in Israel’s history all the way to their exile and return to Canaan. God acted in history again in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. God acted in history in the early church as recorded in the Book of Acts. He will continue to act throughout history until Jesus comes again. He is acting in our day. The story of God’s acts recorded in Scripture is the story of revelation through history.
For believers, history is not just the dry recitation of names, dates, and places. History in its finest sense is the remembrance of what God has done in out history. We need constantly to remember that God is not just the God of church, hymns, and worship. God is also the mighty God who works to bring salvation to those who are in darkness and sin, as well as to give them victories as His people obey Him.
NEXT SUNDAY FROM JOSHUA 7 WE LEARN OF THE AGONY OF DEFEAT
A.V. DAUGHERTY <altav@swbell.net>