King James Version · Entering the land
Joshua 4
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And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that spake unto , saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. Then called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the , out of every tribe a man: 5And said unto them, Pass over before the your into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the : That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were before the of ; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were : and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the for ever. And the did so as commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as spake unto , according to the number of the tribes of the , and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. And set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which the stood: and they are there unto this day. For the priests which the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that commanded to speak unto the people, according to all that commanded : and the people hasted and passed over. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the passed over, and the priests, in the of the people. And the children of , and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of , passed over armed before the , as spake unto them: About forty thousand prepared for war passed over before unto 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. 15And spake unto , saying, Command the priests that bear the , that they come up out of Jordan. therefore commanded the priests, saying, Come ye up out of Jordan. And it came to pass, when the priests that the of were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before. And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in , in the east border of . And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did pitch in . And he spake unto the , saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For your dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as your did to , which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: That all the people of the earth might know the hand of , that it is mighty: that ye might your for ever.
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.