Joshua 4:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 7. Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off— "You shall seize this opportunity to inform them of the wonderful things which God has done for the opening to you an entrance into the land of Canaan; and you shall endeavour to transmit to them, together with the particular facts, those sentiments wherewith I presume you are animated. So long as the nation shall subsist, these stones shall be a perpetual monument to it of your miraculous passage through Jordan, as on this solemn day." We have elsewhere remarked, that it was the custom of all antiquity to erect stones as a monument of covenants, victories, and other important events, whose memory they wished to perpetuate. And though there was no inscription upon these stones, yet the number of them, and their position, was sufficient to denote some memorable thing; for they were evidently placed in a sandy spot, where there were no others of that magnitude.