Taking of Jericho
147
up the line of march and followed this symbol of the divine presence.
The wide column filed down the bank of Jordan, and, as the feet of the
priests were dipped in the brim of the river, the water was cut off from
above, and the volume below rolled on, leaving the bed of the stream
dry. The priests passed on, bearing the ark of God, and Israel followed
in the rear. Halfway over Jordan the priests were commanded to stand
still in the channel of the river till all the Hebrew host had crossed over.
This was to impress upon their minds more forcibly the fact that the
power which stayed the waters of Jordan was the same that enabled
their fathers to cross the Red Sea forty years before.
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Many who passed through the Red Sea when they were children,
now, by a similar miracle, crossed over Jordan, men of war, equipped
for battle. After the host of Israel had all passed over, Joshua com-
manded the priests to come up out of the river. When they, bearing the
ark of the covenant, stood safe upon the farther shore, God removed
His mighty hand, and the accumulated waters rushed down, a mighty
cataract, in the natural channel of the stream. Jordan rolled on, a
resistless flood, overflowing all its banks.
But before the priests had come up out of the river, that this won-
derful miracle might never be forgotten, the Lord bade Joshua select
men of note from each tribe to take up stones from the spot in the river
bed where the priests had stood, and bear them upon their shoulders to
Gilgal, and there erect a monument in remembrance of the fact that
God had caused Israel to pass over Jordan upon dry land. This would
be a continual reminder of the miracle that the Lord had wrought for
them. As years passed on, their children would inquire concerning
the monument, and again and again they would recount to them this
wonderful history, till it would be indelibly impressed upon their minds
to the latest generation.
When all the kings of the Amorites and the kings of the Canaanites
heard that the Lord had stayed the waters of Jordan before the children
of Israel, their hearts melted with fear. The Israelites had slain two
of the kings of Moab, and their miraculous passage over the swollen
and impetuous Jordan filled the people with great terror. Joshua then
circumcised all the people that had been born in the wilderness. After
this ceremony they kept the Passover in the plains of Jericho. “And
the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of
Egypt from off you.”