The Two-Hundred-Eightieth (Passing through Water)

We’ve got quite an interesting topic this week.  I’ve told you before that sometimes I have an idea of what the weekly topic is going to be and sometimes I don’t until the day of writing or the day before, and this one certainly was a surprise to me!   We’re going to look at the idea of passing through rivers, and more generally water, that is presented in scripture and what it might represent.  There are only a few examples of this in scripture, but what is there is very interesting!

The first thing to remind ourselves is that YHWH does nothing without a purpose.  There are multiple verses in scripture that emphasize this.  One states that YHWH has made everything for Himself (Proverbs 16:4), and most versions translate that to “for its/His purpose.”  Another states that everything has a season and there’s a time for every purpose (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Sometimes it’s hard for us to see or understand the purpose of something, whether it’s something that exists in nature or some event that happens to us or to someone else.  YHWH’s ways and thoughts are much higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).  He did give us scripture to help us understand the purpose of some of the things He created and instituted, and I believe the significance of passing through water is one of those things.

When we look at this topic what we’re really talking about is a separating of water, and in scripture we find that there are only five recorded instances of water being separated.  Four out of five of those are bodies of water, like a sea and a river, and I’m sure you’re most familiar with the one involving a sea, as most believers are.  The crossing of the sea during the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is one of the events most covered by believers.

As a very brief review of this event, the Israelites had received permission from pharaoh to leave Egypt after the firstborn son of every man and animal were killed in the plague of the death of the firstborn (Exodus 12:29-32).  The Israelites and a mixed multitude left Egypt and ended up camping before a sea (Exodus 14:1-4).  I say sea generally because there is disagreement on whether or not they camped at what’s known as the Red Sea or if it was a body of water called the Sea of Reeds.  

The people were worried because they seemed to be trapped between the sea and pharaoh’s army with no means of escape.  However, YHWH parted the sea to allow the people to cross and then allowed the water to return, drowning pharaoh’s army (Exodus 14:15-31).  This was an event where YHWH not only provided a way for the people to escape, but provided protection leading up to that escape as His cloud prevented the army from coming to the people’s camp the night before.

In this event, the overall picture is that YHWH’s people are being delivered from slavery and into freedom.  That’s what’s focused on by believers, and rightly so.  One of the main themes, and purposes, of YHWH’s plan for us is to deliver us from the slavery of sin and death that we came under as a result of Adam and Eve’s actions in the garden.  However, there are three other instances where His people pass through waters that are parted, and more specifically the water is the Jordan River.  

The next parting of waters we find in scripture is when YHWH’s people cross the Jordan to go from the wilderness, and their time there, and into the land He promised to give them (Joshua 3:5-4:18).  There are some big things to talk about here, and connections to other parts of scripture, that give us insight into what this crossing represented.  The first is that this crossing involved a whole new generation of YHWH’s people, all the way to their leader as Joshua took over for Moses in leading them.

This was not just a result of natural generational transition and the passing on of older individuals through the normal passage of time.  This was a fulfillment of a judgment imposed upon that older generation by YHWH as a result of their disobedience (Deuteronomy 2:14-15, Numbers 14:35, 32:13).  They were prevented from entering into the promises of YHWH due to their lack of trust in Him, and their rebellion and disobedience against Him.  

The other thing to recognize about this crossing is that it was intended by YHWH to be remembered generationally by His people.  There are not a lot of instances where He specifically orders a memorial to be created for events, but that’s exactly what He did here.  He had Joshua pick twelve men, one from each tribe, to each carry a stone and place them by the river at the place they crossed (Joshua 3:12, 4:1-11).  In addition to this, Joshua put twelve stones at the place in the river where the priests with the ark stopped to allow the people to pass through.

These stones were to be a memorial to YHWH’s people forever, so we should probably make sure we understand the significance of this event!  The twelve men, for example, sound similar to twelve apostles, don’t they?  And when you combine those numbers and a number that represents completion, like 1,000, that sounds a lot like a 144,000 from the tribes of Israel sealed by YHWH, doesn’t it? (Revelation 14:1-5).  This connection, by the way, got me down quite a rabbit hole that we’ll have to get into in a different study!

Another key aspect of this crossing involved what the people were told to do right before it happened.  Before they could cross, they were told to sanctify themselves (Joshua 3:5).  This was not the same requirement as crossing the sea though, was it?  They had no requirement to sanctify themselves before that crossing, so that’s different.  However, there was another major requirement that they had to complete before crossing the sea: performing the Passover.

Here we can see a major dichotomy between these crossings that goes directly to what they represent.  In the crossing of the sea, the people were required to perform the Passover ceremony, which as we know from previous studies is a shadow, or representation, of Yeshua’s death.  In His death, we are cleansed of sins, sanctified spiritually, and as a result are free from the slavery to sin, which results in death.  This makes the crossing the sea event a clear spiritual representation of what the people were actually doing physically: being delivered from slavery.

In this crossing of the Jordan, on the other hand, the people had already been delivered from slavery through that crossing the sea event.  They wandered through the wilderness, through trials and tribulations, and the culmination of that journey was a passing through water into what YHWH had promised.  In this case, they needed to make themselves clean, sanctified, as required by the Law, before they could enter into those promises.    

Do you remember another major event in which the people were required to cleanse themselves prior to being involved in?  That’s right, they were told to be cleansed prior to entering into the covenant with YHWH at Mount Sinai, which we looked at recently in a study (Exodus 19:10-11).  Now, we know that YHWH is Spirit, and there is no physical washing that could cleanse us from spiritual things, but what we can understand from these events is that in order for us to come into covenant with YHWH as well as enter into His promises, we must be spiritually clean, which is represented by the physical process of cleansing with water.

Now, I alluded to another major aspect of this crossing that is more important to recognize than anything discussed this far.  The only way for the people to cross this river and enter into YHWH’s promises was for the ark of the covenant to go ahead of them.  The priests carried the ark into the river, which caused the waters to part, they stopped to allow the people to pass through while the waters were parted, and then they continued to the other side.  

The ark represented a couple different things, including YHWH’s presence, but one of the key parts of the ark were the tablets and scrolls of the commandments contained within.  The ark being involved in this event is a sign of YHWH being with His people, as well as Him keeping His part of the Abrahamic covenant and giving them the promised land, but the commandments contained in the ark also are a part of the Mosaic covenant.  In other words, the people could not enter into the promised land without YHWH’s commandments.  In fact, in the specific portion of the crossing that recorded the people passing through, there is an interesting word study to conduct.

When we read about the people completing the crossing, we find the Hebrew word tamam used for the word complete (Joshua 3:17, 4:1, 11).  The KJV translates this as “clean passed over Jordan,” which is meant to represent the fact that every single person, except the priests with the ark of course, had passed through.  We find this word used in multiple other places in scripture, but two are significant for this particular event.

First, we find that the verse referenced earlier which talked about all the fighting men dying before entering the promised land uses this word.  The Hebrew uses it by saying all (tamam) the fighting men had perished (Deuteronomy 2:14).  In other words, not one of that previous generation was left alive to enter the land.  As stated earlier, this was the completion of YHWH’s judgment on that generation for their rebellion against Him.

Second, this word is used towards the end of Deuteronomy during the description of Moses writing the commandments (Deuteronomy 31:1, 24).  He finished (tamam) writing the book of the Law and placed it in the ark of the covenant as a witness against the people (Deuteronomy 31:25-26).  Moses knew the people and how they were, and the purpose of this was to have a written record of the Law that could be used to identify any rebellion against YHWH that the people might do in the future (Deuteronomy 31:27).

Isn’t that interesting?  The object used to part the waters contained the witness, or the standard, against which YHWH’s people would be measured and determined to be either obedient to Him or rebellious against Him.  And this is what the people had to pass by in order to enter into YHWH’s promises.  It wasn’t just a staff that parted the waters, like in the case of the parting of the sea, but it was the ark and the commandments contained in it.

The last two instances of passing through parted waters involved Elijah and Elisha.  Just before Elijah was taken up to heaven, he used his cloak to part the waters of the Jordan (2 Kings 2:5-9).  They passed through, Elijah was taken up, and then Elisha used the same cloak to part them once more so he could pass back through (2 Kings 2:12-15).  

As in the previous two instances, what is happening in these two crossings helps us understand what they represent.  Elijah was on his way to heaven, so the first crossing represents a transition from earth to heaven.  Elisha went with him and then returned without him, so what could that represent?

To figure that out, we need a little more detail from the writing in 2 Kings and some from the disciple’s writings as well.  What we see in 2 Kings is that Elisha’s request before Elijah is taken is that he would receive a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9).  From the words of Yeshua, as recorded by the disciple Matthew, we also see that Yeshua comes in the same spirit as Elijah (Matthew 17:10-13).  

Yeshua speaks a sort of a riddle, as He says “Elijah…come[s], and he will restore all things,” but also that Elijah had already come.  A little confusing, right?  The disciples figured He was talking about John the baptizer, which He was (Matthew 17:13), but John didn’t restore all things so He must be talking about someone else as well.  As it turns out, another verse tells us that Yeshua must remain in heaven until the time of restoring all things (Acts 3:21).  Based on this, we know that Yeshua was talking about Himself as Elijah, in addition to John the baptizer as Elijah, and that when He returns in the future, in the spirit of Elijah, He will restore all things.

Getting back to the Jordan crossings of Elijah and Elisha, and using what we just found, we can see that their first crossing is the next step in YHWH’s plan.  He started with deliverance from slavery, crossing the sea, then entering into His promises after trials and tribulations, by crossing the Jordan into the promised land, and now we’ve got Yeshua being brought to heaven after His resurrection, there to remain until the restoration of all things.  So then, who does Elisha represent?

Do you remember what we learned in our study about death?  That’s right, now that Yeshua has died for our sins and was resurrected, believers are brought to heaven upon their physical death.  Elisha represents all the believers going to heaven from the time Yeshua was resurrected to until He returns.  

What about Elisha when he crosses back over?  Well, what was Elisha’s request before Elijah was taken up?  He asked for a double portion of his spirit.  Elisha was able to part the waters on the way back, and the people recognized Elijah’s spirit upon him, so Elisha’s return represents Yeshua and all those believers that rose coming back when it’s time for the restoration of all things!  Believers have Yeshua’s Spirit based on their faith (which includes obedience as you’ll remember from last week!), so the double portion on of Elijah’s spirit on Elisha represents Yeshua’s Spirit and our spirit being together upon His return.

To support this interpretation we can look at the last parting of waters in scripture that we haven’t looked at yet.  That one happened at the very beginning of creation (Genesis 1:6-8).  In this event, YHWH separated the waters below the firmament from the waters above.  Practically, physically during creation, the waters below became whatever seas, rivers, etc., were on earth at the time, and the waters above became a layer of water that surrounded the earth, above the sky.  This layer of water is what enabled people, plants, and animals to live longer and grow bigger, but when the first all-encompassing judgment of earth occurred during the Flood, and it rained for the first time (Genesis 2:5-6, 7:12), this layer of water fell to the earth and was never restored.  My personal belief is that it will be restored at the time of the restoration of all things that was referenced earlier.

This one is getting a bit long, but as one final example to support this interpretation before we get into a summary, we can also look at the tabernacle/temple layout.  In it, there is a bowl of water that the priests used for cleansing prior to entering the Holy Place and Most Holy Place (Exodus 30:18, 38:8).  Reading the description of Solomon’s temple, we also see that this bowl was called the Sea (2 Chronicles 4:1-10).  In other words, for the priests to enter the place of the presence of YHWH, which was a representation of heaven on earth, they had to “pass through” the waters in the Sea.

We’ve gone through a lot, so let’s summarize!  What we’ve found is that in scripture, the parting and passing through waters is representative of the major spiritual events in YHWH’s plan for mankind.  From the deliverance from slavery of sin and death (crossing the sea), to the entrance into YHWH’s promises (crossing the Jordan into the promised land), to Yeshua and believers going to heaven and returning (crossing the Jordan of Elijah and Elisha and then just Elisha, respectively), YHWH provided an event recorded in scripture to represent them all.  

We also found that the water represents a sanctification that must occur in order to come into YHWH’s presence as well as enter into His promises.  To go along with that, entering into His promises is only possible through both Yeshua and obedience to YHWH, which includes His commandments.  Also, we saw that disobedience, or rebellion, results in being cut off from the promises, just as the older, disobedient generation of the people died before the remainder, the remnant, was allowed to enter into the promised land.

I hope you found these discoveries as interesting and exciting as I do!  We hope you have a great week!  Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!  

-Rob and Sara Gene

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The Gospel

We are born sinful as a result of Adam and Eve's sin (Genesis 2:17, 3:6, 1 John 1:8)

The consequence of sin, which is unavoidable through our own works, is death (Romans 6:23)

Yeshua, the Son of YHWH, lived sinless and was put to death (Hebrews 4:15)

His death, therefore, cleanses us of sin that would have required our death

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

He rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4)

Because of His resurrection, we are confident in our future resurrection and eternal life

(1 Corinthians 15:17-18, John 3:16)