And the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, on the eastern extremity of Jericho.
The crossing is over. Now come two details that look like plain bookkeeping: a date and a place name. Both carry weight. The date ties this day to the Passover, and Gilgal becomes the camp Israel keeps returning to.
For people who had come out of Egypt, this date carried a memory.
Verse 19 tells us the date of this event, the tenth day of the first month. Would they not remember this date? In Egypt they were told to take a young lamb on this day and keep it for four days until the Passover. (Ex. 12:2-3) This signified a new beginning for Israel. Now they face another new beginning — but in very different circumstances!
Scripture never says Israel came up out of the Red Sea. Of the Jordan, it says so plainly.
It is never stated that they came up out of the Red Sea. Historically, of course, we know they did. But recording it would have spoiled the picture, just as it would in Romans 6 to say we were risen with Christ. Later Scripture states it fully: the people came up out of the Jordan. There it needed to be said, but not before.
Twelve stones came out of the riverbed. What they stood for, and where they stood, both mattered.
They represented the twelve tribes, the people, snatched from death by the ark. The ark had stood in the very spot where deliverance was needed. It had held back the waters of Jordan so that Israel could pass over. The stones became a monument at the very entrance of Canaan, at Gilgal, a place the people had always to return to. From then on they were a sign always before their eyes and the eyes of their children.
Two and a half tribes had settled on the far side of the river. Fewer than twelve tribes were camped in Canaan. God still commanded twelve stones.
God did not order the stones split, nine and a half set in Canaan and two and a half on the wilderness side of the river, to match how much of the land Israel had actually taken. He commanded instead the number that spoke of the whole nation. Those stones stood where, in His purpose, undivided Israel inherited and encamped.
Israel's first camp sat on the edge of Jericho, the city they were about to fight.
Gilgal is their first camp in Canaan, where the stones are pitched; and to it after their battles they constantly return. It is their stronghold that no enemy can take, and their base of support. How could they not be strong as they remember that wonderful deliverance! God is for them: who can be against them? Who can force them back into the flood He has so wonderfully brought them through?
Israel reached this camp on the day the lamb was set apart, with the Passover four days ahead. Before that meal, and before any battle, something had to happen in the camp itself.
If Israel are about to bring the sword against the Canaanites, they must first take the sharp knife to themselves. They had never been circumcised in the wilderness. The reproach of Egypt had never been rolled away from them. Before they could keep the Passover and eat the old grain of the land of Canaan, they must have the sentence of death written on them. No doubt this was anything but pleasant to nature, but it had to be done.
That is why Gilgal mattered long after the crossing.
Gilgal, therefore, stands for the judgment of self. This is the place of our strength and power. Israel had always to return to Gilgal; when they did not they were defeated. Defeat, failure in our walk, always drives us back to self-judgment and humiliation. Victory and blessing may keep us from it; and that is our real spiritual danger.
- Date. On this date in Egypt, Israel set apart the Passover lamb. The same date now marks a fresh beginning in the land.
- Entry. Scripture says Israel came up out of the Jordan. It never says that of the Red Sea. This crossing is not only escape, but entry.
- Stones. Twelve stones stand at the entrance of Canaan — one for every tribe, including those settled across the river. They testify to God's purpose for the whole nation.
- Camp. Gilgal sits on the edge of Jericho — the first camp is also the base of support they return to after every battle.
- Return. At Gilgal Israel took the sharp knife to themselves before taking the sword to Canaan. When they stopped returning there, they were defeated.
And those twelve stones which they had taken out of the Jordan did Joshua set up in Gilgal.
Israel has crossed the Jordan and camps for its first night in the land. Joshua's first act there is to set up twelve stones carried out of the riverbed — so why stones, why twelve, and why at Gilgal?
One writer sets out everything the pile announced at once.
These stones proclaimed certain realities. They were taken from the dry bed of the river, so they declared God's power in cutting off the waters before the ark of His covenant. There were twelve of them, one stone for each tribe, so they declared that all Israel had entered Canaan. They stood together in Canaan, so they witnessed to Israel's unity in that land. Moreover, they became a memorial to the nation of what the Lord had done for them.
The number twelve was not a count of who had arrived.
God did not order nine and a half stones for Canaan and two and a half for the wilderness side of the river. He did not match the stones to how much land Israel had taken. He commanded the number that spoke of the whole nation to stand where, in His purpose, undivided Israel inherited and encamped. His will was that the stones should testify to His purposes for all His people Israel.
The place mattered as much as the stones themselves.
They were to be a memorial to the children of Israel, laid in the place where the people spent their first night in the land of Canaan. That place was Gilgal. They stood for the twelve tribes, the people snatched from death by the ark. The ark had stood in the very spot where deliverance was needed, and it had held back the waters of the Jordan so that Israel could pass over. The stones became a monument at the very entrance of Canaan, at Gilgal. The people always had to come back to that place. From then on the stones were a sign always before their eyes and their children's eyes.
One writer sets the two piles of stones beside two truths in Colossians.
In Colossians 2 and 3 we have what clearly matches the two sides of this picture of the Jordan. "If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world…" This answers to the middle of the Jordan. There the waters of death normally rolled, hiding from sight everything beneath them. Then at the start of chapter 3 we have, "If then you have been raised with Christ." This answers to the stones taken up out of the water and placed on the other side. "Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." Note the point: the memorial was not a single stone, but twelve, both in the river and on the farther side.
after-note: DISCUSS not needed
Being raised is not the end of the lesson. One writer hears a command in the stones standing at Gilgal.
The stones brought up from the bottom of the Jordan stood in Gilgal. They said, "You are risen, so put to death what belongs to the flesh."
The stones did not do the work. They pointed back to a work already finished.
They remained as the eternal witness of a finished work, just as the Lord's Supper speaks to us… God would always keep alive in my memory how He has brought me into blessing and association with His Son.
Joshua expected children to ask about the pile. One writer explains why that mattered so much.
Why insist on this? Because it is natural for us to forget even such great miracles of God's power and to slip into a careless, casual condition. The children had not seen this great miracle. Hearing about it would not impress them much unless their parents showed a great appreciation of this work of God. What is more, this was meant to affect all the peoples of the earth, as well as instilling the fear of God in all Israel.
- Taken — the stones came from the dry riverbed where the ark had stood, so they carried proof of God's power.
- Twelve — one stone for each tribe, though only nine and a half tribes settled west of the river. The count spoke of God's purpose for the whole people, not of what they had taken so far.
- Pitched — Joshua set them at Gilgal, Israel's first camp in the land. The people kept coming back there, so the memorial stayed in view.
- Paired — stones left in the river speak of dying with Christ. Stones carried out speak of being raised with Him, and rising with Him brings the call to put the flesh to death.
- Passed on — memory fades, so Joshua built the pile to make children ask, to hold Israel in the fear of God, and to reach all the peoples of the earth.