Joshua 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

After Israel crosses the Jordan, the LORD tells Joshua to have one man from each of the twelve tribes carry a stone from the middle of the riverbed, so the stones can serve later as a sign that children will ask about. Joshua also sets up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan where the priests stood. The armed men of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh cross ahead of the rest, and when the priests carrying the ark come up out of the river, the water returns and overflows its banks. The people camp at Gilgal, where Joshua sets up the stones and explains what they mean.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • All the nation finished crossing the Jordan.
   • The LORD spoke to Joshua after the crossing was complete.
2. 4:2
   • The LORD told Joshua to take twelve men from the people.
   • The LORD said the twelve men were to be one man from each tribe.
3. 4:3
   • The LORD told Joshua to command the twelve men.
   • The command was to take twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan.
   • The stones were to be taken from the place where the priests' feet stood firm.
   • The men were to carry the stones over with them.
   • The men were to set the stones down in the lodging place where they would spend that night.
4. 4:4
   • Joshua called the twelve men.
   • Joshua had appointed those twelve men from the children of Israel.
   • The twelve men were one man from each tribe.
5. 4:5
   • Joshua spoke to the twelve men.
   • Joshua told them to pass over before the ark of the LORD their God into the middle of the Jordan.
   • Joshua told each man to lift one stone onto his shoulder.
   • The number of stones was to match the number of the tribes of the children of Israel.
6. 4:6
   • The purpose of the stones was to be a sign among the people.
   • Joshua said that in time to come the children of Israel's children would ask their fathers about the stones.
   • The question the children would ask is what the stones mean to them.
7. 4:7
   • Joshua said the fathers were to answer their children.
   • The answer was that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD.
   • The answer was that when the ark passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.
   • These stones were to be a memorial to the children of Israel forever.
8. 4:8
   • The children of Israel did as Joshua commanded.
   • They took up twelve stones out of the middle of the Jordan.
   • They did this as the LORD had spoken to Joshua.
   • The number of stones matched the number of the tribes of the children of Israel.
   • They carried the stones over with them to the lodging place.
   • They laid the stones down there.
9. 4:9
   • Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan.
   • He set them in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant had stood.
   • Those stones are there to this day.
10. 4:10
    • The priests who bore the ark stood in the middle of the Jordan.
    • The priests stood there until everything was finished that the LORD had commanded Joshua to speak to the people.
    • This was according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.
    • The people hurried and passed over.
11. 4:11
    • All the people finished crossing over.
    • Then the ark of the LORD passed over.
    • The priests passed over as well.
    • The ark and the priests crossed in front of the people; whether this means ahead of them or in their sight is not specified.
12. 4:12
    • The children of Reuben passed over.
    • The children of Gad passed over.
    • The half tribe of Manasseh passed over.
    • They passed over armed for battle.
    • They passed over ahead of the children of Israel.
    • They did this as Moses had spoken to them.
13. 4:13
    • About forty thousand men equipped for war passed over.
    • They passed over before the LORD to battle.
    • They passed over to the plains of Jericho.
14. 4:14
    • On that day the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel.
    • The people feared Joshua as they had feared Moses.
    • They feared him all the days of his life.
15. 4:15
    • The LORD spoke to Joshua.
16. 4:16
    • The LORD told Joshua to command the priests who bear the ark of the testimony.
    • The command was that the priests come up out of the Jordan.
17. 4:17
    • Joshua commanded the priests.
    • Joshua told the priests to come up out of the Jordan.
18. 4:18
    • The priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD came up out of the middle of the Jordan.
    • The soles of the priests' feet were drawn up onto the dry ground.
    • The waters of the Jordan returned to their place.
    • The waters went over all the Jordan's banks as they had before.
19. 4:19
    • The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month.
    • The people encamped in Gilgal.
    • Gilgal was on the eastern border of Jericho.
20. 4:20
    • Joshua set up in Gilgal the twelve stones that had been taken out of the Jordan.
21. 4:21
    • Joshua spoke to the children of Israel.
    • Joshua said that in time to come their children would ask their fathers about the stones.
    • The question the children would ask is what these stones mean.
22. 4:22
    • Joshua said the fathers were to make their children know.
    • What they were to say is that Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.
23. 4:23
    • The LORD their God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before them.
    • The waters stayed dried up until they had passed over.
    • The LORD their God had done the same to the Red Sea, also called the Sea of Reeds.
    • The LORD dried up that sea from before them.
    • That sea stayed dried up until they had gone over.
24. 4:24
    • The purpose was that all the peoples of the earth might know the hand of the LORD.
    • The purpose was that they might know that the hand of the LORD is mighty.
    • The purpose was that Israel might fear the LORD their God forever.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

"Clean passed over" in the King James does not mean washed or ritually clean. "Clean" here is the old adverb meaning completely or entirely, the whole nation had finished crossing.

4:2

Israel was reckoned as twelve tribes, each descended from one of the twelve sons of Jacob (also called Israel). One man and one stone per tribe makes the monument stand for the whole nation.

4:3

The Jordan is a narrow river running down a deep valley; "the midst of Jordan" means the riverbed itself, which was dry while the water was held back. The "lodging place" is simply the camp where they would spend that night.

4:5

The ark was a gold-covered wooden chest, carried on poles by priests, containing the stone tablets of the law. It traveled at the head of Israel's movements and stood for God's presence with them. "Pass over before the ark" can mean either to go ahead of it or to pass in front of it; the Hebrew allows both.

4:6

Setting up stones as a public marker was ordinary practice in the ancient Near East, to record a treaty, a boundary, or an event. The stones themselves carried no writing; the explanation was passed on by word of mouth, parent to child, which is why the verse anticipates the children's question.

4:7

A covenant is a binding, formal agreement, closer to a treaty than to a promise. The covenant meant here is the one made at Mount Sinai between God and Israel; the ark held the stone tablets on which its terms were written, which is why it is called the ark of the covenant.

4:9

"Unto this day" is the writer's own time, generations after the event, a standing note that the monument could still be seen. The verse is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew: it may describe a second set of twelve stones left in the riverbed, or it may be restating that Joshua had the twelve stones set up after they were lifted out of it.

4:10

Moses was the leader of Israel before Joshua. He led the people out of Egypt.

4:12

Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh had already been given land on the east side of the Jordan, so they had nothing to gain from the crossing. Their agreement with Moses was that their fighting men would cross over armed and fight alongside the other tribes until those tribes had won their own land, only then returning home.

4:13

The figure covers only the armed men of the two and a half eastern tribes, not all Israel. The Hebrew word translated "thousand" (eleph) can also mean a clan or a military unit of unspecified size, so the actual number is uncertain.

4:14

"They feared him" in the King James does not mean they were frightened of Joshua. The Hebrew word covers respect and awe toward someone in authority, the same word used of Moses in the same sentence.

4:16

"The ark of the testimony" is another name for the same chest. The "testimony" is the stone tablets inside it, which stood as the documentary evidence of the agreement between God and Israel.

4:18

"All his banks" is simply old English for "all its banks." The detail matters: the Jordan floods in spring, at harvest time, so the river was at its widest and fastest when Israel crossed and when it refilled.

4:19

The first month is Abib, later called Nisan, falling in March or April. The tenth day places the camp at Gilgal four days before Passover, kept on the fourteenth. Gilgal was a site in the Jordan valley near Jericho; its exact location is unknown today.

4:20

"Pitch" in the King James means to plant or set upright, as one pitches a tent peg, not to throw.

4:23

The Red Sea crossing was the escape from Egypt under Moses, forty years earlier. The Hebrew name, yam suph, means "sea of reeds," and which body of water it refers to is disputed. Notice the shift from "you" to "us": the generation being addressed had not been born, but Joshua speaks of it as something done for the nation as a whole.

4:24

"The hand of the LORD" is a standard Hebrew idiom for power in action, not a statement about God having a body. "Fear the LORD" here again means reverence rather than terror.