3:1 VA YASHKEM YEHOSHU'A BA BOKER VA YIS'U ME HA SHITIM VA YAVO'U AD HA YARDEN HU VE CHOL BENEY YISRA-EL VA YALINU SHAM TEREM YA'AVORU
וַיַּשְׁכֵּם יְהֹושֻׁעַ בַּבֹּקֶר וַיִּסְעוּ מֵהַשִּׁטִּים וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד הַיַּרְדֵּן הוּא וְכָל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיָּלִנוּ שָׁם טֶרֶם יַעֲבֹרוּ
BN (BibleNet translation): And Yehoshu'a rose early in the morning, and they left Shitim, and came to the Yarden, he and all the Beney Yisra-El, and they made camp there before crossing over.
Where precisely? Verse 13 has him constructing a footbridge across the river, something in the manner of a Gil-Gal; but the site which archaeologists reckon for the Davidic Gil-Gal (again see verse 13) is considerably further north than we would expect to find Yehoshu'a now - click this link, which offers more than one option, but only based on Biblical references, or this link for the archaeological research, which has now identified as many as five possible sites.
3:2 VA YEHI MI KETSEH SHELOSHET YAMIM VA YA'AVRU HA SHOTRIM BE KEREV HA MACHANEH
KJ: And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host.
BN: And it happened, after three days, that the officers went through the camp.
KJ: 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.
BN: And they instructed the people, saying: When you see the Ark of the Covenant of YHVH your god, and the priests, the Leviyim, bearing it, then you shall leave where you are now, and follow it.
I think that ,on this occasion, Ha Kohanim Ha Leviyim needs to translate Kohanim as "priests", separating their tribal status from their professional role. The evidence of the later books of the Tanach is that the priestly role did not become the exclusive privilege of the tribe of Levi until the epoch of the Second Temple, while at this time priests were drawn from any and all of the tribes, but with the family of Aharon holding the most senior positions, which included the privilege of leading the Ark.
3:4 ACH RACHOK YIHEYEH BEYNEYCHEM U VEYNAV KE ALPAYIM AMAH BA MIDAH AL TIKREVU ELAV LEMA'AN ASHER TED'U ET HA DERECH ASHER TELCHU VAH KI LO AVARTEM BA DERECH MITMOL SHILSHOM
KJ: 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.
BN: But you must ensure that a space is left between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure - do not come any nearer to it - that you may know the route by which you must go: for you have not passed this way before.
MITMOL: Yet another occasion when the prefixing of a preposition complicates the bi-syllabic grammar. Should this in fact be MI TEMOL?
When David moved the Ark to Yeru-Shala'im the same injunction was given; but chance intervened on that occasion. And David too had the Ark choose its own route, which ended at the house of Oved-Edom the Gittite (2 Samuel 6); Muhammad likewise had his horse choose his house in Yatrib.
1 cubit is approximately 17.5 inches, so two thousand cubits would be 35,000 inches, or 2,916 feet, or roughtly 950 yards. That seems like rather more than would make sense - even the people closest to it won't be able to see it, and as to protecting it if an attack comes.
The vertical line in the text after the first word in Yehudit is a Masoretic addition to support the cantillation; usually I would leave these out, but on this occasion cannot resist noting that it is a space being left between it and the rest of the verse - we poets enjoy noticing these symmetries!
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3:5 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A EL HA AM HITKADASHU KI MACHAR YA'ASEH YHVH BE KIRBECHEM NIPHLA'OT
KJ: And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you.
BN: And Yehoshu'a said to the people: Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow YHVH will perform wonders among you.
Wonders, not miracles. Miracles are NESIM (נִסִים).
3:6 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A EL HA KOHANIM LEMOR SE'U ET ARON HA BERIT VE IVRU LIPHNEY HA AM VA YIS'U ET ARON HA BERIT VA YELCHU LIPHNEY HA AM
KJ: And Joshua spake 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.
BN: And Yehoshu'a spoke to the Kohanim, saying: Take up the Ark of the Covenant, and cross over in front of the people. And they took up the Ark of the Covenant, and went ahead of the people.
KJ: 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.
BN: And YHVH said to Yehoshu'a: Today I shall begin to make you a great man in the eyes of all Yisra-El, that they may know that, as I was with Mosheh, so I shall be with you...
3:8 VE ATAH TETSAVEH ET HA KOHANIM NOS'EY ARON HA BERIT LEMOR KE VO'ACHEM AD KETSEH MEY HA YARDEN BA YARDEN TA'AMODU
KJ: And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan.
BN: And you shall instruct the Kohanim who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant, saying: When you come to the river's edge at the Yarden, you shall stand still in the Yarden.
The point at which we finally understand why the same word, AVODAH, is used for "worship" and "slavery" - they turn out to be the same thing! YHVH, in this instance, does not wish to get his feet wet while crossing the river, so his faithful slaves can get their feet wet on his behalf, and call it obedience, or call it worship, as you prefer (actually they don't get very wet, as we shall see at verse 13ff).
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3:9 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A EL BENEY YISRA-EL GOSHU HENAH VE SHIM'U ET DIVREY YHVH ELOHEYCHEM
KJ: And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God.
BN: And Yehoshu'a said to the Beney Yisra-El: Come here, and hear the words of YHVH your god.
We have to assume, as we do on all these occasions of public speech and proclamation, that he climbed a hill, and shouted very loud, because there were hundreds of thousands of these people (about 1.5 million, if we accept the numbers in the two censuses in the Book of Numbers), and some would have been so far away it would take a Chinese Whisper hours to reach them, and the megaphone, let alone the electrified Tanoy system with loud-speakers, let alone the online Zoom conference on your cellphone, had not been invented yet.
3:10 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A BE ZOT TED'UN KI EL CHAI BE KIRBECHEM VE HORESH YORISH MI PENEYCHEM ET HA KENA'ANI VE ET HA CHITI VE ET HA CHIVI VE ET HA PERIZI VE ET HA GIRGASHI VE HA EMORI VE HA YEVUSI
KJ: And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.
BN: And Yehoshu'a said: By this you shall know that a living god is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Kena'ani, and the Chiti, and the Chivi, and the Perizi, and the Girgashi, the Emori, the Yevusi.
EL CHAI: Not Ha El Chai, so it must be translated as "a" and not "the" living god.
HORESH YORISH: Yes, but he didn't. They were all still there a thousand years later. David will conquer the Yevusi when he takes Yeru-Shala'im; and then absorb them rather than clear them out: indeed, the first high priest, Adoni-Tsedek, was a Yevusi who "converted".
VE ET: Why do the last two peoples get different grammar? A lazy scribe? ET is an indicator that an accusative noun is about to follow; we have seen numerous instances of its unexplained absence in the five books of Torah.
3:11 HINEH ARON HA BERIT ADON KOL HA ARETS OVER LIPHNEYCHEM BA YARDEN
KJ: Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan.
BN: See, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the Earth is crossing over into the river Yarden in front of you.
ADON: Note that here he is "the Lord of all the Earth", where in later theology he will become YHVH Tseva'ot, "the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens", before he becomes the One God. So an additional phase in the evolution of the Jewish deity that we have not previously encountered.
HA ARETS; The translation here allows ARETS to imply the whole planet Earth, where in previous verses it has very clearly specified a narrow geographical territory.
3:12 VE ATAH KECHU LACHEM SHENEY-ASAR ISH MI SHIVTEY YISRA-EL ISH ECHAD ISH ECHAD LA SHAVET
KJ: Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man.
BN: Now therefore take twelve men from among the tribes of Yisra-El, one man from every tribe.
As YHVH is the sun (who/what else rules the Earth? though the earthly king stands surrogate for him), so there need to be the twelve constellations as well, which is why there had to be twelve tribes (and a single sister, Dinah, to represent the moon). Every aspect of the socio, the political and the religious life on Earth, down even to the agricultural practices (the seven-year cycles), was deliberately created as a human mirror-image of the patterns discerned in the heavens.
3:13 VE HAYAH KE NO'ACH KAPOT RAGLEY HA KOHANIM NOS'EY ARON YHVH ADON KOL HA ARETS BE MEY HA YARDEN MEY HA YARDEN YIKARETUN HA MAYIM HA YORDIM MI LEMA'LAH VE YA'AMDU NED ECHAD
KJ: And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.
BN: And it shall come to pass that, as soon as the soles of the feet of the Kohanim who are carrying the Ark of YHVH, the Lord of all the Earth, come to rest in the waters of the Yarden, the waters of the Yarden shall be cut off from the waters that are coming down from above; and they shall turn in a whitewater weir all of their own.
NED: The root of the word NOD, where Kayin (Cain) was sent to wander - and wander is the key word, for that is what it means: "The Land of Wandering". So the waters will not "stand in a heap"; they will, as waters coming steeply downhill and confronting rock always do, get caught among the rocks, and swirl, and eddy - until the rocks are removed anyway, which Yehoshu'a will shortly arrange to happen, in order to use them for the Gil-Gal he is about to build.
Nonetheless a theoretical repetition of the miracle of the Reed Sea, but on a minor scale. Compare David's journey home after the rebellion of Av-Shalom (Absalom), in 2 Samuel 19:6 ff, where he crosses the Yarden at - but is it the same point, or are there several Gil-Galim (see my links at verse 1). But why was it necessary? Presumably this is the resolution of the problem of getting the Ark across without it getting wet (see v 15 below).
3:14 VA YEHI BINSO'A HA AM ME AHALEYHEM LA'AVOR ET HA YARDEN VE HA KOHANIM NOS'EY HA ARON HA BERIT LIPHNEY HA AM
KJ: And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people;
BN: And so it transpired, when the people came out of their tents, to cross over the Yarden, and the Kohanim carrying the Ark of the Covenant in front of the people...
The opening phrase reflects the form of words used when taking the Torah scroll out of the Ark in synagogue; there, they are from Numbers 10:35. Nevertheless the suggestion here is of some sort of religious ceremony taking place, and we need to start asking now, because it is going to recur throughout the remainder of the tale: was the taking of Yericho a military conquest, or a religious pilgrimage? Indeed, a continuation of the Mosaic religious pilgrimage, shrine to shrine across the Sinai from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of Salt by way of the Salt Lakes: and here we are now, at last, arriving at the Sea of Salt.
3:15 U CHE VO NOS'EY HA ARON AD HA YARDEN VE RAGLEY HA KOHANIM NOS'EY HA ARON NITBELU BI KETSEH HA MAYIM VE HA YARDEN MAL'E AL KOL GEDOTAV KOL YEMEY KATSIV
KJ: And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,)
BN: And as those who were carrying the Ark came to the Yarden, and the feet of the Kohanim who were carrying the Ark became dipped in the brim of the water, (for the Yarden overflows all its banks at harvest-time)...
Clearly the scribe recognised the same problem that has been identified in this commentary; and dealt with it by maintaining that, in those days, the Yarden was a much fuller river than it became later - which is of course possible. Nevertheless, the need to state it also implies a likely incredulity among future hearers of the tale.
3:16 VA YA'AMDU HA MAYIM HA YORDIM MI LEMA'LAH KAMU NED ECHAD HARCHEK ME'OD VE ADAM HA IR ASHER MI TSAD TSARTAN VE HA YORDIM AL YAM HA ARAVAH YAM HA MELACH TAMU NICHRATU VE HA AM AVRU NEGED YERICHO
KJ: That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho.
BN: That the waters coming down from above stood still, and eddied and whirled and swirled, not far from the city of Adam, which is beside Tsartan: and those that were coming down toward the sea on the plain - that is to say the Yam ha Melach - could not do so, and were cut off: and the people crossed directly to the shores of Yericho.
Interesting that the very first footstep into the Land of Yisra-El should be, actually a long way from, but the reference, the allusion, made anyway, because it was mythologically necessary, though most distantly, to the city of Adam, of which there may not even have been such a place, but mentioned anyway, for symbolic reasons. Interesting that Mechon-Mamre has included as a parenthesis an alternate version of this, and the original scribe did the same, with the physical brackets, for the name of the Dead Sea. At what moment of history did the name get changed, and why?
TSARTAN: Probably Tel Damieh. See the link.
The ancients may not have had our sophisticated understanding of the workings of the cosmos (I say that with intended levity), but there is strong evidence that they knew that the water in a river only ever flows in one direction at a time, and that you don't get some water coming down from above, and the rest flowing up from below, as described here (I say that with intended gravity). Even if this was a waterfall - and there are many waterfalls along the Yarden (Jordan), especially in the hills of Ein Gedi - the water flowing beneath it still goes in the same direction that it is falling. So something else must be going on here, and it is probably not geographical.
3:17 VA YA'AMDU HA KOHANIM NOS'EY HA ARON BERIT YHVH BE CHARAVAH BETOCH HA YARDEN HACHEN VE CHOL YISRA'EL OVRIM BE CHARAVAH AD ASHER TAMU KOL HA GOY LA'AVOR ET HA YARDEN
BN: And the Kohanim who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of YHVH stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Yarden, and all the Beney Yisra-El crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed all the way to the other shore of the Yarden.
HA ARON BERIT YHVH: Grammatically, syntactically, this doesn't sound right to me. ARON HA BERIT YHVH perhaps?
HACHEN: I confess that I do not know why this word is here.
OVRIM: why the present tense?
And is this yet again a desperate need to find some aetiological circumstance through which the people could call themselves Ivrim (Hebrews) without it being, so to speak, "the H word": Habiru or Hapiru meaning "unwanted", "outcast", "Welsh", "illegal immigrant" or "foreigner".
3:2 VA YEHI MI KETSEH SHELOSHET YAMIM VA YA'AVRU HA SHOTRIM BE KEREV HA MACHANEH
וַיְהִי מִקְצֵה שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים וַיַּעַבְרוּ הַשֹּׁטְרִים בְּקֶרֶב הַמַּחֲנֶה
KJ: And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host.
BN: And it happened, after three days, that the officers went through the camp.
Three days again. I wonder if they were the same three days that the two men from the previous chapter were in the mountains.
3:3 VA YETSAVU ET HA AM LEMOR KI RE'OT'CHEM ET ARON BRIT YHVH ELOHEYCHEM VE HA KOHANIM HA LEVIYIM NOS'IM OTO VE ATEM TIS'U MIMKOMCHEM VA HALACHTEM ACHARAV
3:3 VA YETSAVU ET HA AM LEMOR KI RE'OT'CHEM ET ARON BRIT YHVH ELOHEYCHEM VE HA KOHANIM HA LEVIYIM NOS'IM OTO VE ATEM TIS'U MIMKOMCHEM VA HALACHTEM ACHARAV
וַיְצַוּוּ אֶת הָעָם לֵאמֹר כִּרְאֹותְכֶם אֵת אֲרֹון בְּרִית יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וְהַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם נֹשְׂאִים אֹתֹו וְאַתֶּם תִּסְעוּ מִמְּקֹומְכֶם וַהֲלַכְתֶּם אַחֲרָיו
BN: And they instructed the people, saying: When you see the Ark of the Covenant of YHVH your god, and the priests, the Leviyim, bearing it, then you shall leave where you are now, and follow it.
I think that ,on this occasion, Ha Kohanim Ha Leviyim needs to translate Kohanim as "priests", separating their tribal status from their professional role. The evidence of the later books of the Tanach is that the priestly role did not become the exclusive privilege of the tribe of Levi until the epoch of the Second Temple, while at this time priests were drawn from any and all of the tribes, but with the family of Aharon holding the most senior positions, which included the privilege of leading the Ark.
3:4 ACH RACHOK YIHEYEH BEYNEYCHEM U VEYNAV KE ALPAYIM AMAH BA MIDAH AL TIKREVU ELAV LEMA'AN ASHER TED'U ET HA DERECH ASHER TELCHU VAH KI LO AVARTEM BA DERECH MITMOL SHILSHOM
אַךְ ׀ רָחֹוק יִהְיֶה בֵּינֵיכֶם [וּבֵינֹו כ] (וּבֵינָיו ק) כְּאַלְפַּיִם אַמָּה בַּמִּדָּה אַל תִּקְרְבוּ אֵלָיו לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר תֵּדְעוּ אֶת הַדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר תֵּלְכוּ בָהּ כִּי לֹא עֲבַרְתֶּם בַּדֶּרֶךְ מִתְּמֹול שִׁלְשֹׁום
KJ: 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.
BN: But you must ensure that a space is left between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure - do not come any nearer to it - that you may know the route by which you must go: for you have not passed this way before.
MITMOL: Yet another occasion when the prefixing of a preposition complicates the bi-syllabic grammar. Should this in fact be MI TEMOL?
When David moved the Ark to Yeru-Shala'im the same injunction was given; but chance intervened on that occasion. And David too had the Ark choose its own route, which ended at the house of Oved-Edom the Gittite (2 Samuel 6); Muhammad likewise had his horse choose his house in Yatrib.
1 cubit is approximately 17.5 inches, so two thousand cubits would be 35,000 inches, or 2,916 feet, or roughtly 950 yards. That seems like rather more than would make sense - even the people closest to it won't be able to see it, and as to protecting it if an attack comes.
The vertical line in the text after the first word in Yehudit is a Masoretic addition to support the cantillation; usually I would leave these out, but on this occasion cannot resist noting that it is a space being left between it and the rest of the verse - we poets enjoy noticing these symmetries!
The two parentheses relate to a dispute among the Masoretes as to what the pronunciation of the Yehudit should be. It hangs on a dispute that we have raised on many occasions previously, indeed whenever the Yud-Vav ending occurs: does the Yud soften the Vav is the question, and therefore is it VEYNAV or VEYNO? I happen to be very interested in this particular grammatical abstrusity, because it impacts on my own name: was it pronounced David, with a hard Vav, or Daoud, with a soft one? The evidence of the Arabic is the latter; the evidence of the Hittite roots of the Celtic is the former, but softer, though without being Arabically soft: Dafydd.
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3:5 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A EL HA AM HITKADASHU KI MACHAR YA'ASEH YHVH BE KIRBECHEM NIPHLA'OT
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹושֻׁעַ אֶל הָעָם הִתְקַדָּשׁוּ כִּי מָחָר יַעֲשֶׂה יְהוָה בְּקִרְבְּכֶם נִפְלָאֹות
BN: And Yehoshu'a said to the people: Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow YHVH will perform wonders among you.
Wonders, not miracles. Miracles are NESIM (נִסִים).
3:6 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A EL HA KOHANIM LEMOR SE'U ET ARON HA BERIT VE IVRU LIPHNEY HA AM VA YIS'U ET ARON HA BERIT VA YELCHU LIPHNEY HA AM
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹושֻׁעַ אֶל הַכֹּהֲנִים לֵאמֹר שְׂאוּ אֶת אֲרֹון הַבְּרִית וְעִבְרוּ לִפְנֵי הָעָם וַיִּשְׂאוּ אֶת אֲרֹון הַבְּרִית וַיֵּלְכוּ לִפְנֵי הָעָם
KJ: And Joshua spake 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.
BN: And Yehoshu'a spoke to the Kohanim, saying: Take up the Ark of the Covenant, and cross over in front of the people. And they took up the Ark of the Covenant, and went ahead of the people.
Is this just the Kohanim, and the rest waiting, or is this the Kohanim with their inner protective guard - for which see the diagram at Numbers 7:1? Given the priestly roles of the Beney Merari, Gershon and Kehat it seems logical that they would accompany the Ark. I think we can also see from this why "the Kohanim the Leviyim" in verse 3 is much more easily explained than the scholars have found it over the past two thousand years!
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3:7 VA YOMER YHVH EL YEHOSHU'A HAYOM HA ZEH ACHEL GADELCHA BE EYNEY KOL YISRA-EL ASHER YED'UN KI KA ASHER HAYIYTI IM MOSHEH EHEYEH IMACH
3:7 VA YOMER YHVH EL YEHOSHU'A HAYOM HA ZEH ACHEL GADELCHA BE EYNEY KOL YISRA-EL ASHER YED'UN KI KA ASHER HAYIYTI IM MOSHEH EHEYEH IMACH
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל יְהֹושֻׁעַ הַיֹּום הַזֶּה אָחֵל גַּדֶּלְךָ בְּעֵינֵי כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יֵדְעוּן כִּי כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיִיתִי עִם מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה עִמָּךְ
BN: And YHVH said to Yehoshu'a: Today I shall begin to make you a great man in the eyes of all Yisra-El, that they may know that, as I was with Mosheh, so I shall be with you...
3:8 VE ATAH TETSAVEH ET HA KOHANIM NOS'EY ARON HA BERIT LEMOR KE VO'ACHEM AD KETSEH MEY HA YARDEN BA YARDEN TA'AMODU
וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה אֶת הַכֹּהֲנִים נֹשְׂאֵי אֲרֹון הַבְּרִית לֵאמֹר כְּבֹאֲכֶם עַד קְצֵה מֵי הַיַּרְדֵּן בַּיַּרְדֵּן תַּעֲמֹדוּ
BN: And you shall instruct the Kohanim who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant, saying: When you come to the river's edge at the Yarden, you shall stand still in the Yarden.
The point at which we finally understand why the same word, AVODAH, is used for "worship" and "slavery" - they turn out to be the same thing! YHVH, in this instance, does not wish to get his feet wet while crossing the river, so his faithful slaves can get their feet wet on his behalf, and call it obedience, or call it worship, as you prefer (actually they don't get very wet, as we shall see at verse 13ff).
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3:9 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A EL BENEY YISRA-EL GOSHU HENAH VE SHIM'U ET DIVREY YHVH ELOHEYCHEM
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹושֻׁעַ אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל גֹּשׁוּ הֵנָּה וְשִׁמְעוּ אֶת דִּבְרֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם
KJ: And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God.
BN: And Yehoshu'a said to the Beney Yisra-El: Come here, and hear the words of YHVH your god.
We have to assume, as we do on all these occasions of public speech and proclamation, that he climbed a hill, and shouted very loud, because there were hundreds of thousands of these people (about 1.5 million, if we accept the numbers in the two censuses in the Book of Numbers), and some would have been so far away it would take a Chinese Whisper hours to reach them, and the megaphone, let alone the electrified Tanoy system with loud-speakers, let alone the online Zoom conference on your cellphone, had not been invented yet.
3:10 VA YOMER YEHOSHU'A BE ZOT TED'UN KI EL CHAI BE KIRBECHEM VE HORESH YORISH MI PENEYCHEM ET HA KENA'ANI VE ET HA CHITI VE ET HA CHIVI VE ET HA PERIZI VE ET HA GIRGASHI VE HA EMORI VE HA YEVUSI
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹושֻׁעַ בְּזֹאת תֵּדְעוּן כִּי אֵל חַי בְּקִרְבְּכֶם וְהֹורֵשׁ יֹורִישׁ מִפְּנֵיכֶם אֶת הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְאֶת הַחִתִּי וְאֶת הַחִוִּי וְאֶת הַפְּרִזִּי וְאֶת הַגִּרְגָּשִׁי וְהָאֱמֹרִי וְהַיְבוּסִי
BN: And Yehoshu'a said: By this you shall know that a living god is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Kena'ani, and the Chiti, and the Chivi, and the Perizi, and the Girgashi, the Emori, the Yevusi.
EL CHAI: Not Ha El Chai, so it must be translated as "a" and not "the" living god.
HORESH YORISH: Yes, but he didn't. They were all still there a thousand years later. David will conquer the Yevusi when he takes Yeru-Shala'im; and then absorb them rather than clear them out: indeed, the first high priest, Adoni-Tsedek, was a Yevusi who "converted".
VE ET: Why do the last two peoples get different grammar? A lazy scribe? ET is an indicator that an accusative noun is about to follow; we have seen numerous instances of its unexplained absence in the five books of Torah.
3:11 HINEH ARON HA BERIT ADON KOL HA ARETS OVER LIPHNEYCHEM BA YARDEN
הִנֵּה אֲרֹון הַבְּרִית אֲדֹון כָּל הָאָרֶץ עֹבֵר לִפְנֵיכֶם בַּיַּרְדֵּן
BN: See, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the Earth is crossing over into the river Yarden in front of you.
ADON: Note that here he is "the Lord of all the Earth", where in later theology he will become YHVH Tseva'ot, "the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens", before he becomes the One God. So an additional phase in the evolution of the Jewish deity that we have not previously encountered.
HA ARETS; The translation here allows ARETS to imply the whole planet Earth, where in previous verses it has very clearly specified a narrow geographical territory.
3:12 VE ATAH KECHU LACHEM SHENEY-ASAR ISH MI SHIVTEY YISRA-EL ISH ECHAD ISH ECHAD LA SHAVET
וְעַתָּה קְחוּ לָכֶם שְׁנֵי עָשָׂר אִישׁ מִשִּׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אִישׁ אֶחָד אִישׁ אֶחָד לַשָּׁבֶט
KJ: Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man.
BN: Now therefore take twelve men from among the tribes of Yisra-El, one man from every tribe.
As YHVH is the sun (who/what else rules the Earth? though the earthly king stands surrogate for him), so there need to be the twelve constellations as well, which is why there had to be twelve tribes (and a single sister, Dinah, to represent the moon). Every aspect of the socio, the political and the religious life on Earth, down even to the agricultural practices (the seven-year cycles), was deliberately created as a human mirror-image of the patterns discerned in the heavens.
3:13 VE HAYAH KE NO'ACH KAPOT RAGLEY HA KOHANIM NOS'EY ARON YHVH ADON KOL HA ARETS BE MEY HA YARDEN MEY HA YARDEN YIKARETUN HA MAYIM HA YORDIM MI LEMA'LAH VE YA'AMDU NED ECHAD
וְהָיָה כְּנֹוחַ כַּפֹּות רַגְלֵי הַכֹּהֲנִים נֹשְׂאֵי אֲרֹון יְהוָה אֲדֹון כָּל הָאָרֶץ בְּמֵי הַיַּרְדֵּן מֵי הַיַּרְדֵּן יִכָּרֵתוּן הַמַּיִם הַיֹּרְדִים מִלְמָעְלָה וְיַעַמְדוּ נֵד אֶחָד
BN: And it shall come to pass that, as soon as the soles of the feet of the Kohanim who are carrying the Ark of YHVH, the Lord of all the Earth, come to rest in the waters of the Yarden, the waters of the Yarden shall be cut off from the waters that are coming down from above; and they shall turn in a whitewater weir all of their own.
NED: The root of the word NOD, where Kayin (Cain) was sent to wander - and wander is the key word, for that is what it means: "The Land of Wandering". So the waters will not "stand in a heap"; they will, as waters coming steeply downhill and confronting rock always do, get caught among the rocks, and swirl, and eddy - until the rocks are removed anyway, which Yehoshu'a will shortly arrange to happen, in order to use them for the Gil-Gal he is about to build.
Nonetheless a theoretical repetition of the miracle of the Reed Sea, but on a minor scale. Compare David's journey home after the rebellion of Av-Shalom (Absalom), in 2 Samuel 19:6 ff, where he crosses the Yarden at - but is it the same point, or are there several Gil-Galim (see my links at verse 1). But why was it necessary? Presumably this is the resolution of the problem of getting the Ark across without it getting wet (see v 15 below).
3:14 VA YEHI BINSO'A HA AM ME AHALEYHEM LA'AVOR ET HA YARDEN VE HA KOHANIM NOS'EY HA ARON HA BERIT LIPHNEY HA AM
וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָעָם מֵאָהֳלֵיהֶם לַעֲבֹר אֶת הַיַּרְדֵּן וְהַכֹּהֲנִים נֹשְׂאֵי הָאָרֹון הַבְּרִית לִפְנֵי הָעָם
BN: And so it transpired, when the people came out of their tents, to cross over the Yarden, and the Kohanim carrying the Ark of the Covenant in front of the people...
The opening phrase reflects the form of words used when taking the Torah scroll out of the Ark in synagogue; there, they are from Numbers 10:35. Nevertheless the suggestion here is of some sort of religious ceremony taking place, and we need to start asking now, because it is going to recur throughout the remainder of the tale: was the taking of Yericho a military conquest, or a religious pilgrimage? Indeed, a continuation of the Mosaic religious pilgrimage, shrine to shrine across the Sinai from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of Salt by way of the Salt Lakes: and here we are now, at last, arriving at the Sea of Salt.
3:15 U CHE VO NOS'EY HA ARON AD HA YARDEN VE RAGLEY HA KOHANIM NOS'EY HA ARON NITBELU BI KETSEH HA MAYIM VE HA YARDEN MAL'E AL KOL GEDOTAV KOL YEMEY KATSIV
וּכְבֹוא נֹשְׂאֵי הָאָרֹון עַד הַיַּרְדֵּן וְרַגְלֵי הַכֹּהֲנִים נֹשְׂאֵי הָאָרֹון נִטְבְּלוּ בִּקְצֵה הַמָּיִם וְהַיַּרְדֵּן מָלֵא עַל כָּל גְּדֹותָיו כֹּל יְמֵי קָצִיר
BN: And as those who were carrying the Ark came to the Yarden, and the feet of the Kohanim who were carrying the Ark became dipped in the brim of the water, (for the Yarden overflows all its banks at harvest-time)...
Clearly the scribe recognised the same problem that has been identified in this commentary; and dealt with it by maintaining that, in those days, the Yarden was a much fuller river than it became later - which is of course possible. Nevertheless, the need to state it also implies a likely incredulity among future hearers of the tale.
3:16 VA YA'AMDU HA MAYIM HA YORDIM MI LEMA'LAH KAMU NED ECHAD HARCHEK ME'OD VE ADAM HA IR ASHER MI TSAD TSARTAN VE HA YORDIM AL YAM HA ARAVAH YAM HA MELACH TAMU NICHRATU VE HA AM AVRU NEGED YERICHO
וַיַּעַמְדוּ הַמַּיִם הַיֹּרְדִים מִלְמַעְלָה קָמוּ נֵד אֶחָד הַרְחֵק מְאֹד [בָאָדָם כ] (מֵאָדָם ק) הָעִיר אֲשֶׁר מִצַּד צָרְתָן וְהַיֹּרְדִים עַל יָם הָעֲרָבָה יָם הַמֶּלַח תַּמּוּ נִכְרָתוּ וְהָעָם עָבְרוּ נֶגֶד יְרִיחֹו
BN: That the waters coming down from above stood still, and eddied and whirled and swirled, not far from the city of Adam, which is beside Tsartan: and those that were coming down toward the sea on the plain - that is to say the Yam ha Melach - could not do so, and were cut off: and the people crossed directly to the shores of Yericho.
Interesting that the very first footstep into the Land of Yisra-El should be, actually a long way from, but the reference, the allusion, made anyway, because it was mythologically necessary, though most distantly, to the city of Adam, of which there may not even have been such a place, but mentioned anyway, for symbolic reasons. Interesting that Mechon-Mamre has included as a parenthesis an alternate version of this, and the original scribe did the same, with the physical brackets, for the name of the Dead Sea. At what moment of history did the name get changed, and why?
TSARTAN: Probably Tel Damieh. See the link.
3:17 VA YA'AMDU HA KOHANIM NOS'EY HA ARON BERIT YHVH BE CHARAVAH BETOCH HA YARDEN HACHEN VE CHOL YISRA'EL OVRIM BE CHARAVAH AD ASHER TAMU KOL HA GOY LA'AVOR ET HA YARDEN
וַיַּעַמְדוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים נֹשְׂאֵי הָאָרֹון בְּרִית יְהוָה בֶּחָרָבָה בְּתֹוךְ הַיַּרְדֵּן הָכֵן וְכָל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֹבְרִים בֶּחָרָבָה עַד אֲשֶׁר תַּמּוּ כָּל הַגֹּוי לַעֲבֹר אֶת הַיַּרְדֵּן
KJ: And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.
BN: And the Kohanim who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of YHVH stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Yarden, and all the Beney Yisra-El crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed all the way to the other shore of the Yarden.
HA ARON BERIT YHVH: Grammatically, syntactically, this doesn't sound right to me. ARON HA BERIT YHVH perhaps?
HACHEN: I confess that I do not know why this word is here.
OVRIM: why the present tense?
And is this yet again a desperate need to find some aetiological circumstance through which the people could call themselves Ivrim (Hebrews) without it being, so to speak, "the H word": Habiru or Hapiru meaning "unwanted", "outcast", "Welsh", "illegal immigrant" or "foreigner".
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