"Three days" in Joshua 1-3: Resolving a chronological conundrum

FOREIGN TEXT OMITTED ...

DAVID M. HOWARD, JR.*

The early chapters of the book of Joshua contain several small but persistent chronological problems that have proven difficult to resolve in satisfactory ways.1 Recourse in solving them is commonly sought in hypotheses of contradictory or conflated sources or traditions.2 Such solutions, however, are often unconvincing and are in no way demanded by the evidence of the text. Plausible alternatives present themselves that do more justice to the text as it stands.3 These are in keeping with the current trends for reading texts as literary wholes.4

The specific issue addressed in this essay is that of the various three-day periods mentioned in Joshua 1-3. There are no less than three such periods (Josh 1:11; 2:22;5 3:2), and scholars range widely in their interpretations of them. Some scholars argue that the entire time span covered by the three periods is merely three days at the one extreme,6 while others see up to eight days at the other.7

Many scholars are pessimistic about the possibility of any solution that would bring coherence to the references to the three days. For example, Donald Madvig states: "It is difficult, if not impossible, to correlate all the references to `three days' in chapters 1-3."8 Richard Nelson speaks of "thematic threads" that "have tangled and knotted,"9 concluding that "any generally acceptable comprehensive solution to this compositional tangle is probably unattainable."10

Based on a close reading of the text, however-one that takes into account the exact wording of each text in turn-I argue that it is indeed possible to correlate these references, that the text has two three-day periods in view, and that the total time elapsed in chaps. 1-3 is seven days. This seven-day period pairs up with another seven-day period (the seven days of marching around Jericho) to bracket some important ritual events in chaps. 3-5.

I. THE TEXTS AND THE PROBLEM

The passages in question are as follows: "Now Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, `Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, "Prepare for yourselves provisions, for within three days (...) you will be crossing this Jordan, to come to possess the land which YHwH your God is giving to you to possess it""' (1:10-11).11 "And [the spies] went and came to the hill country, and they stayed there three days (...), until the pursuers had turned back (...), and the pursuers sought in all the way, but they did not find [them]" (2:22). "And it happened, at the end of three days (...), that the officers passed through the midst of the camp, and they commanded the people, saying, `When you see the ark of the covenant of YHWH your God, and the priests, the Levites, carrying it, then you, you shall set out from your place and go after it. Surely a space shall be between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in measure; you shall not draw near unto it, so that you might know the way in which you shall go, for you have not walked in the way before.' Then Joshua said to the people, `Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow YHWH will do wonderful things in your midst"' (3:2-5).

The problem, then, is as follows. In 1:11 the crossing of the Jordan is presented as about to take place three days hence. But according to 2:22 the two spies whom Joshua sent out to Jericho spent three days in hiding before they even returned to report to Joshua, and then there seem to have been at least three more days before the people actually crossed (3:2). These passages all mention periods of three days. Are these periods all the same, or are they different? And if they are different, how do they relate to each other?

II. PREVIOUS SOLUTIONS

As noted above, one scholarly solution sees the chronologies as flatly contradictory due to conflated sources or traditions. J. Alberto Soggin, for example, states: "The chronology [of 3:2] is irreconcilable with that of 2:22, where there is a wait of a further three days."12 In a similar vein Trent Butler, commenting upon the larger phenomenon of recurring structures in chaps. 1-4, states that "such duplication of structural elements leads to the suspicion of duplicate sources rather than simply duplicate motifs and traditions."13

Another solution, represented by scholars such as Robert Boling, sees the numbers as part of "an extended complex of cultic events."14 Most of these scholars rely on the detailed treatment of Jay Wilcoxen:

Joshua 1-6 does not narrate ordinary events in a straightforward manner, and some of the time references in the narrative do not readily clarify the chronology of the action. This is due probably to the fact that these time references have their real significance, not in the chronology of narrated events, but in the temporal sequences and durations of a complex cultic observance the pattern of which is contained in the cult legend.15

Both of the above-mentioned approaches assume that the text is almost hopelessly confused in its attempt to give any accurate account of what actually occurred.