12 Stones in the Jordan

A reoccurring theme that I have noticed in the process of reading the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges is that God is constantly leaving “sign-posts” to remind the Israelites of His faithfulness.  We can see these all over the text from Exodus onward, whether it be songs passed down to Israelite descendants, the Law itself, the tablets on which the book of the law were written being placed inside the arc of the covenant, or structures built by the patriarchs, God gives the Israelites many reasons to remember His generosity and faithfulness.

One such “sign post” comes in Joshua chapter 4, after God had allowed the Israelites to cross the Jordan on dry land, He commanded Joshua to say the following:

5 “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 so that this may be a sign among you.  When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ 7 Then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord.  When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.  So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.”

The physical sign of the twelve stones opposite the Jordan River served to remind the Israelites in times long to come of the faithfulness of the Lord in bringing the Israelites to the Promised Land.  The obvious pattern emerging to me from all of these texts is that the Hebrew people, in spite of God’s many acts of faithfulness and even with the signs that serve as reminders of the things He has done, continue to turn away from Him and worship other Gods. 

When I impose my 21^st century perspective on the text, I find myself invariably frustrated with the continual faithlessness from the Hebrews and I almost rejoice in the moments that God allows some enemy nation to lay waste to the Israelites.  But when I take a more serious look at the text, I realize that the majority of my life I am exactly like the Israelites, God has been ever faithful to me, yet I continually turn away from Him with my actions.  Perhaps as Christians, we should take care to be intentional in understanding the “sign-posts” that God leaves us as reminders of His goodness, and constantly be looking for ways in which we may be rebelling against God at any given moment.