At the end. This was on the ninth of Nisan, as explained above, for the words “within three days” mean at the end of three days.

When you see. The Ark always journeyed after two tribal divisions, and the Levites always carried it. But now, when you see two changes—1] the Ark, etc., meaning that it travels first; and 2] the priests carrying it—you must not proceed as usual, when the first two divisions began the journey. Rather, you shall set out afterward.

The Questions (4) His statement, “So that you may know the way, for you have not passed along the way,” etc., is unclear. It would make sense had he said, “For you have not passed along this way before.” But it is not reasonable to say that they required a guide because they had not traveled along any road yesterday or the day before. Moreover, he should have said, “For you have not passed along the way for many days.”

But at a distance. Ralbag explains that because the Ark was showing them the way, it had to remain at a distance so that everyone could see it and know to follow it. If it were close to them, not everyone would be able to see it. Thus it says, so that you may know the way, etc. This is also evident from the opinion of the author of the cantillation marks, who placed the etnachta on the word “by measure.” According to Rashi’s interpretation, however, in which “so that you may know” refers back to “and you shall follow it,” the etnachta should have been placed on the word “to it.” Regarding the words for you have not passed along the way since yesterday and the day before, their meaning appears to be as follows: When Israel intended to enter the land in the days of Moses, it is written, “The Ark of Hashem’s covenant journeyed before them a three-days’ journey to seek out a resting place for them” (Numbers 10:33). According to Rashi, this was the Ark containing the fragments of the Tablets, and it always traveled in this manner. According to Ramban, however, there was only one Ark, and it traveled this way only then, when they intended to enter the land. It went three days’ journey before them like a warrior advancing before the camp to terrify the enemies. Its purpose at that time was therefore not to show them the way—for they then had the pillar of cloud—but to conquer the land, and for this reason it traveled three days ahead. Scripture therefore explains that its purpose in journeying now is to show you the way, not to conquer the land as in the days of Moses. The proof is: For you have not passed ahead along the way since yesterday and the day before. Had the Ark been going forth to conquer, it would have needed to set out beforehand along the road, together with the Levites accompanying it, since yesterday and the day before—that is, a journey of three days. Since its present journey is intended to show them the way, they must not approach it; rather, do not come near it, maintaining a measured distance of about two thousand cubits.

The Questions (5–6) How did Joshua know that Hashem would perform wonders, when Hashem did not reveal this until afterward? And if he already knew it, why did Hashem later tell him, “This day I will begin to make you great”? He already knew this beforehand.

And Joshua said, etc., Sanctify yourselves. When Joshua saw that the priests would carry the Ark that day, he knew that Hashem would perform wonders for them. Thus our Sages said (Sotah 33b): On three occasions the priests carried the Ark—when Israel crossed the Jordan, when they encircled Jericho, and when they returned the Ark to its place, the Holy of Holies, in the days of Solomon. On all these occasions, open miracles occurred: the fall of Jericho’s wall and the descent of the fire in the days of Solomon. Joshua thought that these miracles would be performed through Israel’s agency. Thus he said, Hashem will perform wonders in your midst. He therefore commanded them to sanctify themselves, so that the wonders might be performed through their merit and power. But Hashem informed him (verse 7) that the wonders would be brought about through His power and by means of the Ark of the Covenant.

And he said. This occurred on the tenth of Nisan.

Carry. He commanded: 1] That the priests should carry the Ark, rather than the Levites. 2] That they should cross before the people, as explained above (verse 3).

This day I will begin to make you great. Hashem informed him that the wonders would not be performed through Israel’s agency. Rather, even before they approached the Jordan, its waters would turn backward before the Ark of the Covenant and Joshua, and from this they would recognize the greatness of his merit.

For as I was with Moses, etc. Just as the splitting of the Sea of Reeds occurred through Moses and by virtue of his power, so would this occur through Joshua. A miracle was not necessary merely to enable them to cross, for the Jordan is not so large a river that they could not cross it without a miracle. Jacob said, “For with my staff I crossed this Jordan” (Genesis 32:10), and the spies likewise crossed it without a miracle.

And you. Therefore, you shall command the priests carrying the Ark that when they reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, they must stand there and not cross the Jordan, for the waters would recede only before the Ark; once it emerged from the Jordan, the waters would return to their place. He means that they were to stand at the eastern edge, as will be explained (4:11).

The Questions (10–13) Regarding the words, “By this you shall know”: If they refer to the statement, “Behold, the Ark of the Covenant is crossing before you into the Jordan,” it is difficult to understand how this would show them that He would drive out the Canaanites before them, for until then the Ark of Hashem had also traveled at their head. But if they refer to the statement, “And it shall be, when the soles of the feet of the priests come to rest,” meaning that from this miracle they would know that He would perform other miracles for them in conquering the land, why did he interrupt the passage with the words, “And now, take for yourselves twelve men,” thereby cutting the statement into separate pieces? The commentators explain that the command, “And now, take for yourselves twelve men,” is itself the command that Hashem gave Joshua below (4:1–2). But this is exceedingly difficult: 1] If so, the words stated below, “Hashem said to Joshua,” belong here; why were they written out of place? Their strained interpretation that it means, “Hashem had already said,” does not accord with the rules of the language. In that case, Scripture should have said, “And Hashem had said to Joshua,” as it does above (1:12). Moreover, the words, “And now, take for yourselves,” should have been written at the end of the statement, since they concern an entirely separate matter.

“And he said,” etc., “Come near,” etc. “And he said,” etc., “By this you shall know.” He told them in the name of Hashem that by this—namely, by the fact that the Ark of the Covenant, Hashem of all the earth, is passing before you into the Jordan—they would know, etc., for two reasons. 1] From the fact that the Ark of the Covenant is passing before you, you will know that the living God is in your midst and that He will surely drive out, etc., for it resembles a king going before his people to conquer the land for them. 2] From the fact that Hashem of all the earth is passing into the Jordan, which demonstrates that He is Hashem of the land. Just as gatekeepers open doors and do not close the gates before the ruler of the country, so the Jordan will open the gates of the land, and the King of Glory will enter through them. From this, too, you will know that He will surely drive them out, since the land belongs to Him. (Our Sages said (Leviticus Rabbah 10:9) that He compressed all of them between the two poles of the Ark. He told them, “By this”—that is, from the fact that you see yourselves all compressed together here—you shall know that the living God is in your midst. This contains an intelligible idea. The resting of the Divine Presence within Israel can occur on two levels: 1] Hashem may be among them like the heart within the body, surrounded by all the limbs. 2] He may be like the brain situated in the head of the body, intellectually encompassing the entire body. The Guide has already explained (part I, chapter 73), in comparing the greater world with the smaller world, that in the greater world, whatever is more important encompasses that which is less important, while the earth, the lowest of all, is encompassed by everything. In the human being, however, the reverse is true: that which is most important is situated in the center and surrounded by everything else. When Hashem is like the heart, surrounded within them, He governs through concealed Providence by means of natural intermediaries, and His Providence is surrounded by the world and by the natural order that covers it. But when He is like the brain, encompassing nature and governing it, He conducts the world through an intellectual and freely chosen order rather than a natural one—that is, through miraculous and wondrous governance. This is the distinction between “filling all worlds” and “surrounding all worlds” mentioned by the thinkers. At such a time, nature, materiality, and their conditions are entirely suspended. Therefore, here, when their King went at their head rather than being surrounded within them, He compressed them all between the two poles of the Ark, so that they were all encompassed by Him; and space, which is one of the conditions of physical existence, did not separate them. He told them: By this you shall know that the living God is in your midst—the God Who gives life to everything through His spiritual influence—and that He will drive out the Canaanites through miracles and wonders. The proof is that He passes before you as Hashem of all the earth, Who alone governs everything.)

And now. Since the miracle will be performed through the Ark:

Take for yourselves twelve men. So that they may serve as witnesses to the miracle.

One man from each tribe. That is, each man shall represent his tribe. He shall be one of the tribe’s leaders, so that his presence there will be regarded as the presence of the entire tribe.

And it shall be, when the soles of the feet of those carrying the Ark of Hashem come to rest, etc. That is, through the power and holiness of the Ark, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off—there will be a division and separation between the waters. Only the waters descending from above will be cut off; they will turn backward and stand like a heap, contrary to the nature of water. The waters flowing downward from that point, however, will continue descending naturally. Thus it says, They shall stand in a single heap. At the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, the miracle occurred on both sides, and the waters stood like two walls, because the waters of the sea flowed on a level plane. The waters of the Jordan, however, flowed from higher to lower ground, so their nature needed to be altered only on the upstream side. Therefore it says, “The Jordan turned backward” (Psalms 114:3).

And it came to pass when the people set out. Scripture relates that by the time the priests reached the Jordan, all the people had already departed from their tents, so that those carrying the Ark were before the entire people as they journeyed from their tents.

The Ark—the Covenant. It is sometimes called “the Ark of the Covenant” because the Tablets, which constitute the covenant, were placed within it. At other times, the Ark itself is called “the covenant of Hashem” (below, verse 17), because it is itself Hashem’s covenant. Likewise, the expression the Ark—the Covenant means that the Ark itself was the covenant, and it became a banner raised aloft.

And when those carrying the Ark came, etc., their feet were immersed at the edge of the water. Although the Jordan ordinarily overflows all its banks throughout the harvest season, nevertheless:

And they stood. This means that the miracle was twofold: 1] The waters descending from above ceased flowing and stood in a single heap, as explained above (verse 13). 2] Very far away. That is, the waters did not spread laterally toward the place where a city named Zarethan stood. Had the waters spread naturally across the surrounding area, they would have swept away the inhabitants of that city. Thus, the miracle also occurred across the width of the Jordan: the heap of water remained far from the people of the city situated beside Zarethan, and the city’s inhabitants suffered no harm.

And the waters flowing downward were exhausted. This occurred naturally: because they were cut off and separated from the waters upstream, they naturally continued flowing until they were depleted.

And they stood. Scripture relates all the details of the miracle. 1] The priests stood firmly upon dry ground. That is, although naturally, even if the depths dry up, some water will inevitably remain in hollows and channels, leaving the ground muddy, here the miracle was that they dried completely, so that the priests could stand firmly upon dry ground. 2] Israel likewise stood upon dry ground. 3] The miracle continued until the entire nation had finished crossing, etc. (Do not incline your ear to the words of Ralbag, who wrote here as follows: “It is proper that we investigate here the resolution of a considerable difficulty arising from this miracle. Our Sages have established that miracles do not bring anything fundamentally new into existence. Therefore, Rava found difficulty in the verse, ‘But if Hashem creates a new creation’ (Numbers 16:30): Is it not written, ‘There is nothing new beneath the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9)? He resolved the difficulty by explaining that the miracle merely hastened the earth’s opening of its mouth. The explanation is that over a long period this can naturally happen to the earth when smoky vapor is confined within it, as explained in the Book of Signs; the miracle caused, in no perceptible interval of time, what nature ordinarily accomplishes over a long period. The same applies to the transformation of the staff into a serpent. But Hashem does not create something fundamentally new among all existing things. Therefore, He could not make something simultaneously a staff and a serpent, nor produce something whose existence contradicts itself—for example, a square whose diagonal equals its side; a triangle composed of straight lines whose angles total less or more than two right angles; cold fire; or anything similar. Since this is so, and it is the nature of water, whenever it actually exists as water, to seek the lowest place, it would appear that this miracle occurred in a manner that cannot properly be attributed to Hashem. It may therefore be said that causing water not to flow is not something fundamentally new, since this already happens when something prevents its movement. It is possible that, miraculously, God created in the air adjacent to the water a dense, transparent substance that prevented the water from descending. Alternatively, Hashem may have created a powerful wind that drove the water toward that place and prevented it from descending.” These are his words. But he has equated things that are not equal. It is indeed true that we do not describe God as producing something self-contradictory, such as a round square, or causing one object to be both black and white simultaneously. Likewise, the Sages agreed that “there is nothing new beneath the sun.” Their meaning is that after the first absolute Creation, when He created existence from nothing, He would not again create something from nothing, but would produce one existing thing from another through the transformation of forms, as we have explained in many places. Therefore, Rava questioned the words, “If Hashem creates a new creation,” because the term “creation” properly denotes bringing something into existence from nothing, as explained in our commentary on Genesis. Altering the nature of an existing substance, however, is not the production of something from nothing, but merely a change in the nature and properties of something that already exists. Hashem does this whenever necessary, and it is called a miracle because He alters the customary nature of the substance. Through His wonders He cools fire, arrests the sun, and causes flowing waters to stand like a heap. All these are merely alterations in a substance’s natural quality or motion, which are attributes of the substance rather than the substance itself. Furthermore, even according to his own approach, Ralbag failed to understand the matter here. Water’s downward movement is not an intrinsic property of the water itself, as heat and burning are intrinsic properties of the element of fire. Rather, it results from the pressure of the air, which weighs upon the water and forces it downward. Water can rise as vapor and make the clouds its chariot; it can also remain suspended in a vessel whose upper opening is sealed, when the air does not press upon it from above. It is therefore evident that water’s descent results from an external cause, not from its own nature. If the air hovering over the water were removed at the place where the waters were cut off, the flowing waters would necessarily stand like a heap, just as water rises within a tube from which the air has been removed by an air pump. Why, then, should the waters not stand still before Hashem of all the earth? Scripture also makes clear that it was not a wind that restrained the waters, for in that case they would have spread sideways toward Adam, the city beside Zarethan; nor was it a dense, transparent substance, for it would have been adjacent to the priests’ feet and they would have perceived it. Scripture says, “Do not be excessively wise; why should you bring desolation upon yourself?” (Ecclesiastes 7:16).)