The Book of Joshua – Part 3: Israel Crosses the Jordan  Jos 3:1-17 

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The Book of Joshua – Part 3: Israel Crosses the Jordan – Jos 3:1-17

[Study Aired March 5, 2023]

“The last shall be first, and the first last.”

It is glaringly obvious to the Body of Christ that the ‘natural precedes the spiritual’ when understanding anything in scripture, particularly the physical Promised Land as a shadow of Christ, the Elect’s inheritance.

Since Christ’s death on the cross to this day, and until the First Resurrection, the Elect of God is the last to cross their spiritual Jordan. The rest of immature Babylonian Christianity, and in their minds, jubilantly have already crossed.

Joh 6:44 No man [you, me or anyone else] can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [Greek: helkuō, ‘drag’ against his will] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

It is natural for mainstream Christianity to think it would mirror the Israelites’ mass crossing their figurative Jordan at Christ’s coming and entering eternal life. However, not knowing that the natural precedes the spiritual, nor understanding the spirit, blinds their understanding of the two resurrections.

For the Bride of Christ, we shall see in this study that the Priests bearing the Ark cross last, and represent her.

Jos 3:1 And Joshua rose early in the morning. And they moved from Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the sons of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.
Jos 3:2 And it happened after three days the officers went through the host.
Jos 3:3 And they commanded the people saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then you shall move from your place and go after it.
Jos 3:4 Yet keep a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, so that you may know the way by which you must go. For you have not passed this way before now.
Jos 3:5 And Joshua said to the people, Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow Jehovah will do wonders among you.
Jos 3:6 And Joshua spoke to the priests saying, Take up the ark of the covenant and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people.
Jos 3:7 And Jehovah said to Joshua, Today, I will begin to magnify you in the sight of all Israel so that they may know that I will be with you, as I was with Moses.
Jos 3:8 And you shall command the priests that carry the ark of the covenant, saying, When you have come to the brink of the water of Jordan, you shall stand still in Jordan.
Jos 3:9 And Joshua said to the sons of Israel, Come here and hear the Words of Jehovah your God. 
Jos 3:10 And Joshua said, By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. 
Jos 3:11 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan.
Jos 3:12 And now take yourselves twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. 
Jos 3:13 And it shall be, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that carry the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above. And they shall stand all in a heap. 
Jos 3:14 And it happened, when the people moved from their tents to pass over Jordan, and as the priests carried the ark of the covenant before the people, 
Jos 3:15 and as those who bore the ark had come to Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bore the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for Jordan overflows all its banks, all the time of harvest); 
Jos 3:16 that the waters which came down from above stopped and rose up all in a heap, very far from the city Adam that is beside Zaretan. And those that came down toward the sea of the plain, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over across from Jericho. 
Jos 3:17 And the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of Jehovah stood firm on dry ground in the middle of Jordan. And all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people had passed completely over Jordan. 

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Jos 3:1 And Joshua rose early in the morning. And they moved from Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the sons of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.

Shittim is located east of the Jordan River and approximately 15 miles north of the Dead Sea. The Shittim wood is a particular type of Acacia that must have dominated the area’s landscape to be named, Shittim. The wood of the Ark of the Covenant was made of Shittim wood overlaid with pure gold. The origin of the name Shittim is H7850 and means to ‘scourge; pierce’. If the same Acacia at Shittim is common to most of continental Africa, it is noted for long thorns, among which are the tree leaves that animals, particularly Giraffes, love to forage. 

The type of plant, the thorns that the soldiers plaited for Jesus, is simply referred to as a “briar” and could be any type of thorny shrubbery (Joh 19:2), and one’s Western mindset goes immediately to an easily plaited blackberry-type briar. Yet, that crown of thorns could more likely be a Shittim “briar” from the young flexible branches of the Shittim Acacia, particularly since its name means to scourge and pierce.  Not only that, but the Ark of the Covenant (Exo 25:10) containing the word of God commanded the same scourging and piercing nature.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The Body of Christ individually, yet collectively lodged many years in Shittim on the figurative east bank of our Jordan River, unwittingly waiting for the command to pass over. We thought we had arrived in the Promised Land many years ago upon being baptised with water in Gentile Christianity. We never understood that we would have to rise early to fight battles where the piercing sword of our Lord’s word crowning our heads would never leave our house.

Of course, we know that the sword never leaving our spiritual house is a glorious thing which King David wasn’t spiritually given to appreciate. Upon his sin with Bathsheba:

2Sa 12:9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
2Sa 12:10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

Jos 3:2 And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host [the camp of Israel]
Jos 3:3 And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. 

As we have understood for many years and seen in Part 2 of this study of Joshua, the third (Number 3) is the process of a particular matter. While the Israelites suffered the tribulation of forty years in the wilderness (Number 4 representing the whole of the matter), they were now required to wait three days on the east bank of the Jordan. For the more God-given astute Gentile Christians, adding 4+3=7 signifies their entry into their Promised Land of eternal life, where they erroneously believe, as demonstrated by the Israelites crossing the Jordan, all Christian believers are now saved.

It is the same pattern for the Elect of God today, only with Christ’s spirit within discerning His spirit since we will see an incredible significance that the Priests can only bear the Ark and be last to cross the Jordan.

The Elect of God see that the number 3 signifies the process of spiritual completion through judgment; to them, waiting to cross the Jordan is only the beginning of that process within each member. Having been given eyes that see and ears that hear to discern their Lord’s spirit and becoming perfected on their ”third day” before entering the First Resurrection on the Seventh Day, they are following Christ’s pattern of perfection before He returned to His former glory with the Father.

Luk 13:32 And he said unto them, [the Pharisees] Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. 
Luk 13:33 Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.

The nation of Israel was the growing, yet immature, old earthy Jerusalem being established in the wilderness and remains to this very day as the Great Whore, the Lord’s rejected wife. As such, the prophet Moses didn’t die outside of old Israel, effectively symbolized as a type of Jerusalem (Salem). In perfect parallel, the prophets of Christ, His Christs, die daily inside the same Old Jerusalem as they move into the heavenly Jerusalem being established within. 

Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 
Rev 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Jos 3:4 Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits [1 cubit = 18 inches] by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore. 

Interestingly, a space exists between Christ’s death and the First Resurrection of approximately two thousand years (two thousand cubits). In parallel, like physical Israel preparing to cross the physical Jordan, a mighty space exists between the anointed rejected wife and the anointed elected Bride of Christ. Only the Bride can know the way they must go since nobody other than the Lord’s Priests can or any person preceding them have ever passed this way since (“heretofore”) Adam.  

Num 4:15 And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward; after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it: but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die. These things are the burden of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation.

The origin of the cubit measurement of distance means H517′ mother’. How fitting that the Bride of Christ, who is becoming our Lord’s wife, is the “mother of us all”, and nobody may come near her understanding of the Lord’s spirit. Yet for the moment, on the banks of the Jordan, the two women within the one woman, greater Israel, are oblivious to her inherent bondage, even while ecstatic at the prospect of possessing the physical Promised Land.

Gal 4:21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? 
Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. 
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. 
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. 
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Jos 3:5 And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you.

As we are accustomed to knowing, sanctifying ourselves means setting ourselves apart from our ways and devoting ourselves to the Lord for any occasion, and for this cause, the coming battle against Jericho. Today, the Bride has mighty spiritual strength by His faith for us to win our daily battles (1Sa 17:47, 1Jn 1:9, 1Pe 5:6-7). The Body of Christ has seen the wonders of Him in each joint of the Bride and is physically seen by the particular account of the Lord going before Israel against Jericho. In human history, this is the only generation (since the cross) led by the Bride of Christ ever to experience passing “this way” through Christ going spiritually before them. Through being in Christ, she is as He is, represented by the Priests being the only ones who can touch the Ark and not die, taking it up and passing over before the people of the entire world.

Jos 3:6 And Joshua spoke to the priests saying, Take up the ark of the covenant and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people.
Jos 3:7 And Jehovah said to Joshua, Today, I will begin to magnify you in the sight of all Israel so that they may know that I will be with you, as I was with Moses.

Although the ones who say that they are Jews do unknowingly lie about their spiritual orientation (Rev 2:9, Rev 3:9, Rom 2:28), for the moment, they are blind to Christ being magnified in their sight. It will only be after the First Resurrection that they will become disconcertedly aware that the Lord is primarily with that little flock represented by the Priests, as he was with Moses.

In Israel, Joshua and the Priests are magnified for the incipient separation of the two women; the rejected wife and the finally elected wife. Hence, both parties “pass over” the Jordan, unaware that the Priests and the main camp of Israel will become two women. The fact that Israel unwittingly crossed the Jordan at harvest time prophesies the future established little harvest and the main harvest of souls in two very different resurrections. 

Jos 3:8 And you shall command the priests that carry the ark of the covenant, saying, When you have come to the brink of the water of Jordan, you shall stand still in Jordan.

The significance of standing still on the bank of the raging spring water overflowing the banks of the Jordan (from H3381to go down, descend, march down, to be taken down) is to magnify the strength of God in the hearts of the people. To the natural mind, Wildebeest en-mass crossing the Masai Mara River in central Africa has more hope of survival.

There were tens of thousands of mothers with children burdened with clothing and possessions; helping the young men manage animals and carts looked like a catastrophe waiting to happen. What will the Body of Christ do in every likelihood in this age to be tested similarly and typified by a host of other preceding Saints having faced dire circumstances (Remember Daniel; Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego; Christ)? Of course, if the Lord wills, He will likewise conduct a physically safe passage even though our spiritual passage is assured.

Psa 27:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 

Psa 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. (See all of Psalm 27)

Php 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Jos 3:10 And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. 

The Lord was teaching the children of Israel to believe in Him. It took a multitude of miracles in Egypt to the brink of the Jordan to teach a carnal nation that the Lord is true to his word, and now, with another series of miracles. A little upcoming win over Jericho would bolster Israel’s faith in her Lord to rout their land of more significant enemies.

For the Body of Christ, miracles are largely terminated. No hearts before or after Christ were converted by miracles.

Mat 16:1 The Pharisees and the Sadducees came to Him, tempting Him. And they asked Him that He would show them a sign from Heaven. 
Mat 16:2 He answered and said to them, When it is evening, you say, Fair weather; for the sky is red. 
Mat 16:3 And in the morning, Foul weather today; for the sky is red and gloomy. Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky, but you cannot see the signs of the times! 
Mat 16:4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. And there shall no sign be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And He left them and went away.

Jos 3:11 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan. 

Stephen, like Christ, did many miracles before the people, yet the Pharisees and Christians still killed them both (Act 6:8). Nonetheless, endless physical miracles must precede the Body of Christ, and they, having not personally witnessed outward miracles, have no excuse to not believe spiritually. Hence, Christ, the covenant of all the earth, has passed over by His spirit and shown us the way to likewise save our brothers and sisters.

Jos 3:12 And now take yourselves twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. 
Jos 3:13 And it shall be, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that carry the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above. And they shall stand all in a heap.

The twelve sons of Jacob represent every person and nation on Earth and spiritually signify the ultimate salvation of every conception since Adam. It begins with the feet of Christ touching the mountains of the Lord, the Bride of Christ, and Him taking his Bride over her figurative Jordan into the First Resurrection. His feet touched the Mount of Olives two thousand years ago, and he cleaved the woman in two – the Old Jerusalem and the Heavenly Jerusalem.

That original rift was unwittingly created by Hagar, the Bond Woman, Old Covenant Israel, crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land leaving behind those who died in the wilderness. As we know, she continued her unfaithfulness to her Husband, and the process was again implemented spiritually at the cross; only this time for his very few faithful followers. 

Just as the Lord’s first wife was baptized crossing the Red Sea and sanctified crossing the raging Jordan, the Lord’s new Bride is baptized with fire as she crosses her spiritual Jordan in the duality of the Mount of Olives split in two with a gulf the Bond Woman cannot cross.

Zec 14:4 And His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall divide from its middle, from the east and to the west, a very great valley. And half of the mountain shall move toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all [the twelve tribes symbolizing the entirety of humanity] will be made alive. 
1Co 15:23 But each in his own order: Christ the first-fruit, and afterward they who are Christ’s at His coming.

“And it shall be, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that carry the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above. And they shall stand all in a heap.”

For two thousand years, the sea of humanity has been cut off and stands in a heap, like the waters of the Jordan, while the Lord’s Elect cross into the First Resurrection. 

After which, and having been cut off, they rage in a torrent as Gog and Magog as they, too, rush into the Dead Sea, which symbolically is the Lake of Fire that will purify the great harvest in the Resurrection to Judgment.

Jos 3:14 And it happened, when the people moved from their tents to pass over Jordan, and as the priests carried the ark of the covenant before the people, 
Jos 3:15 and as those who bore the ark had come to Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bore the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for Jordan overflows all its banks, all the time of harvest);
Jos 3:16 that the waters which came down from above stopped and rose up all in a heap, very far from the city Adam [‘red; first man’] that is beside Zaretan [‘their distress’]. And those that came down toward the sea of the plain, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over across from Jericho. 

The Bride of Christ carries Him, as Solomon was carried in his royal carriage on the shoulders of his ascribed ‘elect’. Carrying the Ark, she goes before her brothers and sisters of Gog and Magog, who number as the sand of the sea (Rev 20:8) who are pictorially heaped up waiting in turbulent distress and their order for salvation since Adam, having been completely cut off from the First Resurrection.  

Even though the entire nation of Israel, including the mixed multitude, are all symbolised going into the Promised Land, it signifies that the entire world of humanity will be saved upon the completion of the Eight Day. 

Isa 43:1 Now this is what the LORD says— He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine!
Isa 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze. 
Isa 43:3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place. (BSB)

Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

Jos 3:17 The priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed over the dry ground, until the entire nation had crossed the Jordan. (BSB)

The Elect of God, the Priests, stand firm in their Lord’s word on the dry ground amid the Jordan, by the Lord’s power, holding back the water while their children, the “many called”, pass on the dry ground (Note: probably at a distance sustaining two thousand cubits, 3,000 feet or 1.33 miles to the Priest’s left since greater Israel has been distanced from the Ark) being the first to step into the physically Promised Land. The Priests shouldering Christ, the Ark, are the “few chosen” who are last to complete the crossing.

In speaking of the disgruntled laborers in the vineyard, greater Israel is the first laborers, and the Elect of God shouldering the Ark are the last,

Mat 20:14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. 
Mat 20:15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? 
Mat 20:16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. 

The Priests representing the Elect of God come from behind the entirety of the world of greater Israel. Having been the last, the very few chosen become the first to represent the much later spiritual crossing of a figurative Jordan into the First Resurrection.

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