The Passover Renewed

David Rice

For forty years Israel wandered in the wilderness. The original Passover, when the Israelites ate the lamb with staff in hand and prepared for a journey, commemorated their departure from Egypt on the fifteenth of Nisan. After one year of journeying, the Israelites observed their second Passover in the wilderness, killing their lambs on the fourteenth of Nisan “between the two evenings” and consuming it that night (Numbers 9:1-3). Perhaps the Israelites maintained the custom for the remainder of their sojourn, but this is uncertain. Exodus 12:48 says “no uncircum­cised person shall eat [the Passover],” and the Israelites born in the wil­derness were not circumcised.

As the forty years ended, the approaching Passover was to be special in two prominent ways:

1. The whole ceremony would be kept in the promised land across the Jordan River. The first feature of Passover was selecting the lamb, and this was to be done on the tenth of Nisan (Exodus 12:3). That day coincided with the very day the Israelites entered the land westward across the Jordan: “And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month” (Joshua 4:19).

2. The Israelite males would be circumcised for the first time since they left Egypt: “Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness … they had not circumcised” (Joshua 5:5). “And Joshua made him sharp knives [flints], and circumcised the children of Israel” (Joshua 5:3). This act represented the “rolling back” of the affliction, evils, and disobedience of the Israelites ­associated with Egypt and their flight. “Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal [rolling] unto this day” (Joshua 5:9).

The Passover in Egypt represented the blessings of Christ’s sacrifice during the Gospel age to the church, when those of the firstborn class are under the blood. The Passover in Canaan, by contrast, represented the blessings of Christ’s sacrifice during the kingdom to the world. After forty years of wandering (the Gospel age), the blessing of mankind in the kingdom follows. The circumcision of the host represents that the world in the kingdom will receive circumcision in their hearts from the uncleanness of their former association with sin and death. As Moses in the wilderness represented Christ during the Gospel age, Joshua in this experience represented Christ during the kingdom.

The Broad Picture

Even before crossing the Jordan, some of the Israelites had received their inheritance while Moses still lived. These were Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh—the latter tribe had half of their allotment on each side of the Jordan. If the crossing of Jordan represents their redemption from the curse, then the settling of these tribes on the eastern side of Jordan has been supposed, by some, to represent an inheritance by those whose trials have already passed before the world is brought into the kingdom. In this picture the firstborn, Reuben, evidently is a picture of the saints, and the remaining tribe Gad, whose name means “a troop” (Genesis 30:11, margin) evidently pictures the Great Company. Manas­seh, whose inheritance laps both sides of the Jordan, represents a class which connects the eastern and western parts of Israel. The class which “connects” the spiritual with the earthly is the Ancient Worthy class. These will be the “liaison” between heaven and earth, receiving instructions from the spiritual phase of the kingdom and implementing them for the benefit of the earthly phase of the kingdom.

The Jordan River

The word “Jordan” means “descender” (Strong’s #3383) and symbolizes the downward course of mankind into death. Its identification with “death” is why Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, though in this case his death was sacrificial, Jesus giving his life to redeem the race of Adam under the curse.

The crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites represents the rolling back of the curse of death which Jesus died to effect. The episode is ­described in Joshua 3:14-17. The waters of Jordan were stopped, evidently by a landslide ­further upriver, “a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan” (verse 16, NIV). The mention of “Adam” reminds us of the source of the curse, the fall of Adam. “Zarethan” evidently is derived from an old root meaning “pierce, puncture” (compare Strong’s #6891 and #6868), perhaps suggesting the injury received through transgression. Or perhaps Adam and Zarethan, “to show blood” (compare Strongs’s #119, #120, #121), and “pierce,” refer to the death of our redeemer. In either event the rolling back of the waters of Jordan are identified symbolically with the rolling back of the curse.

Two Thousand Cubits

Joshua sent officers through the host to advise them of the procedure for crossing the Jordan. The priests would bear the Ark of the Covenant in advance of the Israelites who would follow at a respectful distance of two thousand cubits (Joshua 3:2-4). Probably this shows that before the world crosses into the kingdom, the priests, the church class during the Gospel age, lead the way. The two thousand cubit distance represents the Gospel age, not by showing a number of years to pass from our Lord’s day until the kingdom (even though it is a close approximation), but by using a number that represents the age of the spirit—the Gospel age.

Two, as a number in the Scriptures, represents the holy spirit. Probably this is because the reservoir of the holy spirit—the Bible—comes to us in two parts, the Old and New Testaments. Zechariah chapter 4 represents these as two olive trees which empty their precious oil (a figure of the holy spirit) through golden pipes into a bowl which feeds seven lamps to bring enlightenment. So the oil of the holy spirit which provides enlightenment for the seven stages of the church is contained in these two parts of the Scriptures.

These two parts are elsewhere represented by the two stacks of shewbread in the holy, the two swords our Lord asked the disciples to bring as he was ready to leave them (Luke 22:38), the two witnesses of Revelation 11:3 which prophesied in mourning for the 1,260 years of Papal power, and the two candlesticks “standing before the God of the earth” in Revelation 11:4. Notice the intimate symbolic connection between the “spirit” and the truth in Hebrews 4:12 and Ephesians 6:17. In the first text the “word of God” is contrasted with a “two-edged sword”; in the second Paul speaks of the “sword of the spirit which is the word of God.” (See Marshall’s Diaglott which explains that “which” is in the neuter gender to agree with “spirit,” not feminine to agree with “sword.” In other words Paul is saying the “spirit … is the word of God.”)

Thus the age of the spirit, when the church is called out of the world through the holy spirit of God calling us through the truth, is represented in the Joshua passage by two thousand cubits. In John 21:8 the same is represented by “two hundred cubits,” in Judges by the “twenty years” of Samson’s judgeship (Judges 16:31), and in the parable of the Good Samaritan by the “two pence” to care for the injured man while the good ­Samaritan (our Lord) was away (Luke 10:34, 35).

As the priests entered the Jordan and “the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water” (Joshua 3:15), the waters flowing from above receded and stopped. So the rolling back of the curse imposed upon Adam ­began with the blessed redemption of the saints at the beginning of the Gospel age. As the host of Israel followed two thousand cubits “later,” so the world will follow the saints through the way opened by our Lord’s sacrifice into the blessings of the kingdom. Then they will ­observe Passover in the kingdom as we have ­observed Passover during the Gospel age.

The Absence of Manna

Another way to indicate the change of ages in this episode is the cessation of the manna which had sustained the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness. The manna represented the nourishment of the church during the Gospel age. When it first appeared, its taste was described as like “wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). In Leviticus 8:26, 27 three bread items were to be waved before the Lord in the service consecrating the priests —unleavened bread (justification), oiled bread (sanctifying influence of the holy spirit), and a wafer which is generally identified with our hope of glorification. “A wafer represented our hope and faith in the exceeding precious promises of glory, honor, and immortality” (Tabernacle Shadows, p. 46). Thus the connection of manna to wafers supports the view that the manna pictured the spiritual nourishment for the saints of the heavenly calling.

“Honey” is also associated with the heavenly call of the saints—the sweet, wonderful, lofty nature of our heavenly prospects. Thus the pleasant words of life we have received “are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24; Revelation 10:9). This precious inheritance we never sacrifice, as the Israelites were commanded never to offer honey upon the altar (Leviticus 2:11). When Samson proposed his riddle—“out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judges 14:14)—it was about a slain lion which represented the “lion of the tribe of Juda” (Revelation 5:5) from which we receive not only justification, but the sweet call to heavenly glory.

When the Israelites tired of the manna, they forgot its honey-like taste and compared it simply to “fresh oil” (Numbers 11:8). So we may sometimes forget the grand and glorious hope we have amidst the mundane experiences of life. We may still recognize our daily manna as of the spirit, like fresh oil, but lose our hold on the wonder of it all. At such times not only should we “stop to smell the roses” (compare Song of Solomon 2:1), but we should stop to taste the honey (Song of Solomon 4:11).

But this heavenly call, this taste of wafers made with honey, is only for the present call of the saints. When the world is redeemed from the curse, they will have wonderful things in store for them, but this privilege of the heavenly call will cease. It is only for the saints. After the Israelites had killed their Passover lambs on the fourteenth of Nisan and eaten them that night, the following day the manna ceased (Joshua 5:10-12). When the world is redeemed, the heavenly call ends.

The Count of Days

The book of Joshua opens with God’s exhortation to Joshua to be strong and courageous in his leadership, and the assurance that God would bless and sustain him. The first nine verses are thus employed, and verse 10 begins the narrative of the advance. He commanded the officers to advise the people to prepare food sufficient for the next few days, “for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan” (Joshua 1:11). Evidently this does not mean they actually crossed the river on the third day from this command for that would violate the succeeding narrative (Joshua 3:1,2). It means that on the third day they would advance from their present encampment westward to the banks of the Jordan in preparation for the crossing.

The Israelites at the time were “pitched by Jordan, from Bethjesimoth even unto Abelshit­tim [which means the plains of Shittim] in the plains of Moab” (Numbers 33:49). They were “by Jordan” but not at its brink. Here they prepared for a move on the third day.

Meanwhile Joshua sent two spies “out of Shittim” into Jericho, where they learned the people of the land were fearful: “We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man” (Joshua 2:10,11).

Rahab did not mention the drying of the Jordan because that had not yet occurred. The spies evidently made their way to the home of Rahab the same day they entered Jericho, and that night were lowered over the wall to seek refuge in the mountains until the third day (Joshua 2:16,22). Perhaps that third day coincides with the last of the three days of Joshua 1:11 when the Israelites were moving from Shittim to the east bank of Jordan.

Joshua 3:1 speaks of the morning of the day the camp moved: “Joshua rose early in the morning” of that third day. Possibly this is a reminder that the greater Joshua, our Lord Jesus, rose early the morning of the third day, foreshadowing his body members rising on the third millennium from Jesus’ day.

Joshua 3:2 refers to another three days, perhaps symbolic of the same three millenniums: “And it came to pass after three days [the Hebrew idiom means on the third day] that the officers went through the host” to explain to the Israelites what was to happen the following day (Joshua 3:5). That would put the crossing of the Jordan on the fourth day since their arrival at the east bank, counting inclusively.

Joshua would be magnified in the sight of the people, through the crossing over Jordan. “And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee” (Joshua 3:7). So will the world come to recognize their leader Jesus, represented in Joshua, just as we recognize our leader Jesus, represented in Moses.