Joshua 1:2

Moses my servant is dead,.... Which was said not for the information of Joshua, but to lead on to, and show the cause and reason of what he was about to say to him: now therefore arise, go over this

Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan.

This Jordan; this which is now near thee, which is tho only obstacle in thy way to Canaan. Which I do give, i.e. am now about to give the actual possession of it, as I formerly gave a right to it by promise.

Joshua 1:2 Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, [even] to the children of Israel.Ver. 2. Moses my servant.] My menial servant, faithful in all my house. This was a higher title than that of king in Jeshurun. Now therefore arise, go.] Up, and act vigorously: surge, age, summe Pater, said Mantuan to the Bishop of Rome, stirring him up to withstand the Turk. Go over this Jordan.] A famous river rising from a double fountain, Jor and Dan, say some, and falling into the Dead Sea, with which it mingleth. Whereas some rivers will not do so: as the Danube and Sava in Hungary, whose waters meeting mingle no more than water and oil, as an eye-witness affirmeth: so the river Dee, in Merionethshire in Wales, running through Pimblemeer remaineth entire, and mingleth not her streams with the waters of the lake. Sir Henry Blunt’ s Voyage into the Levant, p. 10. Mr Fuller’ s Holy State, p. 162.

Verse 2. Moses my servant] The word, servant, as applied both to Moses and Joshua, is to be understood in a very peculiar sense. It signifies God's prime minister, the person by whom he issued his orders, and by whom he accomplished all his purposes and designs. No person ever bore this title in the like sense but the Redeemer of mankind, of whom Moses and Joshua were types. Go over this Jordan The account given by Josephus of this river may not be unacceptable here. "Panium is thought to be the mountain of Jordan, but in reality it is carried thither in an occult manner from the place called Phiala. This place lies on the road to Trachonitis, and is one hundred and twenty furlongs from Caesarea, not far out of the road, on the right hand. It has its name Phiala, (a bowl or basin), very justly, from the roundness of its circumference, being round like a wheel. It is always full, without ever sinking or running over. This origin of the Jordan was not known till the time of Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis, who having ordered some chaff to be thrown in at Phiala, it was found at Panium. Jordan's visible stream arises from this cavern, (Panium), and divides the marshes and fens of the lake Semechon; and when it has run another hundred and twenty furlongs, it first passes by the city Julias, and then passes through the middle of the lake Gennesareth, after which, running a long way over the desert, it empties itself into the lake Asphaltites." - WAR, book iii. chap. x., sect. 7. See Clarke on Numbers 34:12.

2. Moses my servant] Comp. Deuteronomy 34:5. The highest possible title under the theocracy. Joshua as yet is but the “attendant” of Moses. The higher title is given him in Joshua 24:29. this Jordan] one of the most singular rivers in the world, which “has never been navigable, and flows into a sea that has never known a port.” Observe (a) Its name. It is never called “the river” or “brook,” or by any other name than its own, “the Jordan” = “the Descender.” (b) Its sources. Far up in northern Palestine, the fork of the two ranges of Anti-Libanus “is alive with bursting fountains and gushing streams,” every one of which sooner or later finds its way into a swamp between Bβniβs and Lake Hϋleh. Two of these streams deserve special attention, (i) one at Bβniβs, (ii) the other at Tel-el-Kβdy. The former is the upper, the latter the lower source of the “River of Palestine.” (c) Its course, which is marked by three distinct stages: (i) Enclosed within the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, which run parallel to the Mediterranean from north to south, its streams—for as yet it can hardly be called a single river—fall into the lake called of old Merom, then Samaelon (= “the High Lake”), now Hϋleh. “Half morass, half tarn, this lake is … surrounded by an almost impenetrable jungle of reeds abounding in wild fowl.” (ii) Here it might seem destined to end,—like the Barada “the river of Damascus” in the wide marshy lake, a day’s journey beyond that city,—but “the Descender” is not thus absorbed. Fed, like the lake itself, by innumerable springs in the slopes of Lebanon, and met by a deep depression for its bed, it rushes with increased rapidity three hundred feet downwards into the Lake of Gennesaret, which is about the same length as our own Windermere, but of much greater breadth. (iii) At the mouth of the Lake it is about 70 feet wide,—“a lazy turbid stream, flowing between low alluvial banks”—and here again it might seem to have closed its course. But it issues forth once more, now a foaming torrent, and plunges through twenty-seven rapids, with a fall of a thousand feet, on its lowest and final stage, into the Dead Sea. (d) Its windings. The distance from the Lake el-Hϋleh to the Sea of Tiberias is nearly 9 miles, that from the Lake to the Dead Sea about 60 miles. But within this latter space the river traverses a distance of at least 200 miles. Darting first to the right, then to the left, then to the right again, “as if sensible of his sad fate,” to use the quaint words of Fuller, “and desirous to deferre what he cannot avoid, he fetcheth many turnings and windings, but all will not avail him from falling into the Dead Sea.” See Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, pp. 282, 283; Thomson’s Land and the Book; Ritter’s Geography of Palestine; Macgregor’s Rob Roy on the Jordan.

2. This Jordan — This celebrated river was in full view from the elevation on which the Israelites were encamped. Thus far in Scripture history the Jordan has acquired no special importance.