Joshua 4:3

3 and command them: ‘Take up for yourselves twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan where the priests were standing, carry them with you, and set them down in the place where you spend the night.’”

Joshua 4:3 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 4:3

And command you them, saying
As follows:

take you hence out of the midst of Jordan;
so that they were obliged to go back into the midst of Jordan, having already passed over it, as appears from ( Joshua 4:1 ) ;

out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm;
where being stones, they chose to stand upon them, and which were a firm standing for them; and which secured them from the slime and mud at the bottom of the river the waters left behind; though it is not absolutely necessary to understand it that they were to take, and did take, the stones from under their feet, but those that lay about the place where they stood:

twelve stones;
each man a stone; and, according to the Samaritan Chronicle ^F6, every man inscribed his name on the stone:

and ye shall carry them over with you;
from the place they took them up, to the place they should next stop at:

and leave them in the lodging place where you shall lodge this night:
which was in the place afterwards called Gilgal, ( Joshua 4:19 Joshua 4:20 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 Apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. p. 500, 503.

Joshua 4:3 In-Context

1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua,

2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe,

3 and command them: ‘Take up for yourselves twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan where the priests were standing, carry them with you, and set them down in the place where you spend the night.’”

4 So Joshua summoned the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,

5 and said to them, “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of Israel,