Joshua 3:5

5 Joshua said to the people, "Make yourselves holy! Tomorrow the LORD will do wonderful things among you."

Joshua 3:5 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 3:5

And Joshua said unto the people
On the third day; and the thirtieth day of the mourning for Moses, Jarchi says, was the first of the three days, and that being the seventh day of the month, this must be the ninth, as it is most clear the morrow was the tenth:

sanctify yourselves;
in a ceremonial sense, by washing their bodies and their clothes, and abstaining from their wives; and in a moral sense, by acts of religion and devotion, by prayer and meditation, and the exercise of repentance and, good works: it may denote that sanctification is necessary to our passage over Jordan, or through death to the heavenly Canaan, for without holiness no man shall see the Lord:

for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you:
in their sight and presence, and for them, by dividing the waters of Jordan, that they might pass through it as on dry land; this, as Kimchi says, was the tenth of Nisan, as is plain from ( Joshua 4:19 ) .

Joshua 3:5 In-Context

3 They commanded the people, "As soon as you see the LORD your God's chest containing the covenant and the levitical priests carrying it, you are to march out from your places and follow it.
4 But let there be some distance between you and it, about three thousand feet. Don't come near it! You will know the way you should go, even though you've never traveled this way before."
5 Joshua said to the people, "Make yourselves holy! Tomorrow the LORD will do wonderful things among you."
6 Then Joshua said to the priests, "Lift up the covenant chest. Go along in front of the people." So they lifted up the covenant chest and went in front of the people.
7 The LORD said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to make you great in the opinion of all Israel. Then they will know that I will be with you in the same way that I was with Moses.
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