This week’s Parashat is all about Passover. We read about the laws given to the Children of Israel about the Passover before all of Egypt’s 1st born males are killed. We then read about Joshua becoming the Israelites’s new leader and the 1st Passover the Children of Israel celebrate on the other side of the Jordan River. We then read about the death of Jesus on the cross and the Piercing of His side.
Exodus 12:43-48 NLT
“Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the instructions for the festival of Passover. No outsiders are allowed to eat the Passover meal. But any slave who has been purchased may eat it if he has been Circumcised . Temporary residents and hired servants may not eat it. Each Passover lamb must be eaten in one house. Do not carry any of its meat outside, and do not break any of its bones. The whole community of Israel must celebrate this Passover festival. “If there are foreigners living among you who want to celebrate the Lord’s Passover, let all their males be circumcised. Only then may they celebrate the Passover with you like any native-born Israelite. But no uncircumcised male may ever eat the Passover meal.”
Only males who are circumcised can eat of the Passover Lamb. The Passover Lamb could not have any of it’s bones broken. In order to partake of the Passover Meal one has to be in covenant with God via circumcision the sign of the covenant. Blood has to be shed in order for a covenant to be made. When we fast forward to Joshua at the Jordan none of the men born in the wilderness were circumcised. This is the 3rd Passover celebration mentioned in the Bible. The 1st the actual Passover Night. The 2nd one year later at the dedication of the Tabernacle. In Joshua we have the 3rd and they cannot celebrate it until all the men are circumcised.
Joshua is chosen by God to take the place of Moses as the Leader of Israel. God tells Joshua he is now in charge and He will make him a great leader in the eyes of the Israelites. So what does God do? He has Joshua instruct the Levites to take the Ark of the Covenant and stand with it in the Jordan River. The water dries up and is parted like when God split the Red Sea for Moses.
Joshua 3:11-17 NLT
“Look, the Ark of the Covenant, which belongs to the Lord of the whole earth, will lead you across the Jordan River! Now choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. The priests will carry the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. As soon as their feet touch the water, the flow of water will be cut off upstream, and the river will stand up like a wall.” So the people left their camp to cross the Jordan, and the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them. It was the harvest season, and the Jordan was overflowing its banks. But as soon as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge, the water above that point began backing up a great distance away at a town called ADAM, which is near ZARETHAN. And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was dry. Then all the people crossed over near the town of Jericho. Meanwhile, the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant stood on dry ground in the middle of the riverbed as the people passed by. They waited there until the whole nation of Israel had crossed the Jordan on dry ground.”
After God uses this miracle to establish Joshua, Joshua makes knives out of flint stone and circumcised all the men. This miracle is greater than the one God did for Moses by the size of water dried up. The distance from the city of Adam to the Dead Sea is about 47 miles. All the water for 47 miles was dried up. The water dried up from the source the City of Adam near Zarethan all the way to the Dead Sea.
God told Abram that his offspring would be slaves and they would be set free when the time was right. When the sins of the Amorites come to fullness where God has to do something about it. At the moment of time Joshua is moving the Israelites God is cleansing the land from all the sin Adam allowed in. Adam is the source just as the river was the life source of Jericho.
Adam means blood. Inside the word Adam we have the words ground, blood, and wind or vapor. Adam sinned and when he did he corrupted the ground he came from. He corrupted the blood and DNA of every Human that came after him. The place the City Adam was near is called Zarethan. Zarethan means to pierce or puncture. In Joshua’s day God is dealing with cleaning the land.
This week in the New Testament we read about Jesus dying on the cross.
John 19:31-37 NLT
“It was the day of preparation, and the Jewish leaders didn’t want the bodies hanging there the next day, which was the Sabbath (and a very special Sabbath, because it was Passover week). So they asked Pilate to hasten their deaths by ordering that their legs be broken. Then their bodies could be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, SO THEY DIDN’T BREAK HIS LEGS. One of the soldiers, however, PIERCED his side with a spear, and immediately BLOOD and WATER flowed out. (This report is from an eyewitness giving an accurate account. He speaks the truth so that you also may continue to believe.) These things happened in fulfillment of the Scriptures that say, “NOT ONE OF HIS BONES WILL BE BROKEN,” and “THEY WILL LOOK ON THE ONE THEY PIERCED.””
When Jesus comes and is sacrificed He is dealing with the blood of man cleansing it so man can spend eternity with God. Jesus is called the 2nd Adam. In Joshua’s day the water receded back to the City of Adam close to Zarethan PIERCED. The Bible says that a righteous person will not break a bone. No one is more righteous than Jesus. Instead they pierced Jesus’s side and blood and water flowed out.
Do you see it, the water stopped at the City of Adam BLOOD and the area called Pierced. Later Jesus is hung on a cross and PIERCED. He is the 2nd Adam and the blood and water that flowed from Him is what makes us clean. He showed us what was going to happen at the 3rd Passover which would lead to the final Passover with Jesus defeating, Hell, Death and the Grave. IT IS FINISHED!
