Jehoshua (i.e. Joshua) · proper noun, a man's name
said
וַיֹּ֧אמֶרvai.Yo.mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
people
הָעָ֖םha.'Am
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Sanctify
הִתְקַדָּ֑שׁוּhit.ka.Da.shu
H6942
to be (causatively · verb, hithpael imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
morrow
מָחָ֗רma.Char
H4279
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
LORD
יְהוָ֛הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
do
יַעֲשֶׂ֧הya.'a.Seh
H6213
to do or make · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
wonders
נִפְלָאֽוֹתnif.la.'ot
H6381
properly · verb, niphal active participle, feminine plural absolute
among
בְּקִרְבְּכֶ֖םbe.kir.be.Khem
H7130
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 20:7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God.
Joshua 7:13 Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing i…
1 Samuel 16:5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jess…
Joel 2:16 Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom…
John 17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Exodus 19:10-15 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,
Leviticus 10:3 Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the peopl…
Psalms 86:10 For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Joshua 3:1-6
Rahab, in mentioning to the spies the drying up of the Red Sea (Jos 2:10), the report of which terrified the Canaanites more than anything else, intimates that those on that side the water expected that Jordan, that great defence of their country, would in like manner give way to them. Whether the Israelites had any expectation of it does not appear. God often did things for them which they looked not for, Isa 64:3. Now here we are told,
I. That they came to Jordan and lodged there, Jos 3:1. Though they were not yet told how they should pass the river, and were unprovided for the passing of it in any ordinary way, yet they went forward in faith, having been told (Jos 1:11) that they should p…
Joshua said unto the people--rather "had said," for as he speaks of "to-morrow," the address must have been made previous to the day of crossing, and the sanctification was in all probability the same as Moses had commanded before the giving of the law, consisting of an outward cleansing (Exo 19:10-15) preparatory to that serious and devout state of mind with which so great a manifestation should be witnessed.
Adam Clarke on Joshua 3:5
Sanctify yourselves - What was implied in this command we are not informed; but it is likely that it was the same as that given by Moses, Exo 19:10-14. They were to wash themselves and their garments, and abstain from every thing that might indispose their minds from a profitable attention to the miracle about to be wrought in their behalf.
John Gill on Joshua 3:5
And Joshua said unto the people,.... On the third day; and the thirtieth day of the mourning for Moses, Jarchi says, was the first of the three days, and that being the seventh day of the month, this must be the ninth, as it is most clear the morrow was the tenth:
sanctify yourselves; in a ceremonial sense, by washing their bodies and their clothes, and abstaining from their wives; and in a moral sense, by acts of religion and devotion, by prayer and meditation, and the exercise of repentance and, good works: it may denote that sanctification is necessary to our passage over Jordan, or through death to the heavenly Canaan, for without holiness no man shall see the Lord:
for tomorrow the Lo…
The Church Fathers
In the spirit of this passage let us also pray that we may receive from God to understand the spiritual meaning of Joshua's passage through Jordan. Of it, also, Paul would have said, "I would not, brethren, have you ignorant, that all our fathers went through Jordan, and were all baptized into Jesus in the spirit and in the river." And Joshua, who succeeded Moses, was a type of Jesus Christ, who succeeds the dispensation through the law, and replaces it by the preaching of the Gospel. And even if those Paul speaks of were baptized in the cloud and in the sea, there is something harsh and salt in their baptism. They are still in fear of their enemies, and crying to the Lord and to Moses, saying, "Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou brought us forth to slay us in the wilderness? Why hast thou dealt thus with us, to bring us forth out of Egypt?" But the baptism to Joshua, which takes place in quite sweet and drinkable water, is in many ways superior to that earlier one, religion having by this time grown clearer and assuming a becoming order. For the ark of the covenant of the Lord our God is carried in procession by the priests and levites, the people following the ministers of God, it, also, accepting the law of holiness. For Joshua says to the people, "Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow; the Lord will do wonders among you." And he commands the priests to go before the people with the ark of the covenant, wherein is plainly showed forth the mystery of the Father's economy about the Son, which is highly exalted by Him who gave the Son this office; "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Jordan, The River · Passage of Israel over: In an appointed order — Passage of Israel over: In an appointed order
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Joshua 3:1-13
1. And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.
1. Surrexit autem Josue summo mane, et profecti sunt e Sittim, venerantque usque ad Jordanem ipse et omnes filii Israel, pernoctaveruntque illic antequam transirent.
2. And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host;
2. Et fuit a fine trium dierum, ut praefecti transirent per medium castrorum.
3. And they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place, and g…
Jos 3:1-4
"Arrangements for the Passage through the Jordan. - When they reached the Jordan, the Israelites rested till they passed over. לוּן, to pass the night; then in a wider sense to tarry, Pro 15:31; here it means to rest. According to Jos 3:2, they stayed there three days. "At the end (after the expiration) of three days" cannot refer to the three days mentioned in Jos 1:11, if only because of the omission of the article, apart from the reasons given in the note upon Jos 1:11, which preclude the supposition that the two are identical. The reasons why the Israelites stayed three days by the side of the Jordan, after leaving Shittim, are not given, but they are not difficult to guess; fo…
Purify yourselves: They had to separate themselves from anything unclean that would bar an Israelite from coming into God’s presence (cp. Exod 19:9-20; Lev 11:44).
Rashi on Joshua 3:5
And Yehoshua said. This was on the third day, and the thirtieth day of mourning [for Moshe] was on the first of the three days.
הִתְקַדָשׁוּ usually means sanctify yourselves, but here it means prepare yourselves.
For tomorrow when you cross the Jordan.
Wonders. This translation follows that of Targum Yonasan.
