Psalm 66 · a question people ask
"He turned the sea into dry land. They went through the river on foot" (66:6). Which sea, and which river?
The psalm doesn't name either. "He turned the sea into dry land" (66:6) has the word of the crossing of the sea in Exodus: "The children of Israel went into the middle of the sea on the dry ground" (Exodus 14:22), where dry ground is 66:6's dry land, yabbashah (tap dry land). The Jordan was crossed on dry ground too: "all Israel crossed over on dry ground" (Joshua 3:17), though there the Hebrew has another word, charavah. Other Scripture sets the two crossings side by side. Joshua tells Israel what to answer when their children ask about the stones taken out of the Jordan (Joshua 4:20-21), and the answer includes "the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you until you had crossed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea" (Joshua 4:23). And a psalm says, "The sea saw it, and fled. The Jordan was driven back" (Psalm 114:3). Psalm 66's river is nahar, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "stream, river" (tap river); Joshua 3 and 4 don't use that word for the Jordan. The psalm doesn't say whether its river is the Jordan, or the sea spoken of a second time, and these notes don't choose.
The verses
“He turned the sea into dry land. They went through the river on foot. There, we rejoiced in him.”
“The children of Israel went into the middle of the sea on the dry ground; and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.”
“The priests who bore the ark of the LORD’s covenant stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan; and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the nation had passed completely over the Jordan.”
“Joshua set up those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, in Gilgal. He spoke to the children of Israel, saying, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you until you had crossed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we had crossed over,”