C. The Crossing of the Jordan (3:1-4:24)

The recounting of the crossing of the Jordan occupies two chapters. This is in keeping with the prominence of God’s actions on behalf of Israel throughout the narrative. It also is further evidence that the author’s interest is not the military history of the Conquest, but its theological or faith history.

The crossing of the Jordan is also emphasized because of its pivotal nature. The crossing meant there would be no turning back, as with the previous generation. Under Joshua, and by the power of God, Israel really would occupy the land that had been promised for so long. The crossing became a spiritual and psychological as well as a physical entrance.

The Ark of the Covenant led the people as they entered the Jordan. Then the priests bearing the Ark stood in the middle of the dry river bed as the people crossed over. The Ark, as the visible symbol of God’s presence, was a further reminder that this was a divine and not a human enterprise.

Joshua erected two memorials to this event, one in the river bed and one at Gilgal. These memorial stones were to be a visual aid in teaching Israelite children. The stones were to serve also as a witness to all the peoples of the earth (4:24).

The author is careful to point out that the crossing of the Jordan was a miracle. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the Ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing (3:15-16). The river was not at normal level but at spring flood stage (v.15) so that it overflowed its banks. The location of the stoppage was pinpointed at Adam, modern Damiyeh, about eighteen miles upstream from Jericho (v.16). The priests carrying the Ark stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan (v.17). No sooner had they set their feet on the dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and ran at flood stage as before (4:18).

The usual explanation for this miracle is that the Jordan was dammed at Adam by a landslide of its banks, probably caused by an earthquake. Such landslides, stopping the river’s flow from sixteen hours up to about two days, occurred in a.d. 1160, 1267, 1546, 1834, 1906, and 1927.

Was the stoppage of the waters on Israel’s behalf due to the same cause? Since there is no way to verify a natural cause for that stoppage, we cannot be sure. God could have acted without utilizing natural means. That natural means have caused such stoppages six times in the last nine hundred years, however, would suggest that perhaps Joshua’s stoppage, too, was caused by a landslide.

If so, was it a miracle? If we define a miracle as God’s direct intervention in earthly events, then it was. With the Jordan in flood, Israel could not have crossed otherwise. Just as God has the right to choose whether or not to intervene, so God has the right to choose whether his intervention shall be by natural or supernatural means. Either way, it is a miracle. A natural event, timed to bring glory to God and to be of benefit to God’s people, is still a miracle.