JOSHUA 3: CROSSING INTO A BETTER LIFE
One thing that may cross your mind today is: “Why bother?” In a busy life, why on earth should you bother at all with a seriously ancient story about a nobody people group who, apparently, have nothing at all to do with you today.
At various points in the world’s longest running drama, the storyline can seem irrelevant. However, “the entire Kitvei HaKodesh (Hebrew scriptures as a whole) is Hashem-breathed (The Name, The LORD – God-breathed) and useful for hora’ah (teaching), for reproof, for correction, for training in Tzedek (righteousness/fairness/justice, a righteous individual); that the ish haElohim (man of God – includes women i.e. Follower/Believer) may be proficient, having been equipped for every one of the ma’asim mitzvot (good works).[a]
That true, then anyone wanting to know about the Creator God must read every word that He has preserved for us to read in HIStory. Whether we like it or not, or whether we agree to it of not, the Creator God for His own sovereign reasons chose Israel, the smallest of all the nations at the time, in order to demonstrate what His Family could be like when operating as human images of Himself. We can sit hear arguing ‘until the cows come home’, like two flea arguing over the dog they live on, and this over who has the Specific Revelation of God handed down as the Creator’s Handbook for LIFE then distributed to all human images of Himself in thousands of languages today; or, in faith, we can simply believe as Abraham did: “…he believed in Hashem (The Name – The LORD); and He credited emunah (this strong, firm, diligent, confident trust) to him as tzedakah (righteousness)”.[b]
Assuming that this chapter is more than relevant for training us in our Faith in the Creator God today, what can we learn? Well… I spotted six things:
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This isn’t a fairy tale or mythology, as western intellectualism has deemed it in recent centuries. 3500+/- years ago an event was record in minute detail then miraculously stored in a retrievable format for 3 millenniums; and this long before digital filing systems were ever created. Surely this HAS TO BE worth a second thought in any reasoning mind!
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With Shittim about 12 miles east the Jordan River and everyone watching on the west bank in nervous anticipation, the move forward to the riverside of 2+ million people [v1] who then sat there for 3 days [v2] was little short of harrowing. If Rahab’s testimony of the current public opinion was accurate in yesterday’s Breadcrumb[c], Father God was giving them plenty of warning to run/ take Him seriously/ save their own lives. They heard what Father God had done in other surrounding nations over the last 40 years, but they didn’t move a muscle in response.
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In contrast, the Creator God’s children are to listen carefully to His instructions[d], move when He says “Move”, and all this done in consecrated reverence [v5] before His awesome deeds. What He’s done in the past, He can do again [v7] which means that anything can happen in our future.
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This moment in HIStory comes 500+ years after it was first revealed.[e] And, throughout this epic storyline from beginning to end, the Creator God can be seen to move slowly and in a very prescribed manner. [v3-4,6,8-11] Although we may not fully understand (or indeed need to understand) the prescribed instructions, it is enough to see clearly how He is not an angry out-of-control deity. “…But Hashem (The Name – The LORD) is not slow concerning His havtachah (promise), as some consider slowness, but is demonstrating zitzfleisch (patience) toward you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to teshuva (repentance).[f]
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He wants us to remember HIStory [v12] so that we can tell it to our children – the images of Him that we gave birth to – even if this sounds super-natural and outside our limited understanding of our transcendent Creator who transcends (isn’t limited by) the Law of Physics that He created.
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When we know who He is and what He’s capable of, all things are possible.[g] And so the unthinkable happens: an entire population of 2+ million people cross over the Jordan River in flood season and not by way of the fords of the Jordan.[h] Instead, with 1000 metres either side of the Ark of the Covenant (a sacred box that Moses had made in the wilderness), that’s a stretch of 2km in total; along with the distance to the town of Adam in the north of them, this event is little short of shocking. [v13-17] Just as it happened for Moses at the Red Sea[i], He did it again for Joshua and when it happens twice in HIStory, the matter is firmly established.[j]
But what does this mean for us today?
Well, the last statement rings true for its metaphoric (parallel) quality. What we read in HIStory is a tapestry of what He is currently weaving together for our immanent future. Father God led His people (those He collected up and extracted out from ‘slavery’) 
into His long-awaited promises: a dwelling place that He pre-determined long ago and this a good place – A Promised Land – His Kingdom. What has happened in HIStory is part of our Maker’s on-going Global Masterplan where all/entire/whole clan/families/tribe/people/nations on earth will be blessed.[k]
For example, the fact that the town to the north was called Adam is not random but part of an incredibly intricate tapestry of golden-threaded HIStory. The waters were cut off from Adam to the Sea of Death. The Dead Sea is 800m below sea level and the lowest point of the surface of the earth, therefore you could say “the valley of the shadow of death.[l] The downflow from Adam (Genesis 1) to eventual death, Father God cut off the flow (the continuum) and cross-sectioned it for His family to pass over and the first thing they celebrated on the other side was the Jewish Passover (a feast where they escaped death by extraction).[m] This 3D puzzle with interlocking parts that now straddle whole millenniums, is a parallel for our “wilderness pilgrimage” through Life on Planet Earth that all believers experience as their training ground before our final ingathering, mass exodus, entering our permanent ‘homeland’ where the dwelling place of God is with us…
“And I saw Shomayim Chadashim (New Heavens) and Eretz Chadasha (a New Earth), for the shomayim harishonah (the first heaven) and haaretz harishonah (the first earth) were passed away, and there is no longer any Yam (Sea). And I saw the Ir Hakodesh (the City of the Holy), the Yerushalayim HaChadasha (Jerusalem of the New Covenant) coming down and descending out of Shomayim (heaven – the dwelling place of God) from Hashem (The Name – The LORD), having been made ready as a Kallah (Bride) adorned for her Ba’al (Husband).[n] And I heard a kol gadol (loud voice), a Bat Kol (echo voice) from the Kisse (Throne) saying, “Hinei (Here! Look!), The Mishkan of Hashem (dwelling or resting place of The Name – The LORD) is with men, and He shall tabernacle (tent) with them, and they shall be His people, and Hashem Himself (The Name – The LORD Himself) shall dwell among them.[o] And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall not be any longer Mavet (death), nor Avelut (lamenting, mourning period) nor weeping nor pain; the former things have passed away[p].” [Revelation 21:1-4]
CLICK to return to today’s “Daily Breadcrumbs”
[a] 2 Timothy 3:16-17
[b] Genesis 15:6 and Romans 4:1-3
[c] Joshua 2:8-11
[d] Exodus 23:20-22
[e] Genesis 15:17-21
[f] 2 Peter 3:9
[g] Matthew 19:26
[h] Joshua 2:7
[i] Exodus 14:15-22
[j] Genesis 41:32
[k] Genesis 12:3
[l] Psalm 23:4
[m] Exodus c12-c13 (Seen in the Disney animated film “Prince of Egypt”)
[n] Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) references to Nehemiah 11:18; Isaiah 52:1
[o] OJB references to Exodus 25:8; 2 Chronicles 6:18; Ezekiel 48:35; Zechariah 2:10
[p] OJB references to Isaiah 25:8; 35:10