Joshua rose up early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel; and they lodged there before they passed over.
Why was this preliminary approach made?  Shittim was at most only five or six miles from the river, but here Joshua brought Israel to the very brink of the Jordan.  Many have thought that God wanted the people to get a good look at that river in flood stage before they passed over it, and this is probably the correct explanation.  Pink saw this three-day pause by the terrible Jordan as God's impressing upon the Israelites, "that they had no means of crossing it, that they were utterly helpless, and that they were thus completely shut unto God as their only hope."[5]