This question could at once come into the mind of anyone seeing those stones — as Joshua indicates (v. 6 & 20), when he says [it] will certainly come to pass that the posterity of the Israelites, and perhaps even the little ones [yet] to be born, would ask this very [thing]. For when we behold things — even cheap ones, and otherwise commonplace — placed somewhere not at random, but by design and in a certain order beyond custom, a desire straightway steals over the mind to know why that was so done. “When,” he says, “your sons shall ask you tomorrow” — that is, hereafter, in [time] to come. And [that it is] not a curious and vain question, but a very useful one, and worthy [that] a good and careful answer be given to it, the same Joshua shows from this: that he teaches the manner of answering it twice, at this very time — otherwise so busy, and hampered by so many thoughts of the river-crossing, the advance into enemy territory, and the laying-out of the camp — namely at v. 7 and v. 21. And he brings [forward] causes of a twofold kind: some which look to knowledge and the mind of man; others which look to the affection and the will; and again, some in respect of the Israelites, others in respect of all the other nations.
The [causes] which look to the mind are handed down in three [ways]. 1. “That it may be a sign among you” (v. 6). Word-for-word in the Hebrew: “that thus this thing [be] a sign in the midst of you” — that is, that it may admonish all, and continually. And therefore the Seventy translate: ἵνα ὑπάρχωσιν ὑμῖν οὗτοι εἰς σημεῖον κείμενον διαπαντός [hina hyparchōsin hymin houtoi eis sēmeion keimenon diapantos, “that these may be to you for a sign, set [there] permanently for all time”] — that is, “that these stones may be to you for a sign, set up or remaining at all time.” Now since a sign is a sign of the thing signified, that [thing signified] is here expressed: both before [the sign] was made (v. 7) — yet by the past tense, in the manner of the Prophets, because [it] was certainly future — and after [it] was made (vv. 22, 23), but in two ways. For first the wrought miracle is simply set forth, of which [we have spoken] hitherto; then it is compared with the crossing of the Red Sea, as was done above in the last question of the [prior] part of the book. Yet in this comparison two [things are] to be observed. First, [that] in the Hebrew [it] stands thus: “which dried up from before us until we passed over”; and in the Greek too [it] is ἔμπροσθεν ἡμῶν [emprosthen hēmōn, “before us”] — which, however, in the Latin is easily understood from the very likeness. Second: since those who had crossed that [Red] sea had died in the desert (as will be said [at] v. 4 of the following chapter), how does the text say “from before us,” and “until we passed over”? [It] will be answered there.
(col. 483, lower)
Now, secondly, [it] is said (v. 7): “These stones were set up for a monument [memorial] to the sons of Israel forever.” “A monument of the sons of Israel” is said here by the Translator [Vulgate], not [as] that which is about them, but [as] that which is for them — as the Hebrew and Greek plainly have [it] — and which admonishes them, or rouses their memory. For from this are derived the names which our [translator] renders by “monument”: the Hebrew וכרון ziccaron [zikkaron, “memorial”], and the Greek μνημόσυνον [mnēmosynon, “memorial”]. And therefore in St.—
(col. 484 — right column; printed “491”)
—Augustine (quaest. 4), from the older of their [the Jews’] Seventy translators, [it] is read: “These stones shall be to you a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.” But what [is] “forever”? Are [the things] which I adduced (1 Macc. ch. 13) concerning the vanity of that kind of monuments, empty and false? Did Tully [Cicero] say, in his [oration] For Marcellus, more rhetorically than truly and wisely: “There is no work, or thing made by hand, which age does not at some time destroy and consume”? Did Ausonius play the Poet more than the Philosopher, when he sang:
“Death comes even to stones, and to names”?
Or does daily experience prove it? Where [are] so many and so splendid Mausolea of the ancient ages — the coins, statues, arches, columns? Where [are] these very [stones] of which we treat? The stones? Where are they?
“Wasting age consumes iron, and the stone.” “Time, devourer of things, and thou, envious age, thou consumest all things.” [Ovid, Met. 15.234–236]
What is stable, firm, and eternal under heaven, when heaven itself, and earth, shall pass away? Therefore St. Augustine (in the cited place) applies two answers. One: [that] the stones, as regards themselves, are not eternal — but [they are] as regards [their] signification; for by them something eternal is signified. The other: [that] that “eternity” is not eternity taken strictly, but in the common manner, so that [it] is some long time — which by the Latins is sometimes called saeculum [an “age”]. For thus, both among the Hebrews and the Greeks, the noun set down here is frequently taken [in this sense]: ὁ αἰών [ho aiōn], עולם [olam]. And this latter [answer] can seem the more fitting, both because [it] is more frequent in the Scriptures, and because [it] cannot aptly enough be said what that “eternal” [thing] is which is signified. For the crossing of the Jordan, and the marvels divinely joined with it, had ceased on that very day. Or — if [they are] to be reckoned eternal because what has once been done cannot be un-done — [then] not only a sacred sign, but even a profane sign of a thing that has passed, would [be] an “eternal” sign? For the ivy-bush, which yesterday signified wine for sale in a tavern, because that was so and [it] cannot now be otherwise, would in that way be “eternal.” But if a future thing, which is eternal, is signified by these stones — then indeed all the sacraments, which mark the grace and glory of Christ the Lord, will have to be called eternal; nay, [even] pictures and words, which set either eternal felicity, or Christ himself our Lord and Saviour, before our eyes or ears, will be reckoned to “eternalize.” I could wish, moreover, that the holy Father himself had explained what that “eternal” [thing] is, of which these stones [are] the marks and symbols.
Thirdly, at last — toward the end of the chapter — [there] is set down this cause, which also pertains to the mind, and to the other Gentiles: “that all the peoples of the earth may learn the most mighty hand of the Lord.” In the Hebrew, word for word: “that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it [is] strong.” Now “hand” [is] a metaphor which occurs often elsewhere too; the Seventy rendered [it] δύναμιν [dynamin, “power”] — that is, power and strength. And the Lord wills this strength to be known by the Gentiles — not in any manner whatever, but because it is mighty and strong: [strength] namely which can [do] what it will; which can aid and defend his people in whatever way it please — the very elements and the natures of things obeying [it] — and can crush and scatter his adversaries. But [that] this [is] to be known through the stones—
(col. 485 — left column; printed “492”)
—[the manner of knowing this through] those stones was this: that when [the Gentiles] had either come into these regions, or the report of those wonders reached their ears, they themselves would inquire into the truth, and would have these stones [as] witnesses of it, which would say to them, as [it were] with a loud voice: “The [things] which you have heard, O Gentiles, concerning the crossing of the Israelites through this neighboring river [now] dried up, are most true. Their God did all these [things]. He commanded the river, and straightway — although it was then overflowing — the river obeyed. We lay in the very middle of the stream, in the deep; and behold, taken up thence by the hands of twelve men, and lifted on their shoulders, we are [now] here. That God [is] great and mighty: the God of heaven, earth, the waters, and of all [things] contained in them, the One only and true God. If men be silent, this we, the many stones, cry out and testify.”
But the cause which touches the affection and the will is this same [passage]: “That you also may fear the Lord your God at all times.” The fear of the Lord is called the beginning of wisdom, and in Scripture not rarely embraces the love of God, and all [his] worship. And therefore, for “to fear,” the Seventy here put σέβεσθαι [sebesthai, “to revere/worship”] — from which [come] ἡ διοσέβεια [hē diosebeia, “the fear/worship of God”] and ἡ θεοσέβεια [hē theosebeia, “piety, religion”] — that is, piety and religion, as St. Augustine explains (bk. 10 of the City [of God] ch. 1; bk. 1 of the Enchiridion ch. 2). This, therefore, [is] the aim of those rocks, this the end: that the wills of the Israelites be affected with a holy fear of God; [that] they reverence his deity, keep his precepts, and give themselves wholly to him; [that] they venerate and worship him with hymns, sacrifices, and all the sanctity of the sacred ceremonies which they had learned from Moses — and that not [only] at some one brief time, or only at the beginning of their entry into that land, but at all time; or, as [it] is in the Hebrew, “all [the] days,” namely of each one’s life, and of the whole world. In some Greek [copies], as in the Roman [edition], [it] is ἐν παντὶ ἔργῳ [en panti ergō, “in every work”]. But all the others, as the Roman note also teaches, read ἐν παντὶ χρόνῳ [en panti chronō, “in every time”]; and that reading is closer to the Hebrew — although the sense is the same. For he who always worships God worships [him] in every work, and conversely. Whence also the Apostle said (1 Cor. 10 v. 31): “Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever else you do, do all [things] for the glory of God.” And truly to this one cause all the foregoing [causes] are referred. For to this end the signs of those wonders are given, the memory is roused, [and] the knowledge is thrust upon all the Gentiles: that — although, without reason, [it] seems to Calvin here [to be] otherwise — all whatsoever, both Jews and Gentiles, men and women, young and old, small and great, may praise the Lord. Amen.