Joshua 3:11-13

"Behold the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into the Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand in one heap."

These verses outline the miracle that was to occur and which would permit Israel's passage of the Jordan. What will happen is plainly foretold.

"The waters shall be cut off ... the waters that come down from above ..." This simply meant that the waters upstream would suddenly cease to flow by Israel's position.

Now it is perfectly true, of course, that the unaided word of God, without any agency whatever, could have produced the result indicated here, but, inasmuch as the instrument of "strong winds" was utilized in the miracle of the Red Sea crossing, there is no reason whatever why natural phenomena might also have aided here. In such a case, which we believe to be the proper understanding of this place, the miracle consisted in its timing, and in its being precisely predicted by the Word of God communicated to Joshua, and by its being precisely terminated with the complete passage of Israel over the river. This understanding does not diminish in any degree whatever the truly miraculous nature of this astounding event.

That mighty rivers sometimes stop flowing for a day, or even flow upstream, cannot be denied. "The Jordan itself, in the year 1266, was left dry for ten hours as the result of a landslide; and in 1927, an earthquake near Adam (Adamah), stopped the Jordan's flow for twenty-one hours."[23] Also, there is the amazing instance right here in America of the New Madrid (Missouri) Earthquake of 1811,1812 (Three shocks in December, January, and February), that sent the Mississippi River running upstream for 27 hours, when the flow of the river filled Reelfoot Lake formed by the earthquake![24] The Jordan river, near Adam, moves through an area with high mud-cliffs (150 feet high) on each side; and the instances in which the river has stopped flowing (historically), the strong current had undermined a portion of these cliffs, causing the sudden landfill that stopped the river. This writer finds no difficulty at all in the supposition that such a thing is exactly what God brought about here, by miraculous design, timed exactly to fit the crossing of Israel, and made known in advance to Joshua. Those factors of the occurrence make it just as miraculous as any supernatural event could possibly be.