Now I need to acknowledge that there’s a bit of a technical problem at this point. It’s perfectly evident from any reading of this chapter that the twelve men chosen by the people were to each lift up a stone from the Jordan, carry it up, and then place it upon the bank. These were then arranged into a memorial. This was a mark of their camp at Gilgal to which they often returned. There’s no question about that. This technical difficulty that I refer to comes from the fact that in the original version of verse 9, the text literally says, “Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood.” This has led many commentators to suppose that there were two memorials. There was a memorial composed of stones that were taken out of the Jordan and set up upon the bank. And there was a second memorial of stones that were taken from the bank and set up in the middle of the Jordan. So that raises the question of whether there was one memorial or two.
Let me say that it’s perfectly possible that there were two. But I must say that as I have studied this, it strikes me the English translations are correct when they assume that the past tense is presupposed. This is not altogether uncommon in Greek and Hebrew writing. And if that is the case, then the text really is saying that Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests had stood. I think there are several reasons for preferring that. For one thing, when you read the commands of God concerning this memorial, the commands are for one memorial, not two. Some have suggested that perhaps Joshua made another memorial. That is possible, but I don’t think Joshua would do that. Joshua was a man committed to obeying God commands precisely. Indeed, that’s the way God had talked to him originally. God had said that if Joshua was to be blessed, he was to obey the law of the Lord and not depart from it, either to the right hand had or to the left. And I think it was in Joshua’s character to carry out exactly what God said.
Secondly, there is a natural sequence here if verse 9 is referring to the same memorial. Verse 8 tells us that the men who had been appointed by the Israelites picked up the stones, carried them up to the bank, and put them down. Then we’re told in verse 9 what happened to them. We’re told that Joshua—not the man who had carried the stones, but Joshua—arranged those stones into a memorial. And it’s this memorial that is referred to when it says, “And the stones were there to this day.” I notice also that at the very end of the chapter, when it begins to talk about the stones again, it doesn’t refer even there to the two sets of stones; it refers rather, in verse 20, to the stones that were set up at Gilgal. So, in my judgment we’re talking about one memorial. It was there in the Jewish camp at Gilgal, their base of operations during the years of the conquest, to which they frequently returned. That memorial was to bear testimony of God’s blessing to the people as He led them across the Jordan.
