Joshuachapter 4
24 verses · Joshua, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · History
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.
Introduction
Joshua, by tradition, History, Joshua Overview.
This chapter is about remembering, and it was written for parents who would have to explain the past to children who had not seen it. The events it keeps were already over when it was set down, and a monument still stood to point at. It belongs to the same day as the chapter before, seen now from the far bank. Listen for the question a child will ask and the answer the parent is given. Notice how often the text looks back to the sea that the older generation crossed. The chapter ends with the first camp inside the land.
Context
- Who
- Parents who would have to explain a pile of stones to children who saw nothing
- What
- The setting up of twelve stones from the riverbed as a memorial of the crossing, and the first camp at Gilgal.
- Where
- The riverbed at the crossing, and Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho.
- When
- The tenth day of the first month, the same day as the crossing and four days before the Passover.
- Why
- To give Israel a lasting sign that would lead each new generation to ask about the crossing and learn to fear the LORD.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Joshua, to twelve men chosen one from each tribe, and to the priests still standing in the channel. The twelve were picked a chapter earlier at 3:12, and their errand is given only here.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The stones are taken from the one patch of ground a man could not otherwise reach, the place under the priests' feet in the riverbed. Two piles are named, one carried out to the lodging place and one set up in the middle of the river, and Albert Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read them as two separate monuments. Other writers take verse 9 as a fuller account of the same twelve stones, and the Hebrew carries either.
A first hearer knew what a heap of stones was for. A cairn on open ground was the ordinary way a people marked a place. This book raises three more of them, over Achan at 7:26, over the king of Ai at 8:29 and at the cave mouth in chapter 10.
The reason given for the pile is a question a child will ask. Exodus 12:26 sets the same shape for the passover and Deuteronomy 6:20 for the statutes. In each the question comes from the child, and the answer is a piece of history rather than a rule.
The clause and they are there unto this day puts the writer at a time when the second pile could still be pointed at. It is one of the marks readers use when they date the book, and the site's published provenance entry carries both readings.
Gilgal sits on the edge of the Jericho plain and is named here before 5:9 explains the name. It becomes the camp Israel returns to through the southern campaign and the place Samuel later uses.
Significance
The answer the fathers owed their children ends at the Red Sea, so the stones taught a crossing the children never saw by way of an older one their parents had not seen either. Verse 23 slips into the first person, which he dried up from before us, though the men who walked through the sea were dead by Numbers 26:64.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
Verse 24 states two aims, that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD and that Israel might fear him for ever. Adam Clarke reads the first phrase narrowly of the peoples of that land, and other writers take it as wide as it sounds.
For the men who crossed, verse 14 was the point of the day. Exodus 14:31 says that after the sea the people believed the LORD and his servant Moses, and the same sentence is now written about Joshua after a river.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The twelve stones carry a tradition here that goes far beyond the memorial the chapter describes. Rashi is quoted from the Metsudah Publications Book of Joshua of 1997, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He reads the order to carry the stones over as an order given for the altar on Mount Ebal, "to fulfil the command of Moshe to build with them an Altar on Mt. Eivel, and to write upon them the words of Torah" (Rashi on Joshua 4:3:1). The whole of that ceremony then happens inside one day. They came to Ebal, built the altar, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, ate and drank, scraped the stones, and lodged at Gilgal. A Christian reader should hold this beside the account itself, which places the Ebal ceremony at chapter 8 and says nothing about a single day.
The chapter has two sets of twelve stones for Rashi, and he keeps them apart. The men of the second verse are the twelve already prepared in the chapter before (Rashi on Joshua 4:2:1 and 3:12:1). They are sent into the riverbed ahead of the priests (Rashi on Joshua 4:5:1). The stones of the seventh verse stand at Gilgal as the memorial (Rashi on Joshua 4:7:1). The stones of the ninth verse are other stones, set up by Joshua in the middle of the Jordan (Rashi on Joshua 4:9:1). Where the altar stones of the Ebal tradition fit against those two sets is left unsettled in the note.
The tenth verse is where the classical reading touches the hardest question in the book. Rashi takes the delay of the priests in the riverbed from the tractate Sotah at 34a, and reports Joshua speaking to the people while they stood there. "You must know the purpose for which you are crossing the Jordan. It is on the condition that you drive away all the inhabitants of the land" (Rashi on Joshua 4:10:1). The crossing is read as a covenant with a condition attached. The holder of that reading is the Babylonian Talmud at Sotah 34a as Rashi reports it. This site argues the ban and its grounds at /featured/the-canaanite-conquest, and the card leaves the argument there.
The manner of the ark's own crossing is the third tradition in the chapter, and it is the one with a consequence attached. Rashi holds that the ark crossed differently from everything else. The priests stepped back out of the riverbed to the eastern bank, the water returned, and the ark and its bearers stood on the far side from the people. "Thus the Ark lifted its carriers and crossed over" (Rashi on Joshua 4:18:1). He draws the death of Uzzah out of it. If the ark carried its bearers, it could carry itself, so the hand put out to steady it was a failure of that knowledge (Rashi on Joshua 4:18:1, citing 2 Samuel 6). The sixteenth verse, he says, is where Scripture goes back and explains the crossing it had already reported (Rashi on Joshua 4:11:1 and 4:16:1). The stones were set up at Gilgal because that was the lodging place of that night (Rashi on Joshua 4:20:1). The corpus carries fourteen further notes on this chapter without an English text. Eight stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Joshua 4:1:1, 4:13:1, 4:14:1, 4:15:1, 4:19:1, 4:21:1, 4:23:1 and 4:24:1. Four stand at Malbim on Joshua 4:2:1, 4:8:1, 4:12:1 and 4:22:1, and two at Metzudat David on Joshua 4:4:1 and 4:6:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. One tractate dominates them. Sotah is anchored here at Sotah 34a:6 on the fifth verse and Sotah 35a:15 on the eleventh. The Jerusalem Talmud Sotah stands at 7:5:4, 7:3:4, 7:4:8, 7:5:5, 7:3:2 and 7:5:3, across the fourth, eighth, thirteenth, sixteenth, nineteenth and twenty-first verses. The Ein Yaakov entries follow the same tractate, at Sotah 7:4, 7:18, 7:12 and 7:16, and in the Glick Edition at Sotah 7:3, 7:17, 7:15 and 7:10.
The midrashic locators run with the stones. On the first verse the corpus holds Aggadat Bereshit 8:2, with an entry from the Introductions to Tanaitic Literature on Sifrei Numbers 354. On the fifth it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Numbers 13:23:1. On the ninth it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 938:55, and on the tenth Sifrei Bamidbar 82:1. On the eleventh, the ark crossing last, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 4:20.
The armed men of the eastern tribes draw their own run. On the twelfth verse the corpus holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 13:17, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 1:7 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 13:18:4. On the thirteenth it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayetze 3, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 49:19:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Numbers 32:31:1. On the fourteenth, where Joshua is magnified in the sight of Israel, it holds Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 34:9:1, Midrash Tehillim 21:4 and Sifrei Devarim 357:39.
The last verses carry the memorial itself. On the seventeenth the corpus holds Kohelet Rabbah 10:4:1, and on the eighteenth Shemot Rabbah 36:4. On the nineteenth, the tenth day of the first month, it holds Jerusalem Talmud Nazir 8:1:10 and Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 8:8:9. On the twentieth, the stones set up at Gilgal, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 16:14 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Sh'lach 15:1. On the twenty-second, the words a father says to his son about the dry ground, it holds Bereshit Rabbah 76:5, Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 32:11:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 131:5. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Joshua 4:2:1 to 4:20:1, the Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997, reported CC-BY; Babylonian Talmud, Sotah, Sotah 34a on the condition attached to the crossing, as Rashi reports it at Rashi on Joshua 4:10:1; the corpus also carries Sotah 34a:6 and 35a:15 as locators on this chapter; Radak, Radak on Joshua 4:1:1, 4:13:1, 4:14:1, 4:15:1, 4:19:1, 4:21:1, 4:23:1 and 4:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Joshua 4:2:1, 4:8:1, 4:12:1 and 4:22:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Joshua 4:4:1 and 4:6:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/joshua/4.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Twelve stones lifted out of the riverbed
Joshua 4:1-3
The order comes while the priests still stand in the riverbed and the water is held back, so the memorial is arranged before the miracle closes. The twelve men were picked at 3:12, and only now is their errand given. The stones come from under the priests’ feet in the channel, ground no one could otherwise reach, so the monument is built from the riverbed itself.
Joshua 4:1
“And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan,.... As related, Jos 3:17, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying: as follows.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Joshua 4:1
“It is the pious conjecture of the learned bishop Patrick that Joshua had gone into some place of retirement to return thanks immediately for this wonderful mercy, and then god met him, and spoke thus to him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The command is plural in the Hebrew, and Barnes takes it to mean that each tribe chose its own man, with Joshua approving the choice at verse 4. Gill adds that the twelve acted in the name of the tribes they came from. Every tribe carried its own stone.
Joshua 4:2
“Take you twelve men - From Jos 3:12, it appears that the twelve men had been before appointed, one taken out of each of the twelve tribes; and now they are employed for that purpose for which they had been before selected.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The lodging place is left unnamed here. Clarke identifies it with the place called Gilgal at verse 19, and Barnes, following Josephus, puts that camp nearly five miles from the river. Each man carried his stone the whole way from the channel.
Joshua 4:3
“The people of the Hebrews, as we learn, after many sufferings, and after accomplishing their weary course in the desert, did not enter the land of promise until it had first been brought, with Joshua for its guide and the pilot of its life, to the passage of the Jordan. But it is clear that Joshua also, who set up the twelve stones in the stream, was anticipating the coming of the twelve disciples, the ministers of Baptism.”
Gregory of Nyssa · written before 395 · ON THE BAPTISM OF CHRISTpatristic
Joshua 4:4-7
The reason for the pile is given before it exists, since a child will ask what the stones mean. The same shape stands at Exodus 12:26 for the passover and Deuteronomy 6:20 for the statutes, where the question comes from the child and the answer is a piece of history. Israel leaves an object strange enough on that flat ground to make someone ask.
Joshua 4:4
“Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had prepared of the children of Israel,.... It may be for some other purpose, Jos 3:12; but this was the destination of them eventually, and as by divine direction: out of every tribe a man: as he had before ordered, and was now directed to.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 4:4
“Twelve men, whom he had prepared - This must refer to their appointment, Jos 3:12.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A shoulder load is a modest stone. Clarke doubts that twelve such stones could make a pile anyone would notice, and supposes they were set on a raised base of masonry. Henry reads the plain material as God's habit of choosing the fitting sign over the showy one.
Joshua 4:5
“Images are of two kinds: either they are words written in a book … or else they are material images such as the twelve stones which he commanded to be taken from the Jordan for a second memorial (such a mystery, truly the greatest ever to befall the faithful people!) of the carrying of the ark and the parting of the waters. Therefore we now set up images in remembrance of valiant men, that we may zealously desire to follow their example.”
John Damascene · written before 749 · ON DIVINE IMAGES 3.23patristic
The Hebrew behind in the future is the word for tomorrow, and Gill, noting that the Greek version renders it the same way, reads it as any time hereafter. Clarke calls the stones a standing proof of Israel's lasting obligation to God. The sign works only when someone asks.
Joshua 4:6
“That this may be a sign among you,.... A commemorative one: that when your children ask their fathers in time to come; or "tomorrow" (g) and so in all time, or any time hereafter: saying, what mean you by these stones? what is the reason of setting them up, and in this place, and being just of such a number? (g) מחר αυριον, Sept. "eras", Pagninus, Montanus.”
No inscription was cut on the stones. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that uncarved piles of this kind were the usual way the nomadic peoples of the East kept an event in memory, with the meaning passed down in the story told beside them. The answer given in this verse is that story, fixed in advance.
Joshua 4:7
“They are the established means of perpetuating the memory of important transactions, especially among the nomadic people of the East. Although there be no inscription engraved on them, the history and object of such simple monuments are traditionally preserved from age to age.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Joshua 4:8-9
Two piles are named, one carried to the camp and one set by Joshua in the riverbed. Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read two monuments, and other writers one account told twice, since the Hebrew carries either. The words “the stones are there to this day” place the writer where the second pile could still be seen, a mark readers use in dating the book.
Joshua 4:8
“Laid them down there - i. e. in Gilgal Jos 4:20. Spoken of as the doers of this, because it was done by the twelve who acted for them.”
Kennicott proposed a one letter change to the Hebrew so that the verse would read from the middle of the Jordan, which would make this the Gilgal pile again. Clarke sets it aside for want of manuscript support. Wesley supposes these river stones were larger than a shoulder load and showed when the water ran low.
Joshua 4:9
“Another set of stones is intended than that before mentioned. The one set was erected by the command of God at the spot where they passed the night Jos 4:3; the other by Joshua on the spot where the priests’ feet rested while they bore up the ark during the passage of the people. This spot was near, or perhaps on, the eastern brink (compare Jos 3:8).”
All Israel passes over on dry ground
Joshua 4:10-11
The priests hold the middle of the channel until every word is done, while the people hurry across. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the haste as weakness beside the priests’ steadiness, and Clarke reads it as natural in a riverbed with the water piled upstream, the mark of an eyewitness. The phrase “just as Moses had directed Joshua” points to instruction beyond what Deuteronomy 3:28 and 31:7 preserve.
Joshua 4:10
“And the people hasted and passed over - How very natural is this circumstance! The people seeing the waters divided, and Jordan running back, might be apprehensive that it would soon resume its wonted course; and this would naturally lead them to hasten to get over, with as much speed as possible. The circumstance itself thus marked is a proof that the relater was an eyewitness of this miraculous passage.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 4:10
“The unfaltering confidence of the priests contrasts strikingly with the conduct of the people, who "hasted and passed over." Their faith, like that of many of God's people, was, through the weakness of nature, blended with fears.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The ark went in first and comes out last. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture the people standing on the far bank watching it come up. Barnes explains why verses 15 to 18 tell this exit a second time, with the Lord's order behind it.
Joshua 4:12-13
These tribes already hold land east of the river, and they cross first and armed under the bargain of Numbers 32:16-32, restated at 1:12-15. The muster of Numbers 26 puts Reuben, Gad and half Manasseh near a hundred and ten thousand, so the 40,000 are a portion, and Clarke reckons the rest stayed to guard the families. The men with nothing more to gain cross first.
Joshua 4:12
“The children of Reuben, and - Gad - Concerning the numbers of these tribes that stayed behind to take care of the women, children, and cattle, and which amounted to 70,580 men, see the note on Num 32:17. Passed over armed - See the note on Jos 1:14.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown both put the plain at about seven miles broad between the river and the hills. Barnes adds that palms covered much of it in Joshua's day, which is why Deuteronomy 34:3 calls Jericho the city of palm trees. Jericho stood on this plain.
Joshua 4:13
“About forty thousand prepared for war,.... Accoutred with proper armour to defend themselves, and their brethren, and annoy their enemies: this is to be understood of such a number of the above mentioned tribes; otherwise the number of all Israel that went over Jordan, even armed or fighting men, besides women and children, were five hundred thousand or more.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 4:13
“The plains of Jericho, consisting of the higher terrace of the Jordan valley, are almost seven miles broad. The mountains of Judaea here recede somewhat from the river, and leave a level and fertile space, which, at the time of Joshua’s invasion, was principally occupied by a forest of palms. Hence, the name “city of palms,” Deu 34:3.”
Joshua 4:14-15
The promise of 3:7 is reported done on the day it named. The comparison is exact, since Exodus 14:31 says after the sea that the people believed the LORD and His servant Moses, and the same is now said of Joshua after a river. The successor is confirmed by the same kind of act that confirmed the man he follows.
Joshua 4:14
“On that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel--It appeared clear from the chief part he acted, that he was the divinely appointed leader; for even the priests did not enter the river or quit their position, except at his command; and thenceforward his authority was as firmly established as that of his predecessor.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 4:14
Everyone who is under the law reveres Moses. But when one crosses over to the gospel from the law, by the changed observance the reverence is also changed. It is just as the apostle says, "For I through the law have died to the law so that I may live for God; I was crucified with Christ, but now I live; not I, but Christ lives in me."
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 5.4patristic
Verse 11 has already reported the priests coming out. Barnes explains the return to it as the writer's habit in these chapters of closing each section with the Lord's own order for it. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that the priests left the river only on Joshua's word, which bears out verse 14.
Joshua 4:15
“The passage of the priests to the further bank had been already referred to, Jos 4:11; but the writer, in observance of his general plan (compare introductory remarks to Josh. 3), re-introduces it here as the leading feature in the concluding section of his account, and (as before) with mention of God’s special direction about it. The statement that on the removal of the ark the waters of Jordan at once returned to their former level Jos 4:18, heightens the impression which is especially inculcated throughout - that the whole transaction was extraordinary and miraculous.”
Joshua 4:16-18
The chest is called “the ark of the Testimony” here and the ark of the covenant elsewhere in the book, the two names Exodus 25:16 and 25:22 give it and the law inside it. The water answers to the priests’ feet both ways, cut off at 3:15 and returned at verse 18. It comes back in flood, so Israel stands beyond a river no one among them could now recross.
Joshua 4:16
“Command the priests that bear the ark of the testimony,.... In all places before, in this history, the ark is called the ark of the covenant, here the ark of the testimony, which signifies the same thing, the law; which was both the covenant between God and the people, and a testimony of his will unto them; the Septuagint version has both words: that they come up out of Jordan; where they stayed until all the people passed over, for the encouragement of them, and until they received this order.”
Joshua passes on the order in the words he was given. Gill notes that come up fits the ground, since the way from the riverbed to the bank was a climb. Henry draws from the scene that those who wait with the ark should wait until God calls them out.
Joshua 4:17
“Joshua therefore commanded the priests,.... In obedience to the Lord, and sent them an order: saying; as follows: come ye up out of Jordan; from the midst of the river to the bank of it, which was properly an ascent.”
As before points back to 3:15, where the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest, and Barnes reads the sudden return of the water as the writer's closing proof that the crossing was a miracle. Henry draws a figure from it. When the ark leaves a place, its defence leaves too.
Joshua 4:18
“The waters of Jordan returned unto their place - It is particularly remarked by the sacred historian, that as soon as the soles of the priests’ feet touched the water, the stream of the Jordan was cut off, Jos 3:15, and the course of the river continued to be inverted all the time they continued in its channel; and that as soon as the soles of their feet had touched the dry land, on their return from the bed of the river, the waters immediately resumed their natural course.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Gilgal: a memorial built for the children's question
Joshua 4:19-20
the tenth day of the first: The date carries weight: the tenth day of the first month is the day Exodus 12:3 set for choosing the passover lamb, and Israel keeps the passover in the land at 5:10. Having left Egypt on the fifteenth, they enter forty years less five days after the exit. Gilgal is named before 5:9 explains the name, and the river stones are the first thing Israel builds in Canaan.
Joshua 4:19
“And the people came up out of Jordan,.... The channel of it, to the shore: on the tenth day of the first month; the month Nisan or Abib, which from the time of Israel's coming out of Egypt was appointed the first month of the year, Exo 12:2; on the fifteenth of which month they came out of Egypt, having kept the passover on the fourteenth at even; so that their coming out of Egypt, to their entrance into Canaan, was just forty years, wanting five days.”
2 more voices on this verse
Joshua 4:19
“And when do they come to the crossing of the Jordan? For I have noted that this also has been indicated, so that even the time might be distinguished, and with good reason. "On the tenth," it says, "of the first month." That is also the day on which the mystery of the lamb was prefigured in Egypt. On the tenth of the first month, these things were celebrated in Egypt; on the tenth of the first month, they go into the land of promise.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 4.4patristic
Joshua 4:19
“Gilgal, mentioned here by anticipation (compare Jos 5:9), the modern Jiljulieh (Conder), was on rising ground (compare Jos 5:3), and, according to Josephus, nearly five miles from the river, and consequently about two from the city itself. The site of the camp was no doubt fortified by Joshua, as it constituted for some time the abiding foothold in Canaan, from where he sallied forth to subdue the country. It was also the place of safety where the ark, and no doubt also the women, children, cattle, and other property of the people were left.”
Clarke lists what later happened at this spot: the circumcision of chapter 5, the first passover in the land, Joshua's fortified camp, and the proclamation of Saul as king. Barnes adds that the women, children and cattle stayed there while the army fought. The ark remained at Gilgal until it moved to Shiloh.
Joshua 4:20
“Those twelve stones - It is very likely that a base of mason-work was erected of some considerable height, and then the twelve stones placed on the top of it; and that this was the case both in Jordan and in Gilgal: for twelve such stones as a man could carry a considerable way on his shoulder, see Jos 4:5, could scarcely have made any observable altar, or pillar of memorial: but erected on a high base of mason-work they would be very conspicuous, and thus properly answer the end for which God ordered them to be set up.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joshua 4:21-24
The fathers’ answer ends at the Red Sea, so the stones teach one crossing by way of an older one. Verse 23 says the sea was dried “before us”, though the men who crossed it were dead by Numbers 26:64, so the nation is one body. Clarke reads “all the peoples of the earth” narrowly of that land, and others take it as wide as it sounds.
Joshua 4:21
“And he spoke unto the children of Israel, saying,.... At the same time he set up the stones: when you children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? See Gill on Jos 4:6.”
The answer opens with one short line a child can repeat. Gill reads the command as a duty to give children the whole history the stones stand for, including how the crossing was brought about. Clarke draws from it the duty of parents to teach their children religion early.
Joshua 4:22
“Then ye shall let your children know,.... The meaning of the erection of these stones, acquaint them with the whole history, the meaning of which they are designed to perpetuate: saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land; and if they should ask how that could possibly be done, or if they did not, they were to inform them by what means it was brought about, as follows.”
2 more voices on this verse
Joshua 4:22
“Then ye shall let your children know - The necessity of an early religious education is inculcated through the whole oracles of God. The parents who neglect it have an awful account to give to the Judge of quick and dead.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joshua 4:22
“They must let their children know that Jordan was driven back before Israel, who went through it upon dry land, and that this was the very place where they passed over.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua and Caleb had crossed the Red Sea as grown men. Wesley reads before us as Joshua speaking for himself and Caleb and for everyone present, since the younger ones were then in their fathers' loins. He adds that setting a later mercy beside an earlier one shows God to be the same in every age.
Joshua 4:23
“Before us - That is, myself and Caleb, and all of us here present; for this benefit, though done to their fathers, is justly said to be done to themselves, because they were then in their parent's loins. It greatly magnifies later mercies, to compare them with former mercies; for hereby it appears, that God is the same yesterday, today and forever.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The first of the two aims is met in the next verse, where the kings west of the Jordan hear of the crossing and lose heart. Henry reads the mighty hand as power over nature itself. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see the pile serving the nations and Israel's children alike.
Joshua 4:24
“That all the people of the earth might know - It is very likely that כל עמי הארץ col ammey haarets means simply, all the people of this land - all the Canaanitish nations, to whom, by the miracles wrought in behalf of his people, he intended to show his eternal power and Godhead, the excellence of his protection, and the unavailableness of human might against his omnipotence; and the miracles he wrought for this people, in the sight of the heathen, were well calculated to make these things known.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A memorial narrative attached to the crossing, with the reason for the monument given before the monument exists, as Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| What mean ye by these stones | Verse 6 gives the reason for the pile before the pile exists, that a child will ask and be told. The same shape is set down twice in the Torah, at Exodus 12:26 for the passover and Deuteronomy 6:20 for the statutes. In each the question comes from the child, and the answer is a piece of history rather than a rule. Verse 21 repeats the question and verses 22 to 24 write out the answer in full.Matthew Henry and John Gill, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 4:4-7. | Joshua 4:6, Joshua 4:21, Joshua 4:22 |
| Two piles of twelve stones | One pile is carried out to the lodging place and one is set up in the middle of the river where the priests stood. Albert Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read them as two separate monuments. Other writers take verse 9 as a fuller account of the same twelve stones, and the Hebrew carries either. The clause and they are there unto this day puts the writer at a time when the second pile could still be pointed at.Albert Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Notes on the Old Testament and Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 4:8-9. | Joshua 4:8, Joshua 4:9, Joshua 4:20 |
| The soles of the priests, down and up | The water answers to the feet of the priests in both directions. It is cut off when they touch it at 3:15 and it returns when they lift them at verse 18. The chest is called the ark of the testimony at verse 16 and the ark of the covenant everywhere else in the book, the two names Exodus 25:16 and 25:22 give the same object. The river comes back in flood, so Israel is left on a bank no man among them could now recross.John Gill and Adam Clarke, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Commentary on the Bible, 1832, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 4:16-18. | Joshua 3:15, Joshua 4:16, Joshua 4:18 |
The debated concept: one heap of stones or two
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
Verse 8 has the stones carried out to the lodging place. Verse 9 has Joshua setting up twelve stones in the middle of the river where the priests stood. Two readings are held, and the Hebrew carries either.
The first holds that these are two separate monuments. It is held by Albert Barnes and by Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, and its ground is the plain sense of the two verses, which name two places and two acts. The clause and they are there unto this day then belongs to the pile in the river, which could still be seen at low water.
The second holds that verse 9 is a fuller account of the same twelve stones. Its ground is that the chapter is arranged by topic rather than by clock, and that verse 8 and verse 9 report one set of stones twice. The strongest objection to it is that verse 9 names a different location in the same breath.
The site's published exposition of verses 8 and 9 states both readings and settles neither.
The dating of the book
The clause and they are there unto this day is one of the marks readers use when they date this book. The site's published dossier carries the same kind of notice at 6:25, that Rahab was living in Israel when the account was written, and at 15:63, that the Jebusites still hold Jerusalem. The first position on authorship treats those notices as marks of an early hand preserved. The second treats the phrase as the look back of a later editor. The chapter supplies the evidence and takes no side.
The New Testament's use
No apostle quotes this chapter. The reading the commentators make runs through the crossing rather than the stones. Albert Barnes sets the Jordan crossing beside 1 Corinthians 10:1 and 10:2, and the site's published exposition of 3:17 carries it.
What the chapter itself does with the past is the point worth following. The answer the fathers owe their children ends at the Red Sea, so the stones teach a crossing the children never saw by way of an older one their parents had not seen either. Verse 23 slips into the first person, which he dried up from before us, though the men who walked through the sea were dead by Numbers 26:64. The speaker counts the nation as one body across its generations.
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Studies1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 4:14-15; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 4:16-18 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 4:4-7.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.