Commentary on Joshua 3:7-17

Joshua 3 highlights the leadership transition from Moses, the peerless mediator of Exodus and Deuteronomy, to his successor Joshua (verse 7). It affirms the presence of “the living God” (verse 10; see also Deuteronomy 5:26) with the Israelites in the ark of the covenant (Joshua 3:3, 11; see also Deuteronomy 10:8; 31:9, 25). And those crossing through the Jordan on dry ground experience something similar to what their ancestors experienced at the Red Sea (Exodus 14). The story has many resonant connections to other scenes in scripture, the recognition of which is part of the reward of reading the Bible as a conversation of many voices.

The book of Joshua is represented in the Revised Common Lectionary by three fairly short texts:

• the crossing of the Jordan (Joshua 3:7–17, Year A),
• the Passover in Gilgal (Joshua 5:9–12, Year C), and
• the covenant at Shechem (Joshua 24:14–18 and –25, Years B and A, respectively).

Not represented are the numerous violent episodes featuring wholesale destruction of inhabitants of the land by the “edge (literally ‘mouth’) of the sword” (Joshua 6, 8, 10, 11), as well as stories of apportionment of the land that can reinforce the impression that might makes right (spoiler: it doesn’t, and never has). Thus it may be helpful framing when preaching the Joshua 3 narrative to note that it is prelude to (problematic) stories of conquest and (incomplete) fulfillment of divine promises of land, as those stories may never or rarely be heard preached by a congregation that largely hears Revised Common Lectionary pericopes.

Since 1943, when German scholar Martin Noth published his study The Deuteronomistic History (the title of the English translation published in 1981), readers have been responding to his theory that Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are a unified composition motivated and shaped primarily by theological perspectives found in the book of Deuteronomy. Thus, the peoples and their leaders were ultimately judged by how faithfully (or not) they worshipped the Lord, the God of Israel. 

The Assyrian defeat in 722 BCE of the northern kingdom of Israel and the Babylonian defeat in 587 BCE of the southern kingdom of Judah were understood as divine punishments for breach of the Deuteronomic covenant (2 Kings 17:7–20). Joshua, following Deuteronomy (which ends with Moses’s death in chapter 34), represents the next chapter of the story of the people of God and their leaders, a story which is filled with many setbacks but whose outcome is defined ultimately not by human failures but by divine faithfulness.

The ark of the covenant provides an opportunity to explore the range of answers the Bible gives to the question of how God is present with God’s people, which include:

• the ark (and tabernacle, see Exodus 25–40), which represents the transportable and mobile (if vulnerable; see 1 Samuel 4–6 for the ark’s sojourn in Philistine territory) presence of God;
• Deuteronomy’s repeated expression “the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name” (12:11)—transparently pointing to Jerusalem—and the assurance that God is so near whenever we call upon that special name (4:7);
• Isaiah’s inaugural vision (chapter 6) which contemplates an awesome and holy divine king seated on a throne in the temple (verse 5);
• Ezekiel’s visions of the divine glory (kavod) that departs east (chapter 11) and returns from that same direction (chapter 43), which reminded the exiles that God was not bound to the temple;
• the Gospel of John’s prologue, which speaks of the divine Logos that “became flesh and lived among us” (1:14); and
• Acts’ depiction of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (chapter 2).

God’s presence thus takes many forms and expressions in the Bible. How is God most characteristically present with the community to which you are proclaiming the word? In what ways does (or should) faithfulness to people (or a Person) take precedence over faithfulness to places?

An archetype can refer to an original motif that repeats and “rhymes.” The Bible contains numerous sets of texts that appear to be in an archetype-type relationship. Call narratives are one type: Compare Moses’s call in Exodus 3 with Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 1, and Luke 5:1–11. Hannah’s song (1 Samuel 2:1–10) appears to be an archetype for Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55). The crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14 is the archetype for the crossing of the Jordan in Joshua 3. Psalm 114:3–6 makes the comparison between these two scenes explicit, paralleling the greater event of the crossing of the sea with mountains and the lesser crossing of the river with hills.

One can fruitfully compare these moments of deliverance as an invitation to faithful imagination: Where else have we experienced “crossing over” moments in our lives that extend this archetypical moment of divine providence into the present? How does baptism as a type of passing through waters proclaim the mystery and meaning of membership in Christ’s body? Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). How does the Eucharist as a type of the Passover meal proclaim the mystery and meaning of Jesus’s death for us (1 Corinthians 11:26)?