Joshua 4:16














Here a layman commands a priest. It was not a case of royal supremacy exactly, nor did he govern them by virtue of his being the civil head of the community; but because, though layman (he was of the tribe of Ephraim), he was a prophet. "The Lord spake to Joshua," and therefore Joshua could command even the priests of God. We have here not a question of arehaeological interest merely. It is a live question of today. Rome goes in for having an order of priests; Protestantism for an order of prophets - i.e., speakers forth of God's messages to man. They want a prescriptive class, elevated above their fellows, "ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices to God;" we want, not men ordained, but men inspired, who, fresh from the vision of God and converse with Him, will be able to tell us what He is, and feels, and wants. Are they or we following the more excellent way? Let the subordination of the priest to the prophet here help us to the answer. It may do so, for observe -

I. THE PRECEDENCE HERE IS the constant precedence. Aaron was older brother and high priest. Moses was the prophet who "spake with God face to face." The order of the names invariably is "Moses and Aaron:" prophet first, priest second. In all the subsequent centuries you find prophets foremost, priests subservient. The greatest men of Israel - those who sustained their patriotism, kindled their devotion, fed the flame of hope, those who led them in the path of duty, and were the reformers of religion - were prophets, Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah, Daniel. Ezra was the only priest who, without being a prophet, can be classed with them. Jeremiah and Ezekiel were priests and prophets, but it is in the latter character they rendered their grandest service. We must not depreciate the services of the priesthood. Perhaps the tone of Dean Stanley's lecture on the Jewish Priesthood ('Jewish Church,' vol. 2:356) is too disparaging. They tended to keep alive devotion, to familiarise men with the great idea of access to God, they guided men in the ways of gratitude and trust. Still the teachers, inspirers, leaders of souls were the prophets; and throughout all Old Testament history down to the time of the Maccabees, it is the prophetic order that keeps alive piety in all its grand activities. And if we had applied the same terms on the Christian dispensation it might be shown that the greater of the two services has been that rendered by men of the prophetic, rather than that rendered by men of the priestly, stamp. Athanasius, Augustine, Tertullian, St. Bernard, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley - those that can speak out the heart and the will of God - have, according to a law of moral gravitation, found a higher level than the most devoted and self forgetful of ecclesiastics. Anyhow, here the prophet commands, and the priest obeys. Observe secondly -

II. THIS ORDER OF PRECEDENCE IS THE NATURAL ORDER. The rank of priest is high - an ambassador of man in the court of heaven. But the rank of prophet is higher - an ambassador of God. The priest's grandest work is supplication; the prophet's is to mediate the promises, commands, requirements of God. For the former office the requirements were low - a certain lineage, freedom from physical defect, familiarity with ritual, rubric, and law. For the office of the prophet far higher requirements were made - purity of heart, to see God; the open ear, that could hear His voice; the heart of love, that could enter into His purposes; the courage which could confront men with the Divine behest. The priest could be made by man - the prophet only by God. The former had outward and visible ordination; the latter was ordained by the laying on of the unseen hands of the great God Himself. One reason why communities that have degenerated in faith are so emphatic in their doctrines of holy orders is that the priest is easily made, his work easily done, his claims easily asserted and enforced. But to make men prophets, or catch the inspiration of heaven, is not at all so easy. It takes a happy concurrence of grace and nature, a "bridal of the earth and sky," to make him. Naturally, therefore, because the prophet's is a higher taste demanding higher powers, the prophet ranks before the priest. Lastly, observe as the conclusion of the above -

III. PROPHETS ARE THE GREAT WANT OF THIS AND EVERY AGE. True priests are invaluable: such as by their pity and their love are spontaneous, fervent intercessors for their fellow men. We should covet to be such: whether in or out of "orders," we may belong to "the Royal Priesthood," whose mark is not an official garb, but a compassionate heart. But the great want is prophets - not prophets of the almanack sort, dealing with the curious questions of the future; but prophets of the Bible sort - pre-eminently engaged with "present truth" and present duty. The great want of the age is not priests at the altar, but inspired men in all the pulpits of the land - men who, walking with God, can bring to us the truth, the consolations, the requirements of God, with the authority of those who have learned from His lips what they address to our ears. Such men would speak "with authority" which all would recognise without needing demonstration of it. Their lips would feed many. Their utterances would find or make a way into all hearts. And reason approving, the heart accepting, the conscience endorsing, all their words, the people of our land would become "obedient to the heavenly vision" and "walk in the light of the Lord." Not after formal authority of the priest, but after the living inspiration of the prophet, let us all aspire. - G.

Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord.
That is a bold challenge. That is a voice we need. Every age wants some Joshua, some mighty soldier of the Cross, to say, "Come, hear the upper music, the Divine melody, the holy revelation." Have we the hearing ear? If we could hear better we could hear more. "Come hither." Does that indicate a point in space, a place, a boundary, a sanctuary? If so, it would be quite in keeping with Oriental thought in general, and with Jewish habit in particular. Always religious exercise was associated with locality — with the mountain, with the city, with the temple, with the tabernacle, with the terebinth, with some place made sacred by historic communes and wrestlings with God. Christ said, "The time cometh and now is when neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem (particularly and exclusively) shall men worship the Father," but wherever there is a human spirit desiring the upward way, the higher light, the noonday of thought, and hope, and peace, wherever there is such a soul God is there, and God is the Author of it. Yet Jesus Christ Himself went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day — one of the evangelists says, "as was His custom." Beware lest in supposing ourselves able to grasp the all we grasp nothing. The universe is too big really for any one of us to grasp; we had better, therefore, have a little place cornered off and call it the Church, the sanctuary, the little temporary hostelry and lodging-place. All the earth is the Lord's. Men are now in danger of worshipping totals, the Unspeakable All, the incognisable infinite, as the metaphysicians call it. We may believe in all that grandeur of immeasurableness, and yet at the same time we go home every evening. Home — but the earth is the Lord's: why do you not live out in the open air? What do you want with home? you are a worshipper of Humanity, all space: why do you go home? You cannot keep away from the old place: the loved ones are there, all the lives that make your life a possible joy are there; all the holy, shadowy, tender memories are there — the old seat, the old books, the old fire that talks as it crackles and blazes are there. "Come." Why, the mere coming does us good, the very walk to church reddens the blood. The hunter says the delight is in the chase; not in the death of the hunted animal, but in the flight, the leap, the bound, the dash. The coming, the act of locomotion and the act signified by locomotion, will do us good. For what purpose shall we come? "Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God." That is the purpose. Not to hear the words of men. We are now here before God to hear what He will say unto us — "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." What shall we hear? Shall we hear the words of some strange deity? Nay, "hear the words of the Lord your God." It is a family meeting. These pronouns seem to bring us into sacred and general possession of things in common with God. Your God, our Father, my God, your fathers' God: these are the terms in which the greatness and the nearness of God are typified to our dull imagination. When you hear the words of the Lord your God they will not be strange, inarticulate, untranslatable thunder; they will be gospels, voices of music, voices of welcome, tender assurances, great offers of love, sublime propositions of pardon; you will know every word of the speech, being neither affrighted by its majesty nor rendered indifferent by its condescension. To be able to receive such words — is that an insignificant sign? To know God's voice — is not that an evidence of man's greatness?

(J. Parker, D. D.)

Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you
Observe the form which the purpose of the miracle assumes there. It is the confirmation of the Divine presence, not with the leader, but with the people and their consequent victory. Joshua grasped the inmost meaning of God's word to himself, and showed noble self-suppression, when he thus turned the direction of the miracle. The true servant of God knows that God is with him, not for his personal glorification, but for the welfare of God's people, and cares little for the estimation in which men hold him, if they will only believe that the conquering God is with them. We too often make great leaders and teachers in the Church opaque barriers to hide God from us, instead of transparent windows through which He shines upon His people. We are a great deal more ready to say "God is with him," than to add, "and therefore God is with us, in our Joshuas, and without them," Observe the grand emphasis of that name, "the living God," tacitly contrasted with the dead idols of the enemies, and sealing the assurance of His swift and all-conquering might. Observe, too, the triumphant contempt in the enumeration of the many tribes of the foe with their barbarous names. Five of them had been enough, when named by the spies' trembling lips, to terrify the congregation, but here the list of the whole seven but strengthens confidence. Faith delights to look steadily at its enemies, knowing that the one Helper is more than they all. This catalogue breathes the same spirit as Paul's rapturous list of the foes impotent to separate from the love of God. Mark, too, the long-drawn-out designation of the ark, with its accumulation of nouns, which grammatical purists have found difficulty — "the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth"; where it leads they need not fear to follow. It was the pledge of His presence, it contained the ten words on which His covenant was concluded. That covenant enlisted on their side Him who was Lord of the swollen river as of all the fierce clans beyond; and with His ark in front their victory was sure. Then follows the command to elect twelve representatives of the tribes, for a purpose not yet explained; and then, at the last moment, the manner of crossing is disclosed, to the silencing of wise doubters and the confirmation of ignorant faith. The brief anticipatory announcement of the miracle puts stress on the arrest of the waters at the instant when the priests' feet touched them, and tells what is to befall the arrested torrent above the point where the ark stood, saying nothing about the lower stretch of the river, and just hinting by one word, "heap," the parallel between this miracle and that of the passing of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:8).

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The ark of
In the ark Israel saw God Himself, and yet lost none of their faith in the spiritual character of God. When the ark rested, Israel knew that God was among them; when the ark moved, then Israel believed that God was calling them to journey on again, and sang, "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered," &c.; when, again, the ark rested, they ceased to move forward, and sang, "Return, O Lord, to the many thousands of Israel." There was ever before the people of Israel the words of that commandment which forbade their ever thinking of God under any human, any material form, so that they had to content themselves with the ark of the covenant. But God, all this time, was preparing for a new manifestation of Himself in the Person of the Son, who was to take upon Him the form of His own highest creation, so that no longer should it be a sin to think of God under the likeness of a man. The man who depreciates the idea of a visible Church, and rejects externals in religion, has one side of the truth very clearly revealed to him; but I venture to think that not only is this one side insisted on to the exclusion of another equally true, but his position is maintained against certain unalterable facts, of which the first and foremost is, that our souls, through which alone, he argues, communion may be held with God, are imprisoned within material bodies, and cannot in this life, in the ordinary course, receive impressions of spiritual things except through the medium of those bodies. Israel in the wilderness was, no doubt, often very unworthy of the high calling which belonged to the chosen people; but they did succeed in living a life from which everything was removed except the prospect of the heavenly rewards. They knew they should not inherit temporal promises, and yet they patiently lived their lives in expectation of spiritual things. And during these lives they were guided by "the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth," and by the system of worship provided for them by God. We are looking, or ought to be looking, for like heavenly promises, and while we are in the flesh we shall find help, comfort, encouragement, and strength from these outward ordinances, which God has given us in His holy Church.

(E. Smith, B. A.)

As soon as the soles of the feet... shall rest in the waters of Jordan.
The first step was to be taken in the waters. They were called upon not only to face the difficulties, but to enter them. They were not to ask God to prove His power first. They were to trust Him first, and then should they see as they followed on to know the Lord, "His giving forth" to be "prepared as the morning." How fatal had been a halt, although but one step short of the brim of the waters! Even the foot uplifted, ready to fall as soon as the path was ready, would have waited in vain. The promise was addressed only to the faith that, without seeing signs and wonders, could yet believe. That one step taken which proved their faith, and placed it in a position of entire receptivity — then God could prove His faithfulness and manifest His power. His wonders follow at once. The lesson which is here taught us is of the utmost importance, showing us the very essence of all true faith. Mature faith must be able to dare and to endure, with no other stay than seeing Him who is invisible. Our Father does, indeed, stretch out the hand of yearning tenderness to steady the tottering steps of a babe. In His pity and compassion He will not forbid the poor cripple his staff; but the faith of full years and of steady strength can never be developed by continued indulgence. It must be exercised by reason of use. Again, that God, instead of giving His people some visible aid for their crossing, set before them a most visible hindrance, doubling the danger and difficulty to the natural eye, is in perfect accord with our advanced experience. Only how often does the simplicity of our faith fail to equal theirs. It is the first instinctive impulse of unbelief to seek a sign — to have something to interpose between itself and the bare word of God. And so, how often is the question asked: "If God be really disposed to bring me into this glorious liberty, will there not be at least some token of it? Shall I find no evidence of it in my own altered feelings; and especially will not the Lord prepare the way by lowering the opposing tide of temptation?" The word of our God needs neither sign nor surety. Be it a promise, or be it a command, it matters not; for every command has a promise for its kernel. We are to go forward to obey His commands — forward to receive His promises — forward in faith — forward though difficulties double. Again, the foot dipped in the brimming waters declares emphatically that faith is to precede feeling. Nothing that we discover in heart or life need hinder us in coming to Christ to seek deliverance from it. We may even use our worst discoveries as our plea in coming; "For the whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick." Nor will my sickness make the Physician displeased with me in my first application to Him. But if after He has healed me, and taught me the conditions of sustaining health, I find myself again unloving, cold, perturbed, fretted, moody, I have not the least right to say that all is well, and that, disregarding all this, I am to believe myself fully accepted through Christ. Unless I bring this disturbance to Him for confession, forgiveness, and healing, I am utterly at fault. Our feelings are of importance. The same Creator who set the faithful nerves as sentinels along all the lines of the senses, to give due warning of danger and disease, gave a corresponding sensitiveness to our souls. Faith is not to discharge this as unnecessary, but to retain it in her service. If it be well with our faith, it will also be well with our feelings.

(S. F. Smiley.)

When we, actually going forth in duty as He has told us, according to the directions He has given, laying hold by faith upon His promise, come to the limit of our strength — when thus our feet are dipped in the brim of the waters of our Jordan, His great help does come.

1. Such Divine help comes in difficult duty. Though duty be difficult, when we go forth toward it, as God has ordered, and in faith in His promise, we may be certain somehow His help will meet us.

2. Such Divine help comes scattering foreboded inability, e.g., the women going to the sepulchre, asking, anxiously, "Who shall roll away the stone?" but going on and finding it rolled away (Mark 16:1-4).

3. Such Divine help will come in death. See what Mr. Greatheart says of Mr. Fearing in the second part of "Pilgrim's Progress." The whole passage is most exquisite.

4. Such Divine help will also come in conversion. There is that Jordan of belief in Jesus — of the absolute commitment of the self to Him which we must pass before we can enter the Canaan of forgiveness, and God's favour, and the noble life. Now go on toward it. Cross it. But you have no feeling, you say; that is not to the matter. But you do not know such feeling as other people say they have; that is not to the matter. But you do not understand how it can be; you need not; that is not to the matter. But you are not fit to make the crossing; you never will be fitter; that is not to the matter. This is enough. God tells you to go forth, along His way in faith of His promise; and when your feet but touch the brim of a perfect self-surrender, you are His, you are Christian. His forgiveness falls, you have passed into the Canaan of the new life.

(W. Hoyt, D. D.)

It is worth noticing the use which in the passage of the river they made of the ark of the covenant. The pillar of fire had ceased to go before them. They had grown into the ability to appreciate a better and more spiritual symbolism. Fire meant more to the eye than a little box of acacia-wood, but the acacia box, considered as the casket of the Divine autograph of the two tables, denoted more to the mind and heart; and so it marks a growth that not the pillar, but the ark, guided them across the river. They treated the ark on this occasion reverently, but not superstitiously. They used it not as a "charm," but as a symbol. The Israelites on a later occasion used it as a charm in one of their battles with the Philistines, when after one defeat they said (1 Samuel 4:3). To the men standing on the brink of the swollen Jordan, however, the ark was not a charm, a power, but only the representative of a power. Their own faith earned them miraculous passage, and not the little acacia chest; and they felt it so. There is danger of our coming to use the holy things of our religion more as the Israelites used the ark at Ebenezer than as they used it at the river. We easily fall into a way of attributing Divine potency to rites and ceremonies, prayers, sanctuaries, and ordinances, forgetting that these things are only types, significant as types, but not as forces — that the power of Christianity is not in the rites, but in the faith only that uses them. A symbol is a dangerous thing: the Hebrews learned that lesson at Ebenezer. A symbol is a precious thing: the Hebrews learned that lesson at the Jordan-crossing.

(C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.

The Jordan of Canaan stands for any difficulty which the Lord commands us to encounter. Between us and the goal at which we are aiming, there is often some wide Jordan which, at the time, seems to us to be very peculiarly broad. At another time, when the stream is not so wide, we think that we might dare to make the attempt, but just now the thing seems too hazardous. We think we had better wait for a little, until the waters abate. So we stand on the brink shivering, and dare not plunge into the waves. How many a sinner has felt thus, as he has heard the call of God to forsake his sins! If only this or that were a little different, he thinks he might venture, but just now the opportunity seems hardly propitious. To the believer the same temptation comes, as he faces some duty, and recognises that it is a duty, while yet he shrinks from it to-day. To-morrow, he argues, will be a more favourable season; and so he too refuses to step boldly into the flood. We all are inclined to ask that the billows may cease flowing before we are called to descend into their very midst. Is it not so? Let the example of this people, whom we have so often condemned with a kind of superior feeling of virtue, spur us to better ways of heeding the command of God. All that we need to be sure of is that we have the command of God. Sure of that, there is only one thing to be done by the believer, and that is to go ahead. If God says, "Go into the water, and when you get there the way will be made clear," we may be sure that in due time the waters will cease. Ours is to go ahead, and God's business is to see that the waters abate. If we do our part, we need not fear but what He will do His. "It is the first step that costs," is a proverb as true in religious matters as things secular. Many an undertaking that seemed impossible when we started has become very easy before we were done with it. Like the ten lepers who were told to go and show themselves to the priests before a spot of their leprosy had departed from them, but who as they went were cleansed, so it happens to the people of God: as they go, they receive the fulness of blessing, whereas had they waited for that until they were willing to start, they would have received nothing at all. How many blessings do you suppose you have failed to receive simply because you have refused to move until the whole way was made clear to you? You can at least go as far as the brink of the water, and even put your feet into the water, without being drowned. Why not try that much, and see what will happen? Is it not worth while?

(A. F. Schauffler, D. D.)

People
Gad, Israelites, Joshua, Manasseh, Reuben
Places
Gilgal, Jericho, Jordan River, Red Sea
Topics
Ark, Bear, Bearing, Carry, Carrying, Command, Jordan, Orders, Priests, Testimony, Witness
Outline
1. Twelve men are appointed to take twelve memorial stones from Jordan
9. Twelve other stones are set up in the midst of Jordan
10. The people pass over
14. God magnifies Joshua
15. The priests commanded to come out of Jordan
20. The twelve stones are pitched in Gilgal

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Joshua 4:16

     7768   priests, OT function

Joshua 4:1-24

     4366   stones

Joshua 4:16-17

     8404   commands, in OT

Library
Stones Crying Out
'For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over. 11. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 12. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Jordan Memorial Stone
THE JORDAN MEMORIAL STONE One thing has always troubled me, and that is the witness of entire sanctification. How may one know all the time that He is sanctified? What is the witness to sanctification? Is it a feeling? an assurance? a peace? or what is it? Is it equally strong at all times, or does it come and go? If you can give me any information on this line, I shall greatly appreciate it. * * * * * One of the things that Joshua commanded the Israelites to do at the crossing
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

'The Waters Saw Thee; they were Afraid'
'And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. 6. And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. 7. And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. 8 And thou shalt command the priests that bear
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Gilgal, in Deuteronomy 11:30 what the Place Was.
That which is said by Moses, that "Gerizim and Ebal were over-against Gilgal," Deuteronomy 11:30, is so obscure, that it is rendered into contrary significations by interpreters. Some take it in that sense, as if it were near to Gilgal: some far off from Gilgal: the Targumists read, "before Gilgal": while, as I think, they do not touch the difficulty; which lies not so much in the signification of the word Mul, as in the ambiguity of the word Gilgal. These do all seem to understand that Gilgal which
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Country of Jericho, and the Situation of the City.
Here we will borrow Josephus' pencil, "Jericho is seated in a plain, yet a certain barren mountain hangs over it, narrow, indeed, but long; for it runs out northward to the country of Scythopolis,--and southward, to the country of Sodom, and the utmost coast of the Asphaltites." Of this mountain mention is made, Joshua 2:22, where the two spies, sent by Joshua, and received by Rahab, are said to "conceal themselves." "Opposite against this, lies a mountain on the other side Jordan, beginning from
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Holy War,
MADE BY SHADDAI UPON DIABOLUS, FOR THE REGAINING OF THE METROPOLIS OF THE WORLD; OR, THE LOSING AND TAKING AGAIN OF THE TOWN OF MANSOUL. THE AUTHOR OF 'THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.' 'I have used similitudes.'--Hosea 12:10. London: Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms in the Poultry; and Benjamin Alsop, at the Angel and Bible in the Poultry, 1682. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. Bunyan's account of the Holy War is indeed an extraordinary book, manifesting a degree of genius, research, and spiritual
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Joshua
The book of Joshua is the natural complement of the Pentateuch. Moses is dead, but the people are on the verge of the promised land, and the story of early Israel would be incomplete, did it not record the conquest of that land and her establishment upon it. The divine purpose moves restlessly on, until it is accomplished; so "after the death of Moses, Jehovah spake to Joshua," i. 1. The book falls naturally into three divisions: (a) the conquest of Canaan (i.-xii.), (b) the settlement of the
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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