King James Version · Entering the land
Joshua 3
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And rose early in the morning; and they removed from , and came to Jordan, he and all the , and lodged there before they passed over. And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host; And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the of your , and the priests the bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore. And said unto the people, yourselves: for to morrow will do wonders among you. And spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the , and pass over before the people. And they took up the , and went before the people. And said unto , This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with , so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the , saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan. And said unto the , Come hither, and hear the words of your . And said, Hereby ye shall know that the living is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you , and the , and the , and the , and the , and the , and the . Behold, the of of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the , of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap. And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the before the people; And as they that the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city , that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were : and the people passed over right against . And the priests that the of stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Entering the land, 1250 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel crossing into Canaan and contending with fortified city-states, each with its own king, in a land Egypt had recently dominated and was now losing its grip on.
- The collapse
- The whole eastern Mediterranean is coming apart. Within about fifty years the Hittite empire falls, its capital burns, the Mycenaean palaces are destroyed, Ugarit is wiped out mid-correspondence, and Egypt is fighting for its life against seaborne invaders. Nobody fully knows why. Drought, earthquake, migration, and the failure of interlocking trade are all in the explanation.
- Egypt
- Still strong enough to record a victory over a people called Israel on a stone monument around 1207 BC, the earliest mention of the name outside the Bible. But Egyptian control of Canaan is slipping, and within a generation it is gone.
- Canaan
- Not a country but dozens of walled towns, each with its own king, its own god, and its own quarrel with the next valley. This is why the book of Joshua reads as a list of kings rather than a war with a nation.
- Further afield
- Iron is beginning to replace bronze across the region, partly because the tin trade that made bronze possible has broken down. The Olmec are building San Lorenzo. The Zhou are about to overthrow the Shang in China.