Joshua 3

Also known as the Ark of the Covenant, a gold-plated box that held the Ten Commandments. It represented the presence of God among the Israelites, traveling with them and, in this case, ahead of them.

The original Hebrew language says 2,000 cubits. A cubit was considered the distance of a man’s forearm, from elbow to fingertips. That’s roughly 18 inches or 44 centimeters. Two thousand cubits is roughly one kilometer or a little more than half a mile.

Initially, purification involved at least washing clothes and not having sexual intercourse (Exodus 19:15). Later, purification rituals included a waiting period, a ritual bath, and a sacrificial offering (Leviticus 15).

They’ll have some stone carrying to do when they cross the river (4:2-8).

Okay, this is especially interesting. Rockslides from cliffs above the Jordan River have dammed the water many times in recorded history, most recently in 1956. The entire river valley sits on a fault line, a crack in the earth’s shifting crust. In 1927, a devastating earthquake produced a landslide that blocked the river for 21 hours—incredibly, at what some scholars say is the same site Joshua reported: “Adam” (3:16). The location today is known by the similar-sounding name of Damiya. It’s about 20 miles (32 km) upstream from the fords near Jericho. The epicenter of that quake was somewhere near where the Israelites camped before crossing the river. Some scholars put the epicenter north of the camp, near the Damya Bridge some 15 miles (24 km) north of the southern fords of the river. Others place it beneath the Dead Sea, about 20 miles (30 km) south of the river fords. Split the difference and the epicenter would have been below where the feet of the Israelite priests reportedly stood more than 3,000 years ago, when the river stopped flowing for them.

It was April, the tenth day of the Israelite month of Nisan (4:19).

Today known as Damiya. Modern names of ancient towns often sound at least a bit like the ancient version recorded in history. Pronunciations sometimes shift over the generations. See also the note for 3:13.

Location unknown.

The Arabah is a dry and desolate stretch of territory between the nations of Israel and Jordan. It runs south from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea.