Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you and you will be clean.” read more.īut Naaman was furious and went away and said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.’ Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. Tell me what you think: What is significant to you about the place where you were baptized? To leave a comment, just click here.It happened when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha. Take a journey with a virtual tour of the Bible Lands. You can take a journey to the Jordan River without leaving your house. It requires leaving one shore and crossing the river for another.Įntering the Promised Land by fording the Jordan remains a timeless metaphor for crossing over from death to spiritual life (see Hebrews 4:1-10).Īs Joshua pointed out after crossing the Jordan, the same grace of God that redeemed them was the grace that led them home (Joshua 4:23). The transitions that occurred there were sometimes national - as with Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and John and Jesus.īut the area also had its personal transitions - even conversions - as in the cases of Rahab, Naaman, Zaccheus, and Bartimaeus.īe they national or personal transitions - or both - any new beginning also requires an ending. The Jordan River remains an important symbol of transition. (Photo: The Jordan River Yardenit baptismal site, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands) They erected 12 stones from the Jordan River stones to commemorate the event. Joshua 4:23ĭid you notice? Joshua connected their powerful redemption as a nation to the same power of God that helped them enter the Promised Land. When the priests of God left the Jordan’s eastern banks and stepped into its current, the river stopped flowing upstream at a site known as Adam.Īfter the nation crossed, Joshua made a fundamental comparison:įor the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed. Joshua’s Transition at the Jordan River Began the ConquestĬrossing the Jordan River for Joshua meant entering the Promised Land and leaving the leadership of Moses. These transitions point directly to your life as well. In fact, the serpentine river still represents a border between Israel and the nation of Jordan.īut in the Bible, the Jordan River’s presence on Israel’s eastern edge stood as an enduring metaphor for transitions. The significance of the Jordan River began as a simple geographic barrier, which - practically speaking - represented a border (Joshua 22:18-25). It was crossing the River Jordan - and what that meant. It wasn’t the beauty of the Jordan River that inspired centuries of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to include it in their verses. (Photo: The Jordan River, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
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