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!

2183. 'He took butter and milk, and the young bull which he had made ready' means all those things so joined together. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'butter', 'milk', and 'the young bull', which are dealt with in the next paragraph. The subject in the verses previous to this has been the providing of the Lord's Rational with that which is celestial and that which is spiritual derived from this, meant by 'the meal of fine flour made into cakes', 2176, 2177, and also with the celestial-natural, meant by 'the young bull', 2180. The same things are now expressed by other words - by 'butter', 'milk', and 'a young bull', which mean all those same things when they have been joined together.

[2] But one is scarcely able to describe these matters to the ordinary mind because the majority do not know that every person possesses an internal, a rational, and a natural, and that these three are quite distinct and separate from one another, so distinct in fact that one can be at variance with another. That is to say, the rational, which is called the rational man, can be at variance with the natural, which is the natural man; indeed the rational man is able to see and perceive evil that is in the natural, and if it is a genuine rational, is able to correct it, see 1904. Before these two have been joined together man is unable to be whole or to experience the serenity of peace, since the one is in conflict with the other. For the angels present with a person govern his rational, while the evil spirits present with him govern his natural - and this gives rise to conflict.

[3] If in this conflict the rational prevails, the natural is placed in subjection, and the man is thus endowed with conscience; but if the natural prevails, he is not able to receive any conscience at all. If the rational prevails, his natural becomes as though it too was rational; but if the natural prevails, the rational becomes as though it too was natural. In addition, if the rational prevails, angels draw nearer to that person, implanting within him charity, a celestial quality which comes through the angels from the Lord; and at the same time the evil spirits move some distance away from him. But if the natural prevails, the angels move further away, that is, more towards his interiors, and the evil spirits draw nearer to the rational, constantly attack it, and fill the lower parts of his mind with forms of hatred, revenge, deceit, and the like. If the rational prevails, the man enters into the serenity of peace, and in the next life into the peace of heaven; but if the natural prevails, though during his lifetime he seems to experience serenity, he enters in the next life into the unrest and torment of hell.

[4] From these considerations one may know the nature of a person's state so far as his rational and so far as his natural are concerned. There is nothing else that can bring him blessing and happiness except the conformity of his natural to the rational when both are joined together. This is achieved solely by means of charity; and charity originates wholly in the Lord.