Joshua 3:5

5 And Joshua said to the people, Hallow yourselves; for to-morrow Jehovah will do wonders in your midst.

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 and they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then remove from your place, and go after it;
4 yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Ye shall not come near it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go; for ye have not passed this way heretofore.
5 And Joshua said to the people, Hallow yourselves; for to-morrow Jehovah will do wonders in your midst.
6 And Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and go over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people.
7 And Jehovah said to 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 will I be with thee.
The Darby Translation is in the public domain.