Commentaria in Josue
Chapter 4
Josue commands twelve stones to be set up, both within and without the Jordan, as a perpetual memorial of the crossing.
1. And when they were passed over, the Lord said to Josue: 2. Choose twelve men, one of every tribe: 3. And command them to take out of the midst of the channel of the Jordan, where the feet of the priests stood, twelve very hard stones: which you shall set in the place of the camp, where you shall pitch your tents this night. 4. And Josue called twelve men, whom he had chosen out of the children of Israel, one of every tribe, 5. And he said to them: Go before the ark of the Lord your God to the Jordan, and carry from thence every man a stone on your shoulders, according to the number of the children of Israel,
6. That it may be a sign among you: and when your children shall ask you tomorrow, saying: What mean these stones? 7. You shall answer them: The waters of the Jordan ran off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord when it passed over it: therefore were these stones set for a monument of the children of Israel for ever. 8. The children of Israel did as Josue commanded them, carrying out of the midst of the channel of the Jordan twelve stones, as the Lord had commanded him, according to the number of the children of Israel, unto the place wherein they camped, and there they set them. 9. And Josue put other twelve stones in the midst of the channel of the Jordan, where the priests stood that carried the ark of the covenant: and they are there until this present day. 10. Now the priests that carried the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan, till all things were accomplished, which Josue had commanded the people to be said to them, and Moses had said to him. And the people hasted and passed over. 11. And when all had passed over, the ark of the Lord also passed over, and the priests went before the people. 12. The children of Ruben and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasses, went armed before the children of Israel, as Moses had commanded them. 13. And forty thousand fighting men by their troops and bands, walked through the plains and champaign countries of the city of Jericho. 14. In that day the Lord magnified Josue before all Israel, that they might fear him, as they had feared Moses, while he lived. 15. And he said to him: 16. Command the priests that carry the ark of the covenant to come up out of the Jordan. 17. And he commanded them, saying: Come up out of the Jordan. 18. And when they that carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord were come up, and began to tread on the dry ground, the waters returned into the channel, and ran as they were wont before. 19. And the people came up out of the Jordan, the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Galgal, at the east side of the city of Jericho. 20. And the twelve stones, which they had taken out of the bed of the Jordan, Josue pitched in Galgal, 21. And said to the children of Israel: When your children shall ask their fathers to morrow, and shall say to them: What mean these stones? 22. You shall teach them, and say: Through the dry channel the Israelites passed over this Jordan, 23. The Lord your God drying up its waters in your sight, until you passed over: 24. As he had done before in the Red Sea, which he dried up till we passed through: 25. That all the people of the earth may learn the most mighty hand of the Lord, that you also may fear the Lord your God for ever.
3. COMMAND THEM TO TAKE OUT OF THE MIDST OF THE CHANNEL OF THE JORDAN, WHERE THE FEET OF THE PRIESTS STOOD,—not precisely from the place of the feet, but from a neighbouring place. For in verse 5 they say: “Go before the ark, etc., and carry from thence every man a stone,” namely twelve, to signify that the twelve tribes of Israel crossed the dry Jordan beside them. The Hebrews add hachen, that is, establishing, or with fixed and firm feet, as I said in chapter iii, last verse. The Septuagint refer hachen to the stones. Hence they render walls, namely very hard ones, which last for many ages, as our Vulgate translated.
WHICH YOU SHALL SET IN THE PLACE OF THE CAMP,—at Galgal.
6. THAT IT MAY BE A SIGN,—and a trophy of the Jordan, as it were conquered and vanquished by you, and thence of the whole of Chanaan, namely that the twelve tribes under God’s leadership miraculously overcame this river, and thence the whole promised land; secondly, that it may be a sign that the same tribes have been enrolled by God as citizens and inhabitants, and so heirs of the same land; the third reason he gives in verse 24: “That all the people of the earth may learn the most mighty hand of God.” The fourth in the same place: “That you also may fear the Lord your God for ever,” and may teach your posterity to fear, love and worship God, who by so great a prodigy brought you into this land, and having brought you in will preserve you, as long as you persevere in his faith and worship; but if you fall away from it, he will expel you, as he expelled them through the Babylonians, and then through Titus and the Romans. Learn here how rigidly God demands remembrance of his benefits, and rewards the grateful with them, but deprives and punishes the ungrateful.
TOMORROW,—that is, hereafter, in future ages. For the Hebrews by tomorrow signify future time, as by yesterday and the day before yesterday the past. It is a synecdoche and catachresis.
9. AND JOSUE PUT OTHER TWELVE STONES IN THE MIDST OF THE CHANNEL OF THE JORDAN.—Hence it is clear that these stones were not set on the farther bank of the Jordan, as Masius contends, but in the middle of the Jordan. For so our Vulgate and the Septuagint constantly render. They were set, moreover, for the same reasons as the former outside the Jordan at Galgal, that is, that the glory of God and the truth of the deed might be attested through all ages, and these stones, constantly striking the eyes of the Hebrews, might continually represent to their minds the beneficence, omnipotence, fear and reverence of God. They seem to have been set by God’s, if not command, like the former at Galgal, at least instinct, although Scripture does not express it. These stones, however, could be a monument, and be seen and noted by those standing on the bank, especially when the waters decreased, because they were large stones, and the waters of the Jordan are reported to be very pure and exceedingly clear, say Abulensis and Arias. Finally, these stones do not seem to have been placed precisely in the middle of the Jordan: for there they could hardly have been seen, but toward the bank, where they could be seen. For “in the midst” is the same as “toward the midst,” near the midst, not far from the midst.
St. John the Baptist seems to have alluded to these stones, saying, Matthew iii, 9: “God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” For John was baptizing at Bethabara, where the Hebrews had crossed the Jordan. For these stones were a figure of the Gentiles, in the waves of ignorance of God and of errors; but at last to be raised up from the depth of vices and the bed to the Church and the glory of the sons of God, by John and Christ through baptism. So Rupert, Abulensis, Magalianus here, and Remigius, Anselm and others on Matthew chapter iii, and Pineda on Job i, verse 14, number 38.
Finally Cajetan thinks that these twelve stones were heaped together into one pile. More probably Abulensis, Serarius and Magalianus think that they were set up singly and separately, as Scripture here hints, and that to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, which had crossed dry-foot through the bed of the Jordan.
Moreover God ordered this monument of the divided Jordan to be set up, because it was an admirable and divine work. Historians celebrate the division of the Euphrates, which first Semiramis made; secondly, Cyrus; thirdly, Alexander the Great. For Cyrus took Babylon by diverting the Euphrates, which flows through it, into very many ditches, and sending soldiers into the city through the dry bed of the Euphrates, as Herodotus, book iii, and Xenophon, book vii, testify. But for how many months was labour spent in digging these ditches? at what expense? by how many thousands of men? Josue, however, by merely bringing the ark of the covenant into the Jordan, at once divided and dried it, and through it led across in a few hours three million men, with as many thousands of flocks of sheep, oxen, asses, camels, horses, chariots, etc., and the same day proceeded with all to Galgal, which place is distant from the Jordan fifty stadia, as Josephus testifies, book v Antiquities, that is six Italian miles, that is six thousand paces, and two hundred and fifty paces besides.