Joshua 3:15-16

3:15 When the ones carrying the ark reached the Jordan and the feet of the priests carrying the ark touched the surface ¹  of the water – (the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest time) ²  – 3:16 the water coming downstream toward them stopped flowing. ³  It piled up far upstream ⁴  at Adam (the city near Zarethan); there was no water at all flowing to the sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea). ⁵  The people crossed the river opposite Jericho. ⁶ 

Exodus 14:19-22

14:19 The angel of God, who was going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, and the pillar ⁷  of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. 14:20 It came between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp; it was a dark cloud ⁸  and it lit up the night so that one camp did not come near the other ⁹  the whole night. ¹⁰  14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart ¹¹  by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided. 14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall ¹²  for them on their right and on their left.

[3:15]  ¹ tn Heb “dipped into the edge.”

[3:15]  ² tn Heb “and the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest.”

[3:16]  ³ tn Heb “the waters descending from above stood still.”

[3:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “they stood in one pile very far away.”

[3:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “the [waters] descending toward the sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) were completely cut off.”

[3:16]  ⁶ map For the location of Jericho see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[14:19]  ⁷ sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 400-401) makes a good case that there may have been only one pillar, one cloud; it would have been a dark cloud behind it, but in front of it, shining the way, a pillar of fire. He compares the manifestation on Sinai, when the mountain was on fire but veiled by a dark cloud (Deut 4:11; 5:22). See also Exod 13:21; Num 14:14; Deut 1:33; Neh 9:12, 19; Josh 24:7; Pss 78:14; 105:39.

[14:20]  ⁸ tn The two nouns “cloud” and “darkness” form a nominal hendiadys: “and it was the cloud and the darkness” means “and it was the dark cloud.” Perhaps this is what the Egyptians saw, preventing them from observing Moses and the Israelites.

[14:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “this to this”; for the use of the pronouns in this reciprocal sense of “the one to the other,” see GKC 448 §139.e, n. 3.

[14:20]  ¹⁰ tc The LXX reads very differently at the end of this verse: “and there was darkness and blackness and the night passed.” B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 218) summarizes three proposals: (1) One takes the MT as it stands and explains it along the lines of the Targum and Jewish exegesis, that there was one cloud that was dark to one group and light to the other. (2) Another tries to reconstruct a verb from the noun “darkness” or make some use of the Greek verb. (3) A third seeks a different meaning for the verb “lit,” “gave light” by comparative philology, but no consensus has been reached. Given that there is no easy solution apart from reconstructing the text, and given that the MT can be interpreted as it is, the present translation follows the MT.

[14:21]  ¹¹ tn Or “drove the sea back” (NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV). The verb is simply the Hiphil of הָלַךְ (halakh, “to walk, go”). The context requires that it be interpreted along the lines of “go back, go apart.”

[14:22]  ¹² tn The clause literally reads, “and the waters [were] for them a wall.” The word order in Hebrew is disjunctive, with the vav (ו) on the noun introducing a circumstantial clause.