Five [things] are here inquired. First: whence were those 12 stones taken up? The text (v. 3) points out two places whence they were taken. One [is] the more general — namely, the middle of the Jordan itself; about which [see] above, here (q. 1) and [ch.] 3 part 1 q. 15. The other [is] the more definite: namely, where the feet of the priests carrying the ark had stood — not taking precisely the very place of the footprints, but a little more broadly, that place which was nearest, and had stones of this kind. For the Hebrew matsah [מַצָּב] signifies “a station,” from which the stones [were] to be taken. But a “station” of anyone is not wont to be taken so narrowly that [it] is circumscribed by his footprints only. And how would 12 rocks [have been] under the feet of two priests? — unless, [being] very deep beneath them, [the place] had been dug out, so that stones lying one upon another might be dug up. But thus those stones would indeed [have been] marvellously prepared by the Lord, almost as [Jonah] stood in the fish’s belly (Matt. 12 [Jonah]); yet the priests would have had to give up their place — which seems to be denied (v. 10). That [phrase] too (v. 5), “before the ark of the Lord,” signifies [it] was enough [that], from a place near the ark — which was, as it were, in its sight — those [stones] might be taken. Secondly: [who] is the author? He was, for the 12 tribes and the 12 men, [Joshua] himself—
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—[Joshua] himself (vv. 4 & 5). But lest so great a Leader should be thought to consult too much for the fame and glory of his own name by the placing of those stones, [it] is handed down (vv. 1, 2, & 3) how the Lord himself was to him the author [of it]. Thirdly: by whom were the stones taken up? [It] is now established [that there] were 12 men; but that [phrase] (v. 8), “the sons of Israel therefore did as Joshua commanded them,” signifies [that] the same [stones] were taken up by the 12 tribes, through the work of those [12 men]. For since these [12] were chosen from the whole people, as [was] said above, their shoulders and hands were, as it were, the shoulders and hands of the whole multitude. Fourthly: why were they taken up? [It] is said (v. 6); but again afterward (v. 21), where the cause will be explained more fully. Fifthly: the most illustrious and most religious Duke of Ołyka and Nieśwież, Lord Nicholas Radziwiłł, when he was surveying those holy places, for piety’s sake, in the year of the Lord 1583, wrote four letters about them; in the second of which he thus says (fol. 104): “The stones, which the Israelites, having transferred [them] from the channel of the Jordan, set up in Gilgal, are nowhere to be seen.”