Joshua 3

I was never a really good swimmer, but I did progress to the point where I could do the elementary backstroke without drowning or getting water up my nose. But you can't see where you're going with the backstroke, so of course I would invariably veer off course, sometimes as much as 90 degrees to my original path, causing me to whack my head unceremoniously on the pool's lane divider. (Better that than the pool wall, I suppose.)

The ancient Israelites weren't doing the backstroke out in the middle of the desert (or maybe they were, just for kicks). But God knew that, just like an untalented swimmer, they would go astray if they didn't know where they were going. And how did they know where they were going? Why, by following Indiana Jones's favorite artifact, of course.

As the Ark of the Covenant was a representation of God's holiness, it makes sense that it would serve as the head of the ambling Israelite crowd. However, the Israelites couldn't follow right behind the ark; they had to stay at least "two thousand cubits" behind it (verse 4). That's about 3,000 feet--ten football fields, or more than half a mile. I don't know about you, but objects start to look a bit indistinct to me half a mile out. I hope the Israelites were traveling over flat terrain. Otherwise, who knows how many times they would have lost sight of the ark, causing them to metaphorically ram their heads against the pool wall?

I know I'm being facetious and that God obviously took this into account. But the 3,000-foot distance just proves how holy God is--and the Ark of the Covenant contained just the merest modicum of His holiness. (Though obviously enough holiness to melt faces and make people's heads explode--as Indiana Jones's foes soon found out, to their consternation.) God then manifested that power with a spectacular display at the Jordan River. Once the priests carrying the ark set foot in the river, "the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away" (verse 16). I've heard gargantuan quantities of water described in many ways--deluge, torrent, cascade, inundation. But I've never heard it described as a "heap." When I hear "heap," I think of something like a heap of dirty laundry. Or a heap of mashed potatoes if you insist on a pleasanter image, but the point is that a heap tends to have form. Water at rest, unless it's in zero gravity, takes the form of its container. Seeing a wave of water so massive that it resembled a heap must have really been awe-inspiring. More so than a pile of dirty laundry, at least.