Stones for Remembering

KEY VERSE: “When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall let your children know.” —Joshua 4:21,22

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Joshua 4:1-3, 8, 15-24

THE stones were set up as a memorial to mark a remarkable occasion in Israel’s history, perhaps the most outstanding since their Red Sea experience forty years earlier.

Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, finally was ready to enter into the land of Canaan. The returning spies had reported to Joshua what they had learned, emphasizing the great fear of the people—which meant to them that they could easily be conquered. Evidently Joshua reached the same conclusion, for he at once began to move the people into position for the momentous crossing of the river, which at this time of the year, was at flood stage and very difficult and dangerous to cross.

Under the circumstances it took considerable faith in the providences of God to follow his unusual directions. They were to follow the Ark of the Covenant, carried on the shoulders of the priests, and were told that when the feet of the priests touched the water, “the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.” (Josh. 4:13) Verse 16 explains that this backing up of the waters took place “very far from the city of Adam, that is beside Zaretan.” This indicates the water did not pile up as a perpendicular wall near the place where the priests touched it with their feet, but that the stoppage occurred at a point considerably upstream. The Hebrew word translated “heap,” literally means ‘a piling up’. Today we would say the water backed up, which is what would have to occur to allow the water below to drain from the riverbed. What caused the stoppage just at the right time the Bible does not say. To us it was a miracle, and faith accepts it without further explanation.

By this miracle Joshua’s faith was rewarded, and the people’s faith and confidence in him as the Lord’s representative in their midst must have been greatly increased. The priests carrying the Ark, when reaching the center of the riverbed, stood there until all the Israelites had crossed over. The Lord instructed them to take twelve stones from where they stood and leave them where they lodged the first night in the Promised Land.

These were to be an evidence to later generations of Israelites of the miraculous manner in which the nation was brought over Jordan. Joshua also took twelve stones and placed them in the riverbed where the priests stood, “and they are there unto this day.”—vs. 9

What a beautiful picture the Lord has provided of how the world will be brought into its land of promise—the Millennial Age—under the leadership of Jesus and his church, represented by the priests carrying the Ark. The sentence of death will be rolled back through the redemption provided by Jesus. The priesthood of that day will hold high before all the people God’s New Covenant provisions for life, and the world will pass out from under their present Adamic judgment and experience of desert wandering into a new-found homeland, promising life and happiness.

What a stupendous event this will be—indeed one that mankind will want to memorialize, remember, and speak about throughout the ages to come!

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