Rocks Unlimited (Josh. 24)

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We do ourselves much harm when we discount the veracity of Scripture, which seems to be especially common when reading from the Old Testament. Because something is so far removed from us, it becomes easy to question, overlook, or even read the astonishing narratives of God’s Word as “stories” instead of the revealed Word of God. We limit God’s Word to our feeble, limited understanding. Yet we should read ALL of God’s Word and read it as truth without either adding to or taking away from it. We read knowing that there is nothing beyond the ability of the One who authors the book and writes our story of faith.

As I was finishing up the book of Joshua this morning, I came to the end where he sets up a stone under an oak tree in the courtyard of the sanctuary of the LORD (Josh. 24:26-27), telling the people that the stone would serve as a witness against all of them—including himself—in order that they would not deny their God. As I looked up one commentary and then another I saw a vast difference in how each dealt with these verses. One decried the idea of a stone witnessing against anyone, saying it is only poetic emphasis with no expectation that such a thing could ever happen. While that may seem very reasonable, at the same time, it made me think of Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem related in Luke 19. When the Pharisees cry out to Jesus to rebuke the crowd for their jubilant reception of Him and their recitation of Ps. 118:26 that speaks to His kingship and His coming in the name of the LORD, Jesus answers them saying, “I tell you if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” (Luke 19:37-40, NASB). Interestingly, Jesus goes on to say that because they have not recognized who He is upon His coming, not one stone would be left upon another, speaking of the soon coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (v. 44). 


In another interpretation of the Joshua 24:27 verse, Matthew Henry speaks of inscriptions written upon stones, “by which stones are made to speak.” [This makes me think of my friend who paints rocks and uses them to encourage and speak to others. See pics below.]

Henry points out the stone is relevant to the hardness of the hearts of the people who are hearing Joshua’s emphatic reminders to worship God alone and avoid idolatry. The hardness of the hearts of the people, deadened by their proximity to idolatry and acceptance of it, is noted, just as Jesus notes the hardness in the hearts of those who cry out against the ones lifting up praise for the salvation riding on the back of a colt entering into Jerusalem.  


Whether the rocks crying out against people who refuse to worship and bow down to the One true King, Jesus Christ, is meant to be literal or poetic or even something completely un-entertained by our limited perception, it is possible. God is the Creator of both the heavens and the earth. Creation serves Him alone, trembling at His very presence (Is. 55:12), breaking into song and clapping hands (Ps. 148), having been created for His good pleasure and sustained by the sovereign God of the universe (Ps. 150). When Jesus is crucified, Matthew in his gospel account, notes that as He cries out with a loud voice and yields up His spirit to God, the veil is torn (top to bottom), the earth shakes, and the rocks split open, not to mention the dead walking around when the rock tombs containing them open and they appear to many in the city (Matt. 27: 50-53). All these acts of creation occur upon man’s failure to offer praise or recognition of Jesus as the Son of God, offering instead condemnation and mockery, resulting in the stones “crying out” their recognition of the Word present at creation who now died to bring about the salvation that would one day restore it. 


Habakkuk 2:11 speaks of the stone crying out from the wall at the evil being devised among God’s people, the injustice that he sees, the stone being Jesus who was yet to come at that time, but who would certainly come without delay as the righteous looked forward to Him in faith. Just as Habakkuk comes to understand, God is holy and righteous, and it is not ours to question what He chooses to do but to hear and live in reverent awe of Him who is everlasting, who offers salvation to His people; it is ours to tremble at His holiness and “exult in the LORD,” rejoicing in the “God of my salvation” (Hab. 3:13, 16, 19). 


My reminder today is this, not to limit God to what I can understand but to trust Him and live in reverent fear of the One who created the rocks that can cry out if He wants them to.

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