Twelve men For the work described, Joshua 4:2-3. The ark of the Lord That so it may appear this is the Lord's doing, and that in pursuance of his covenant made with Israel. Of all the earth The Lord of all this globe of earth and water, who therefore can dispose of this river and the adjoining lands as he pleaseth. Cut off The waters which now are united shall be divided, and part shall flow down the channel toward the Dead sea, and the other part, that is near the spring of the river, and flows down from it, shall stand still. They shall stand upon a heap Being as it were congealed, as the Red sea was, (Exodus 15:8,) and so kept from overflowing the country. God could by a sudden and miraculous frost have congealed the surface, so that they might all have gone over upon the ice; but that being a thing, it seems, sometimes done even in that country, by the ordinary power of nature, (Job 38:30,) it would not have been such an honour to Israel's God, nor such a terror to Israel's enemies. It must therefore be done in such a way as had no precedent, but in the dividing of the Red sea. And that miracle is here repeated to show that God has the same power to finish that he had to begin the salvation of his people, for he is the Omega as well as the Alpha; and that the word of the Lord, (as the Chaldee reads it, Joshua 3:7,) the essential word, was with Joshua as truly as he was with Moses.
Related Commentaries of Joshua 3:12
Joshua 3:12-13
12 Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man.
13 And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.