Joshua 4:19-24·~1 min

The Camp at Gilgal

Israel comes up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month and camps at Gilgal near Jericho. There Joshua sets up the twelve stones taken from the river.

O¹⁹n the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. ²⁰And there at Gilgal Joshua set up the twelve stones they had taken from the Jordan.

Joshua explains that when children ask about the stones, Israel is to tell them the LORD brought them across the Jordan on dry ground, as He did at the Red Sea. The act is meant both to declare the LORD’s mighty hand to all peoples and to keep Israel in enduring fear of Him.

²¹Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future, when your children ask their fathers, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’ ²²you are to tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ ²³For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, just as He did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over. ²⁴He did this so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, and so that you may always fear the LORD your God.”

Section summaryIsrael camps at Gilgal after coming up from the Jordan, and Joshua sets up the twelve stones there. He tells the people that the stones will teach future generations that Israel crossed on dry ground, just as at the Red Sea, so the nations may know the LORD’s mighty hand and Israel may fear Him always.

Role in the chapterThis section places the memorial in Israel’s first camp within the land and gives its final meaning. It widens the crossing from Israel’s memory to the witness it bears before future children and the peoples of the earth.