Joshua 3:5

5 And Josue said to the people: Be ye sanctified: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders 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 And began to proclaim: When you shall see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests of the race of Levi carrying it, rise you up also, and follow them as they go before:
4 And let there be between you and the ark the space of two thousand cubits: that you may see it afar off, and know which way you must go: for you have not gone this way before: and take care you come not near the ark.
5 And Josue said to the people: Be ye sanctified: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.
6 And he said to the priests: Take up the ark of the covenant, and go before the people. And they obeyed his commands, and took it up, and walked before them.
7 And the Lord said to Josue: This day will I begin to exalt thee before Israel: that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I am with thee also.
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