World English Bible · Entering the land
Joshua 4
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When all the nation had completely crossed over , spoke to , saying, "Take twelve men out of the people, a man out of every tribe, and command them, saying, 'Take from out of the middle of , out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, carry them over with you, and lay them down in the place where you'll camp tonight.'" Then called the twelve men whom he had prepared of the , a man out of every tribe. 5 said to them, " before the your into the middle of , and each of you pick up a stone and put it on your shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the ; that this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask in the future, saying, 'What do you mean by these stones?' then you shall tell them, 'Because the waters of were before the . When it crossed over , the waters of were . These stones shall be for a memorial to the .'" The did as commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the middle of , as spoke to , according to the number of the tribes of the . They carried them over with them to the place where they camped, and laid them down there. set up twelve stones in the middle of , in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the stood; and they are there to this day. For the priests who bore the ark stood in the middle of until everything was finished that commanded to speak to the people, according to all that commanded ; and the people hurried and passed over. When all the people had completely crossed over, ark crossed over with the priests in the of the people. The children of , and the children of Gad, and the half-tribe of crossed over armed before the , as spoke to them. About forty thousand men, ready and armed for war, passed over before to battle, to the plains of . On that day, magnified in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared , all the days of his life. 15 spoke to , saying, "Command the priests who bear the , that they come up out of ." therefore commanded the priests, saying, "Come up out of !" When the priests who bore the had come up out of the middle of , and the soles of the priests' feet had been lifted up to the dry ground, the waters of returned to their place, and went over all its banks, as before. The people came up out of on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in , on the east border of . set up those twelve stones, which they took out of , in . He spoke to the , saying, "When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, 'What do these stones mean?' Then you shall let your children know, saying, 'Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For your dried up the waters of from before you until you had crossed over, as your did to , which he dried up from before us, until we had crossed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know that hand is mighty, and that you may your .'"
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.