Joshua 3:7-10

"And Jehovah 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. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, ye shall stand still in the Jordan. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of Jehovah your God. And Joshua said, Hereby shall ye know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite."

In Joshua 3:7, it is revealed that one of the purposes of the great miracle in this chapter was that of elevating Joshua in the minds of all Israel. This was by no means the most important purpose, but was surely one of the reasons for it. In the kind of war about to be begun by Israel, the utmost confidence in their leader was prerequisite to all success. Notice how the suspense is maintained throughout this complicated narrative. The matter of the priests standing at the edge of the Jordan is here rounded off in a kind of conclusion, but the astounding thing that will happen at that time is not related here. The historian, at this time, will speak of what God is ABOUT TO DO.

"This method of writing, so peculiar to the Hebrews, marks and rounds off several points in the narrative. Some repetitions were inevitable. It is to this method of dove-tailing of the different points that we must attribute the distribution of the revelation and commands which Joshua received from God, during the several portions of this history."[20]

"Hereby ye shall know ..." (Joshua 3:10). This is rendered, "By this ..." by some scholars. "The words anticipate what will not be explained until Joshua 3:13. The account moves slowly. These preliminaries serve to create a feeling of suspense."[21]

The seven condemned nations of Canaan (Joshua 3:10). The seven peoples enumerated here were the principal racial divisions of the fragmented city-states of the land of Canaan. Several times in the O.T. these lists appear, not always exactly as they are here. Similar lists are given in Genesis 15:19-21; Exodus 3:17; Exodus 23:28; Deuteronomy 7:1. The extreme debauchery of the pre-Israelite Canaanites provided the moral ground upon which God found it necessary to destroy them. The shameful sins of mankind until this very day may be traced, in part, to the failure of Israel to obey the Word of God in the "cutting out" of the moral cancer of Canaan. God had long ago marked out the Canaanites for destruction, but the reason that it did not occur sooner was that "their cup of wickedness" had not become full.

We should not be confused with the manner in which this wonderful story is told.

"A certain completeness and finish are given to each division of the narrative; and, in order to effect this, the writer more than once repeats himself, anticipates the actual order of events, and distributes into parts occurrence which in fact took place once for all."[22]