“…and gave the people these orders: ‘When you see the ark for the covenant of Adonai your God and the cohanim, who are L’vi’im, carrying it, you are to leave your position and follow it. But keep a distance between yourselves and it of about a thousand yards — don’t come any closer, so that you will understand which way to go, because you haven’t gone this way before.'”-Joshua 3:3-4
Joshua’s officers are now doling out some very critical instructions to the people concerning their crossing over the Jordan River.
Out of all the guidelines being handed down, the most important one dealt with the Ark of the Covenant.
The people were told that since the Ark would now be leading the way, they were to keep their eyes on it and maintain safe distance of about a half a mile from it (depending on your Bible translation, it will say either 2000 cubits or 1,000 yards).
This was a revolutionary change for the Hebrew people because up until this point in time, the fire-cloud was their signal to move.
When it was time to move, the Wilderness Tabernacle was taken down and the tribes would all line up in a pre-assigned order.
Judah, Issachar and Zebulun led the way in following the fire-cloud.
Reuben, Simeon and Gad came next.
The Levites, who were responsible for carrying the Tabernacle and its furnishings, were positioned smack dab in the middle of the formation allowing them to be protected by the surrounding tribes.
Finally, the remainder of the tribes were situated at the very back in the rear of the column.
It cannot be emphasized enough just how big of a change had just occurred.
As far as every Israelite was concerned, the fire-cloud was their only reliable source of divine direction.
Seeing and then following after the fire-cloud day-by-day gave them hope and peace of mind.
Therefore, when Joshua said “No more fire-cloud”, it must have been quite a shock to a lot of folks.
That’s why Joshua’s officers had to carefully go through the camp, stop at each tent and carefully explain to the people that a new era had just begun and as a result things were about to change.
Minus no fire-cloud to depend on, no doubt the Israelites would have been afraid to move forward.
Now what’s up with the requirement that the people had keep a safe distance from the Tabernacle?
If you’ve studied the Torah with me up until now, the answer to that question should be quite simple.
It’s all about God’s Holiness.
If a human being comes too close to the intense holiness of the Lord’s presence, that person will be destroyed.
It cannot be any other way for the sanctity of Hashem is the linchpin that holds all of Creation together.
So we can see that way before Covid 19, the Israelites practiced their own form of “social distancing”.
Incidentally, it is this command that the Israelites were to maintain a 2000 cubit distance between them and the Ark that gave birth to the Jewish tradition that one should NOT walk (or travel) farther than 2000 cubits or about a half a mile on the Sabbath.
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