Bible Strands
Joshua 3:15
Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrative addresses the Israelites as they prepare to cross the Jordan under Joshua’s leadership, specifically at the moment the priests carrying the ark arrive at the riverbank during the harvest season. This action immediately follows the people breaking camp to begin their passage.
The words — The Hebrew נֹשְׂאֵי (no.se.'Ei) means bearers, and וְ/רַגְלֵי (ve./rag.Lei) means and the feet of, anchoring the scene to the physical contact between the priests and the water. This precise phrasing marks the exact instant the carriers reach the river’s edge.
The thread — The sequence of the ark-bearing priests approaching the Jordan and their feet touching the water runs directly through Joshua 3:13 and Joshua 4:18, while 1 Chronicles 12:15 references the same crossing during the overflowing first month.
Why it lands — The text records the exact physical threshold the priests cross before the river stops, establishing a concrete moment of obedience that precedes divine intervention. It demands recognition that the miracle follows the precise act of positioning the ark at the water’s edge.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,)
Cross-references
- 1 Chronicles 12:15 These are the ones who crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks, and they put to flight all those in the valleys, both to the east and to the west.
- Joshua 3:13 When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the LORD—the Lord of all the earth—touch down in the waters of the Jordan, its flowing waters will be cut off and will stand up in a heap.”
- Joshua 4:18 When the priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD came up out of the Jordan and their feet touched the dry land, the waters of the Jordan returned to their course and overflowed all the banks as before.
- Jeremiah 12:5 “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?
- Jeremiah 49:19 Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Edom from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”
- Deuteronomy 16:1 Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, because in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
- Joshua 5:10 On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while the Israelites were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they kept the Passover.
- Isaiah 26:6 Feet trample it down—the feet of the oppressed, the steps of the poor.
- Leviticus 23:10 “Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you are to bring to the priest a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest.