约书亚记 3:16

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

水就停住了，那從上游流下來的水立起成壘，在很遠的地方，就是在撒拉但旁邊的亞當城那裡停住；那往下流入亞拉巴海，就是鹽海的水完全被截斷；於是人民就在耶利哥的對面過了河。

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
那 从 上 往 下 流 的 水 便 在 极 远 之 地 、 撒 拉 但 旁 的 亚 当 城 那 里 停 住 ， 立 起 成 垒 ； 那 往 亚 拉 巴 的 海 ， 就 是 盐 海 ， 下 流 的 水 全 然 断 绝 。 於 是 百 姓 在 耶 利 哥 的 对 面 过 去 了 。

Contextual Overview

¹⁴ So the people left the place where they had camped, and they followed the priests who carried the Ark of the Agreement across the Jordan River. ¹⁵ During harvest the Jordan overflows its banks. When the priests carrying the Ark came to the edge of the river and stepped into the water, ¹⁶ the water upstream stopped flowing. It stood up in a heap a great distance away at Adam, a town near Zarethan. The water flowing down to the Sea of Arabah (the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed the river near Jericho. ¹⁷ The priests carried the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord to the middle of the river and stood there on dry ground. They waited there while all the people of Israel walked across the Jordan River on dry land.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

rose up: Joshua 3:13, Psalms 29:10, Psalms 77:19, Psalms 114:3, Matthew 8:26, Matthew 8:27, Matthew 14:24-33

Zaretan: 1 Kings 4:12, Zartanah, 1 Kings 7:46, Zarthan

the salt sea: Joshua 15:2, Genesis 14:3, Numbers 34:3, Deuteronomy 3:17, The passage through the Red Sea took place in the night, when the Israelites were fleeing from the Egyptians with great trepidation, but they passed Jordan in the day-time, with previous warning, leisurely, directly opposite to Jericho, and with a triumphant defiance of the Canaanites; this passage into the promised land evidently typifying the believer's passage through death to heaven.

Reciprocal: Exodus 14:29 - a wall Numbers 22:1 - on this side Deuteronomy 9:1 - to pass Joshua 4:10 - stood in the midst Joshua 12:3 - the sea Joshua 16:7 - Jericho Joshua 18:12 - Jericho Joshua 18:19 - the salt Judges 6:33 - went over 2 Chronicles 20:2 - beyond the sea Psalms 33:7 - heap Psalms 66:6 - they Psalms 77:16 - General Psalms 78:13 - made Psalms 126:4 - as the streams Isaiah 50:2 - I dry Isaiah 63:12 - dividing Ezekiel 47:8 - desert Habakkuk 3:8 - the Lord Habakkuk 3:10 - the overflowing

Cross-References

Genesis 3:1
Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, "Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"

Genesis 3:6
The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

Genesis 3:7
Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.

Genesis 3:8
Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden during the cool part of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden.

Genesis 3:9
But the Lord God called to the man and said, "Where are you?"

Genesis 3:10
The man answered, "I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid."

Genesis 3:11
God asked, "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?"

Genesis 3:12
The man said, "You gave this woman to me and she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it."

Genesis 3:16
Then God said to the woman, "I will cause you to have much trouble when you are pregnant, and when you give birth to children, you will have great pain. You will greatly desire your husband, but he will rule over you."

Genesis 3:17
Then God said to the man, "You listened to what your wife said, and you ate fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat. "So I will put a curse on the ground, and you will have to work very hard for your food. In pain you will eat its food all the days of your life.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

That the waters which came down from above,.... Above where the priests' feet rested, and which came down from Mount Lebanon, and the fountains of Jordan northward:

stood [and] rose up upon an heap; they stopped their current, and as the water came down they rose up on high, and made one vast heap of waters:

very far from the city of Adam, that is, beside Zaretan; the Cetib, or textual reading, is, "in Adam the city"; we follow the marginal reading, "from Adam": both readings, as is usually, if not always the case, are to be received; and the meaning is, that this heap of waters, though the river was at a considerable distance from Adam; yet through the overflow of it, it reached to, and was "in Adam": this city was in Perea, on the other side Jordan, that side on which the Israelites were before their passage; and Zaretan, which is supposed to be the same with Zartanah, and Zarthan, 1 Kings 4:12, was on this side, in the tribe of Manasseh; and the sense is, not that Adam was on the side of Zaretan, or near it, for it was on the other side of the river; and according to the Talmudists a was twelve miles from it; but the construction is with the word "heap", "which [heap] was on the side of Zaretan"; it was there where the waters were heaped up; it seems as if they reached on the one side to Adam, and on the other side to Zaretan:

and those that came down towards the sea of the plain, [even] the salt sea, failed, [and] were cut off; those waters, which were below where the priests' feet rested, ran down into the lake Asphaltites, where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly stood, the sea of the plain, or vale of Siddim, Genesis 14:3; sometimes called the dead sea, and here the salt sea, its water being exceeding salt; so, Mr. Maundrell, the above mentioned traveller b testifies on his own knowledge;

"the water of the lake (the lake Asphaltites, or dead sea, says he) was very limpid, and salt to the highest degree; and not only salt, but also extreme bitter and nauseous;''

so that these waters running down thither, and those above stopped, made a dry channel for sixteen or eighteen miles: and the people passed over right against Jericho; which was the city Joshua had in view to attack first, and had sent spies thither to get intelligence of it, and the disposition of the people in it: Genesis 14:3- :.

a T. Hieros. Sotah, fol. 21. 4. b Maundrell, ut supra, (Journel from Aleppo to Jerusalem) p. 84. Ed. 7.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The passage should run “rose up, an heap far away, by Adam, the city which is beside Zarthan.”

The city of Adam is not named elsewhere, and Zarthan (mentioned here and in marginal references.) has also disappeared. It is, however, probably connected with the modern Kurn Sartabeh (Horn of Sartabeh), the name given to a lofty and isolated hill some 17 miles on the river above Jericho.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Joshua 3:16. Rose up upon a heap — That is, they continued to accumulate, filling up the whole of the channel toward the source, and the adjacent ground over which they were now spread, to a much greater depth, the power of God giving a contrary direction to the current. We need not suppose them to be gathered up like a mountain, instar montis, as the Vulgate expresses it, but that they continued to flow back in the course of the channel; and ere they could have reached the lake of Gennesareth, where they might have been easily accumulated, the whole Israelitish army would have all got safely to the opposite side.

Very far from the city Adam - beside Zaretan — Where these places were it is difficult to say. The city Adam is wholly unknown. From 1 Kings 4:12 we learn that Zartanah was below Jezreel near Bethshean, or Scythopolis, and not far from Succoth, 1 Kings 7:46. And it appears from Genesis 33:17, Joshua 13:27, that Succoth lay on the east side of Jordan, not far from the lake of Gennesareth; and probably Adam was on the same side to the north of Succoth. It is probable that the Israelites crossed the Jordan near Bethabara, where John baptized, John 1:28, and which probably had its name, the house of passage, from this very circumstance. After all, it is extremely difficult to ascertain the exact situation of these places, as in the lapse of upwards of 3,000 years the face of the country must have been materially changed. Seas, rivers, and mountains, change not; and though we cannot ascertain the spot, it is sufficiently evident that we can come near to the place. It has been considered a lame objection against the truth of the Iliad that the situation of Troy cannot now be exactly ascertained. There are even many ancient cities and considerable towns in Europe, that, though they still bear their former names, do not occupy the same spot. There are not a few of those even in England; among such Norwich, Salisbury, c., may be ranked, neither of which is in its primitive situation.

Right against Jericho. — It would be impossible for the whole camp to pass over in the space opposite to Jericho, as they must have taken up some miles in breadth, besides the 2,000 cubits which were left on the right between them and the ark but the river was divided opposite to Jericho, and there the camp began to pass over.