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Joshua 4

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1 And it came to pass when the whole nation had completely gone over the Jordan, that Jehovah spoke to Joshua, saying,

2 Take you twelve men out of the people, one man out of every tribe,

3 and command them, saying, Take up hence out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and carry them over with you, and lay them down in the lodging-place where ye shall lodge this night.

4 And Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had appointed of the children of Israel, a man out of every tribe;

5 and Joshua said to them, Pass before the ark of Jehovah your God into the midst of the Jordan, and lift up each of you a stone [and put it] upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel,

6 that this may be a sign in your midst. When your children ask hereafter, saying, What mean ye by these stones?

7 then ye shall say to them, That the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah; when it went through the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.

8 And the children of Israel did so, as Joshua had commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, as Jehovah had spoken to Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel; and they carried them over with them to the lodging-place, and laid them down there.

9 And twelve stones did Joshua set up in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant had stood firm; and they are there to this day.

10 And the priests who bore the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan, until everything was finished that Jehovah had commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. And the people hasted and passed over.

11 And it came to pass, when all the people had completely gone over, that the ark of Jehovah went over, and the priests, in the presence of the people.

12 And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, went over in array before the children of Israel, as Moses had spoken to them.

13 About forty thousand armed for military service passed over before Jehovah to the war, unto the plains of Jericho.

14 On that day Jehovah magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they had feared Moses, all the days of his life.

15 And Jehovah spoke to Joshua, saying,

16 Command the priests who bear the ark of the testimony, that they come up out of the Jordan.

17 And Joshua commanded the priests, saying, Come up out of the Jordan.

18 And it came to pass when the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of Jehovah had come up out of the midst of the Jordan, [when] the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up on to the dry land, that the waters of the Jordan returned to their place, and they flowed as previously, over all its banks.

19 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.

20 And those twelve stones which they had taken out of the Jordan did Joshua set up in Gilgal.

21 And he spoke to the children of Israel, saying, When your children hereafter ask their fathers, saying, What [mean] these stones?

22 then ye shall let your children know, saying, On dry land did Israel come over this Jordan;

23 because Jehovah your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from before you, until ye had passed over, as Jehovah your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we had passed over;

24 that all peoples of the earth might know the hand of Jehovah, that it is mighty; that ye might fear Jehovah your God continually.

   

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Exploring the Meaning of Joshua 4

Napsal(a) New Christian Bible Study Staff, Julian Duckworth

Joshua 4: Twelve stones are taken from the river Jordan

In this chapter we pick up on the command to take twelve men, one from each tribe, which was mentioned in chapter 3. The task is for each man to pick up a large stone from where the priests’ feet stand, and take it across, and put it in the lodging place. These stones will be as memorial stones so that later generations who ask what these stones mean will be told about the miracle of the Lord in the crossing of the river Jordan.

Later, the Israelites camped at Gilgal and Joshua set the twelve stones up as a permanent memorial.

A ‘stone’ is a piece of hard rock. It corresponds to a truth; for us it stands for a truth which we have made ours and which guides us in our life (Apocalypse Revealed 231). It might be the truth that the Lord’s providence is involved in everything that happens. It could be the great truth that we will live for ever, or that God came on earth as a human being and overcame the power of hell. These and other truths are rock hard truths or stones.

But here, it is a stone which has been washed and worked on by the waters of the river Jordan, and over much time has become fashioned and rounded by erosion. So, it could be a life-truth, for example that we are to show respect to other people. That’s a great truth, but now it is connected with our understanding of the Lord. So we are to show respect to other people because each and every person has been created by God for a unique purpose. And we can also add that we know how it feels when other people respect us.

So we assemble our twelve memorial stones. These are to be recalled, remembered, revisited by us again and again as time passes. “Yes, God brought me here from where I was before.” (Arcana Caelestia 1988). This meaning of the stones helps us with the apparent contradiction in the chapter between Joshua 4:9 where “the stones are set up in the Jordan and are there to this day” and verse Joshua 4:20 where “Joshua sets up the twelves stones from out of the Jordan, in Gilgal.” Stones can’t be in two places at once, but yes, spiritually they can and need to be.

We need to always remember and be mindful of how the Lord works with us in giving us truths for our life. Everything is the Lord! These are stones in the Jordan. Yet we need to always remember that we are to live, act, and turn away from any evil as if it is only us making that decision and doing it. These are the stones set up at Gilgal (Apocalypse Explained 700[14]). Both of them are involved in our regeneration and spiritual life.

Then we are told that the men of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh went across the Jordan armed and went before all the other tribes. This links with several other mentions of these tribes who had chosen to live back over the Jordan and not in the land of Canaan. They stand for our outward life and our life in the world which, while it is not directly spiritual, must have qualities that come from God’s truths. Here, those qualities come from being willing to go in and fight to help take the land (Arcana Caelestia 2184).

Verse 13 says that about 40,000 prepared for war and crossed the river Jordan before the Lord for battle. Here is a number. Numbers in the Word are helpful clues to the inner meaning. The number 40 always stands for some kind of temptation or crisis in the Word – for example, Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days and 40 nights, tempted. Here, 40 has grown to become 40,000 but it has the same meaning of temptation (Arcana Caelestia 2273). Our spiritual life and regeneration will certainly take us into various temptations (‘battles’) and the Lord allows them so that we grow stronger through them. The whole conquest of Canaan is nothing else!

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Arcana Coelestia # 6724

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6724. 'And coated it with bitumen and pitch' means good mingled with evils and falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'bitumen' as good mingled with evils; and from the meaning of 'pitch' as good mingled with falsities. 'Bitumen and 'pitch' have these meanings because they are inflammable, and in the Word that which is inflammable means good, or in the contrary sense evil. But because they have brimstone or sulphur in them and are also black they mean evil and falsity, as in Isaiah,

The day of Jehovah's vengeance - her streams will be turned into pitch, and her dust into brimstone, and her land will become burning pitch. Isaiah 34:8-9.

'Pitch' and 'brimstone' stand for falsities and evils. This then is why 'she coated it with bitumen and pitch' means good mingled with evils and falsities.

[2] As regards the actual matter under consideration here, which is that encircling God's truth there was good mingled with evils and falsities, no one can have any understanding unless he knows what goes on during the reformation of a person. While he is being reformed he is, so far as his internal is concerned, preserved by the Lord in a state of goodness and truth; but so far as his external is concerned he is let into his evils and falsities. He is as a consequence among spirits from hell who are governed by such evils and falsities. These spirits flit around him, trying in every way to destroy him. But the goodness and truth that flow into him through his internal give him such protection that the spirits from hell cannot harm him in the slightest, the reason for this being that what acts at a more internal level is immensely superior in strength to that which acts at a more external level. For being purer what is more internal acts on every individual detail of what is more external, and in so doing it adjusts the external to answer its beck and call. But there must in that case be goodness and truth in the external in which influx from the internal can be firmly established. Good can then be among evils and falsities and yet remain safe from harm. Everyone who is being reformed is brought into this state, so that the evil desires and false ideas that govern him are removed and good desires and true ideas are implanted instead.

[3] Without knowledge of this arcanum no one can begin to know why Divine Truth residing with a person has around it forms of good mingled with evils and falsities, meant by the bitumen and pitch with which the little ark in which the infant had been put was coated. It should in addition be recognized that good can be mingled with evils and falsities, but they are not on that account joined together, since one shies away from the other and in keeping with a law of order they separate themselves from one another. For good belongs to heaven and evil and falsity to hell, and therefore just as heaven and hell have been separated, so also does every single thing from them separate itself.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.