Joshua 3:5

5 And Joshua said unto the people, "Sanctify yourselves, 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 they commanded the people, saying, "When ye see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place and go after it.
4 Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go, for ye have not passed this way heretofore."
5 And Joshua said unto the people, "Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you."
6 And Joshua spoke unto the priests, saying, "Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people." And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people.
7 And the LORD said unto 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 I will be with thee.
Third Millennium Bible (TMB), New Authorized Version, Copyright 1998 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved.