Joshua 4:19

“And the people came up out of Jordan” closes the account of the crossing told in Joshua 3 and Joshua 4. The waters had been cut off, the priests had stood with the ark in the riverbed, and the whole nation had passed through. The verb ʻâlâh is the plain word for going up or ascending, and here it pictures the people climbing out of the riverbed onto the land God had promised them.

They “encamped in Gilgal”. The verb chânâh means to pitch a tent or encamp. After forty years of moving from camp to camp in the wilderness, Israel now pitches its tents inside the land itself, at the start of the inheritance God had sworn to give.

At the LORD’s command one man from each tribe had taken up a stone from the place in the riverbed where the priests stood (Joshua 4:1–3), while the ground was still dry (Joshua 3:17). Verse 20 tells us that Joshua now set those stones up at Gilgal. The word for stone, ʼeben, is the ordinary word, and these were ordinary stones. Their origin and their purpose made them a witness: they came from the bottom of a river that God had dried up.

Hebrew writes “twelve” as two words, shᵉnayim (“two”) and ʻâsâr (the “-teen” of the numbers eleven to nineteen). There were twelve stones because there were twelve tribes. Every tribe had a share in the memorial, and the whole nation stood behind its witness.

“Did Joshua pitch” translates qûwm, “to rise”. In this form it means to raise, erect or set up, so Joshua stood the stones up where everyone could see them. As the leader God had appointed, he carried out God’s command himself.

People had set up stones to mark great events since the days of the patriarchs, as when Jacob set up a pillar at Bethel, a heap of witness was raised at Galeed, and Abram built an altar to the LORD who appeared to him. This memorial was commanded by the LORD, and it points to his power and his faithfulness to his covenant. Its purpose had already been given in Joshua 4:6–7: the stones were to be a sign among the people, a memorial to the children of Israel for ever.

Joshua speaks “unto the children of Israel” about “your children”, and the same word, bên (“son”), stands behind both. Strong’s describes a son as the builder of the family name, and the word reaches out to descendants and the whole people. The nation Joshua addresses and the children still to come are one family under God.

Those children “shall ask their fathers in time to come”. The verb shâʼal means to ask, inquire or request, and it pictures children who see the stones and want to know why they are there. The question goes to the fathers, who carry the first duty of passing on what God has done. The stones were placed so that the question would come, and the question opens the way for the whole story to be told. The same question had first been given in Joshua 4:6.

God had built the same pattern into the Passover. When children asked, “What mean ye by this service?”, their parents were to explain the LORD’s Passover (Exodus 12:26–27). The yearly feast of Exodus 12 kept the Exodus before every generation, and the stones at Gilgal did the same for the Jordan. Moses had told Israel to keep God’s words in their hearts and teach them diligently to their children, talking of them at home and on the road (Deuteronomy 6:6–7, Deuteronomy 11:19), and to remember all the way the LORD had led them (Deuteronomy 8:2). A psalm sings of telling the generation to come the praises of the LORD and his wonderful works, so that they might set their hope in God (Psalm 78:3–7).

The answer is short: “Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.” The command “ye shall let your children know” is the causative form of yâdaʻ, “to know”, so the fathers are to make their children know. Strong’s gives its proper sense as to ascertain by seeing, and the word reaches to knowledge that is understood and owned, the kind that grows into faith. The fathers were to teach with care and purpose, so that the children would grasp what the crossing meant for who they were.

“Dry land” is yabbâshâh, “dry ground”, from the verb yâbêsh, “to dry up”. The account of the Red Sea speaks of the same kind of path, where the waters were divided and Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22). The Jordan was in flood at harvest time, yet the waters coming down stood in a heap far upstream, and the priests stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the riverbed until all the people had passed over (Joshua 3:13–17). The detail of dry land is the heart of the testimony: God made a way where there was none.

“Came over” in this verse, “passed over” and “gone over” in the next are all the same verb, ʻâbar, “to cross over”. The crossing was also a sign that God was with Joshua. Before it began, the LORD said that on that day he would begin to magnify Joshua in the sight of all Israel, so that they would know that as he was with Moses, so he would be with him (Joshua 3:7).

Verse 23 gives the reason behind the answer. “The LORD your God” comes twice in this verse, and both times it names Yᵉhôvâh, the personal, covenant name of God, which Strong’s explains as the self-Existent or Eternal. The God who keeps covenant with Israel did both works. “Dried up” also comes twice, once for the Jordan and once for the Red Sea, and it is yâbêsh, to dry up or wither, a verb that can also mean to become weak or be ashamed.

“The Red sea” is yâm çûwph. Yâm is the word for a sea or a large body of water (Strong’s links its root, “to roar”, to the noise of the surf), and çûwph means a reed or papyrus, so the name is literally “sea of reeds”. Naming it takes Israel straight back to the greatest deliverance in its memory (Exodus 14). The Jordan was the second time God had parted waters for his people. Asaph remembers the first in song: the waters saw God and were afraid, and his way was in the sea (Psalm 77:16–20). Isaiah calls the LORD the one who makes a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters (Isaiah 43:16–19).

The verse moves from “you” to “us”. The Jordan was dried up “from before you”, the generation that had just crossed, and the Red Sea “from before us”, the people who came out of Egypt. Israel across the generations is one people, and the God of the fathers is still their God. He dealt with the new generation exactly as he dealt with the old.

Verse 24 gives God’s purpose in two parts. The first reaches outward: “That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty.” The second turns to his own people: “that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever.” The verb “know” is yâdaʻ, the same verb as “let your children know” in verse 22. Israel’s children are to know what God did, and the whole earth is to know who did it.

Joshua’s name, Yᵉhôwshûwaʻ, means “Jehovah-saved”, and it is the Hebrew form of the name Jesus. Joshua led God’s people across the Jordan into the land of rest, and Jesus leads his people into the true rest. He calls the weary to come to him (Matthew 11:28–30), and there remains a rest for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9–11). Jesus himself was baptized in the Jordan at the start of his public ministry.

The crossing, like the Red Sea before it, is a picture of baptism, a break with the old life and a rising into a new one. Paul says that we are buried with Christ by baptism into death and raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4, Colossians 2:12). The date of verse 19 points to Christ as well, for the Passover week finds its meaning in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God so loved the world that he gave his Son (John 3:16). Jesus is the way through the barrier of sin and death (John 14:6), and by his blood we enter the holiest by a new and living way (Hebrews 10:19–20), for he entered once into the holy place with his own blood and obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–12).

Gilgal’s rolling away of reproach has its fulfilment in the forgiveness of all our trespasses, the handwriting against us nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:13–14), and in the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit (Romans 2:29). Whoever is in Christ is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). The land Israel entered pictures the inheritance we have in Christ (Ephesians 1:11–14), where God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3) and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14). Just as the ark went before Israel into the river, Christ goes before his people through the waters of sin and death, and the Holy Spirit seals us as the earnest of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13–14).

God’s mighty hand is shown most fully in Christ, who spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them at the cross (Colossians 2:13–15). He who has seen Jesus has seen the Father (John 14:9), and grace and truth came by him (John 1:17), so the call to fear the LORD for ever becomes a call to worship and obey the Son. The church has its own memorials of that greater crossing. In baptism and in the Lord’s Supper we show the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26), and believers themselves are called lively stones, built up into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5), bearing witness to what God has done in Christ as the stones at Gilgal bore witness to the Jordan.

The stones at Gilgal tell us that God acts in history, at a set place and on a dated day, and that he wants his acts remembered. He gave Israel a memorial to stand in front of their children, a question to expect, and an answer to give. The answer pointed away from Israel’s own strength to the LORD who dried up the river.

The God who parted the Red Sea for one generation parted the Jordan for the next, and his faithfulness across those generations still stands. His hand is mighty enough to make a way where there is none, and he means the whole earth to know it. When a child asks what our faith means, this passage gives the shape of the reply: tell what the LORD has done, so that those who come after us may know his hand and fear him for ever.