And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.
The twelve stones matter most because Joshua arranged them to catch the eye, not scattered at random, but positioned so that children would ask what they meant. God's covenant with Abraham runs unbroken through generations, so what He gave the fathers belongs to their sons' sons too; the monument keeps that promise alive.
AI summary
Joshua kept every detail of what Moses had taught him close at hand, and when the moment came to lead God's people, he neither added to his orders nor forgot them. We must do the same: hold fast the good instructions given us, ready to pull them out when we need them most.
AI summary
Commenting on Joshua 4:10-19
The tenth of Nisan was the very day Israel had set apart the paschal lamb in Egypt forty years before, wanting five days, so their deliverance began then, and their entrance into the land completes it. Gilgal's name comes later, but the text gives it here by anticipation.
AI summary