Introduction: Memorials are important. They serve to remind the people who were there of what happened, and why; and they’re also to remind the people, sometimes generations later, what their ancestors had endured. This was true for Israel as well: the people in this story lived through something few if any others had experienced.
They also knew that unless something was there to serve as a reminder, the people to come would never understand the history.
The double monuments for the generations to come would consist of two altars, both made of stones. One monument was made of stones from the river bed! The other would be made of stones from the bank or the land, carried to the river. Now let’s look at the text:
(Full disclosure: Sermon Central approved a previous message about this text, called “The Double Memorial in Joshua’s Day” but this is not a rework of that message.)
1 The stones from the river
Text, Joshua 4:1-7, KJV: 1 And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, 2 Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, 3 And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. 4 Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man: 5 And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel: 6 That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? 7 Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.
This is one day I would have liked to see! Think about it—nearly two million people crossed a ravine, just a short time before filled to the brim with fast-flowing water, and they saw this flood of water stopped, the river bed dried up, and they walked across 200 yards or more without even getting their feet wet! They had climbed down a couple of terraces, climbed up a couple of more, and now they were home.
The PROMISED LAND!
Well, most of them, anyway . . . .there were still a few priests, standing in the middle of the riverbed holding the Ark of the Covenant on their shoulders. These men had been the “point men” or advance party, leading the way for the rest of the nation. They had been the first to step into the Jordan River—at flood stage!—and now they were among the last to set foot on the Promised Land. But God had not forgotten these men, and He was going to make sure they, too, reached their new homeland.
Verses 1 through 3 have the LORD’s message to Joshua. Except for the handful of priests who were still standing in the river bed, all Israel had crossed over and now the LORD is going to do two things Israel should remember forever.
First, the LORD told Joshua to choose twelve men, one man from each tribe, and command each one of them to grab a stone from the river bed, then carry the stones to “the lodging place”, where Israel was going to regroup before moving on to their new home. With each tribe contributing a man and a stone, this was truly a national and corporate project. Best of all, they were following the LORD’s commands, so they knew this was the right thing to do.
And that’s exactly what Joshua did. Verses 4 through 7 reflect Joshua’s words to these twelve men. They were to “pass before the Ark into the midst of the Jordan (probably a reference to about the midpoint of the riverbed)”. Once they got there, Joshua told each one to take up a stone and put that stone on his shoulder! We’re not told if there is any significance to this, except maybe showing that they shared the burden of the nation, or maybe that just like the priests had kept the Ark on their shoulders, these men would suffer some discomfort as well. Of course we may never know just why Joshua commanded them to do this. But that gives us an idea of the size of each stone—most men won’t be able to carry a large stone for a long distance without multiple stops for rest, especially since they would be walking uphill for most of the hike!
But there was still another reason for these stones, and Joshua was anticipating the questions to come. He knew that in the future, children would be born, wondering why these stones were located where they were. The answer was simply this: “The LORD ‘cut off’ the waters of the Jordan when the Ark of the Covenant was carried over!” What a testimony to the power of the LORD to have a memorial like this!
This memorial, made from the stones in the river, was to be constructed on the land, near where Israel crossed the Jordan. That wasn’t the only memorial, though: there was going to be another one, only this one was going to be placed in the Jordan!
2 The stones from the land
Text, Joshua 4:8-14, KJV: 8 And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the LORD spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. 9 And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there unto this day. 10 For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the LORD commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over. 11 And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the LORD passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 12 And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed before the children of Israel, as Moses spake unto them: 13 About forty thousand prepared for war passed over before the LORD unto battle, to the plains of Jericho. 14 On that day the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life.
Joshua had commanded the twelve men of Israel to go down to the middle of the riverbed, take a stone from down there, then carry that stone on his shoulder back up to the new campsite. Once they had done this, and laid them on the ground, Joshua did one of the most noble deeds any leader has ever done.
Joshua himself took twelve different stones from the campsite (implied—surely he wouldn’t have taken the same stones the twelve men had carried up there) and took them down to the riverbed! He could have commanded twelve others, or asked for volunteers, but he did none of those things. He did it himself, showing he was not doing anything like that for himself. No, he did this, I believe, to show the unity of the nation, a nation under GOD.
Now, I confess to having a little trouble with the order of events in verses 10-12 but as I read the text in the KJV, was that the priests were the last to leave the Jordan—they had stayed there, maybe, until the nation had crossed over, then left when the twelve men carried the stones away to the campsite. Once they had left, Joshua took another batch of 12 stones; my guess is one at a time, down to where the priests had been standing.
And this memorial was to complement, and verify, the fact that God and nobody else had brought Israel across the Jordan into this new, Promised Land. Even better, the LORD “magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel” and they “feared him”, just as they had feared Moses, all the days of Joshua’s life.
3 The summary
Text, Joshua 4:15-24, KJV: 15 And the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, 16 Command the priests that bear the ark of the testimony, that they come up out of Jordan. 17 Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, Come ye up out of Jordan. 18 And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before. 19 And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. 20 And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. 21 And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? 22 Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. 23 For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: 24 That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever.
Joshua now summarized the day’s events. The priests had stepped into flowing water, and through God’s power, the river was rolled back (there may be other terms to describe this) for probably several miles in both directions. The soil or river bed was DRY so there was no problem for any Israelite to cross over. Joshua asked for twelve volunteers, one man from each tribe, to carry a stone from the Jordan’s river bed up to the campsite, then Joshua took twelve stones from the land down into the river bed.
Once that was done, the LORD commanded Joshua to have the priests bring themselves and the Ark of the Covenant out of the Jordan and onto the land. To show this was no coincidence or that it wasn’t just by chance, as soon as the priests’ feet touched dry land, the waters came back and flowed just as far and as fast as what had happened before.
Joshua seems to have personally either set up the twelve river stones or supervised how they were arranged in Gilgal. And the chapter closes with Joshua’s declaration that these stones were to be a double memorial, to remind Israel for generations to come what had happened (“the LORD dried up Jordan”) and why (that you might know and fear the LORD forever).
Conclusion
Israel had now crossed the Jordan. They were finally in the Promised Land! But now, they had only taken the first step. There was a whole lot more to do and they were the ones to do it.
Before any of that could happen, however, there were a few things Israel needed to do. Chapter 5 goes into more detail about these items. Let’s look at that chapter soon.
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)
