Joshua 3 · a question people ask
Why were the people told to keep about two thousand cubits away from the ark?
The verse gives the distance, a command and a reason, one after the other: "Yet there shall be a space between you and it of about two thousand cubits by measure—don’t come closer to it—that you may know the way by which you must go; for you have not passed this way before" (3:4). Christians read the space in two main ways, each resting on verses. Both agree on what the verse says: the people were to follow the ark (3:3), keep back from it, and see the way.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
So that everyone could see it
Those who hold this view point to the reason the verse gives: "that you may know the way by which you must go; for you have not passed this way before" (3:4). The people were told, "When you see the ark… then leave your place and follow it" (3:3). A large crowd close behind the ark could not all see it; with open ground between, it could be seen going ahead. In the wilderness the ark went before them "to seek out a resting place for them" (Numbers 10:33).
Joshua 3:3-4 · Numbers 10:33
Because the ark is holy
Those who hold this view point to the words in the middle of the verse: "don’t come closer to it" (3:4). Even the Levites who carried the holy things "shall not touch the sanctuary, lest they die" (Numbers 4:15), and later, when "Uzzah reached for God’s ark and took hold of it", "he died there by God’s ark" (2 Samuel 6:6-7). At Sinai the LORD had said, "You shall set bounds to the people all around" (Exodus 19:12). On this reading the space kept the people back from the ark as the bounds kept them from the mountain.
Joshua 3:4 · Numbers 4:15 · 2 Samuel 6:6-7 · Exodus 19:12
The verses
“and they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the LORD your God’s covenant, and the Levitical priests bearing it, then leave your place and follow it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it of about two thousand cubits by measure—don’t come closer to it—that you may know the way by which you must go; for you have not passed this way before.””