4:17a

So Joshua commanded the priests: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as So indicates that the next action in the story is taking place. In this case, it also shows that Joshua’s action is a response to God’s command.

Here are some other way to translate this part of the verse:

and so Joshua commanded the priests
-or-
in obedience to God, Joshua commanded the priests

4:17b

Come up from the Jordan: The clause Come up from the Jordan indicates that the priests should come up from the dry riverbed and cross to the west side of the Jordan River. It may be redundant in some languages to repeat this command, which uses almost the same words as in 4:16b. It may be more natural to summarize the action. For example:

Joshua did so (Good News Translation)
-or-
So Joshua gave the command (New Living Translation (2004))

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