Setting Up Memorial Stones in the Promised Land

Before he died Joshua summoned the leadership of the tribes of Israel to Shechem and gave them a choice to forsake the worship of the Lord, and instead, either worship the god’s their ancestors had worshipped in Mesopotamia before Abraham came to the Promised Land or to take up the worship of the Canaanite gods that had just been defeated by the Lord.

When all of Israel agreed to continue in the worship the Lord, Joshua established and recorded “statutes and rules for them at Shechem.” Then, Joshua stood up a large stone

at Shechem as a memorial to testify to the leaders’ agreement to recognize that the Lord had brought their ancestor Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans to this land.

And, now, six hundred years later, they, the descendants of Abraham, had taken possession of the land promised to Abraham. The stone that Joshua set up at Shechem was the seventh memorial stone set up in the Promised Land in the book of Joshua.

Memorial stones set up in the Promised Land, at Sinai, and seven in the book of Joshua:

1. Genesis 28:18, 22 – Jacob sets up a stone and poured oil on it at Bethel (Luz) to indicate that the Lord will be his God. In Genesis 31:13 the Lord refers to this stone monument to identify himself to Jacob.
2. Genesis 31:44-52 – Jacob and Laban set up a pile of stones to confirm a covenant between the two of them at Mizpah (or, Galeed)
3. Genesis 35:14 – Jacob sets up a stone monument at Bethel when the Lord, the God Almighty, gave the same land to Jacob that he had given to Abraham and Isaac.
4. Genesis 35:20 – Jacob set up a pillar marking Rachel’s tomb on the way to ephrath.
5. Exodus 24:4 – Moses built an altar and set up twelve pillars at the base of Mount Sinai
6. Joshua 4:20 – twelve stones from the bottom of the Jordan stacked up at Gilgal (1st monument in Joshua)
7. Joshua 7:26 – large pile of rocks heaped over Achan at Gilgal (2nd monument in Joshua)
8. Joshua 8:29 – Ai burned, king of Ai killed, hung on tree, buried under a pile of rocks in the city gate (3rd monument in Joshua)
9. Joshua 8:32 – Joshua copied on stones the law of Moses by the stone altar built on Mount Ebal (stones may have been covered with plaster first before they were written on as in Dt. 27:2-4) (4th monument in Joshua)
10. Joshua 10:27 – large pile of rocks over the mouth of the cave where the five Amorite Kings were buried (5th monument in Joshua)
11. Joshua 22:10 and 22:19-30 an altar of stones by the Jordan on the border of Canan at Geliloth on the west side (6th monument in Joshua)
12. Joshua 24:26 – the testimony stone set up in Shechem by Joshua (7th monument in Joshua)

Today at ancient Shechem, between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal, is an ancient holy site with a pillar still standing. It is likely that this stone and ancient temple mark the location of the great oak tree, the place of the tabernacle in Joshua’s life and the pillar Joshua set up. This is where the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo crowned Abimelech as king beside the great tree and Joshua’s pillar in Judges 9:6

The great tree “of Moreh” was there in Abraham’s day in Genesis 12:6. Jacob buried foreign gods under an oak tree at Shechem in Genesis 35:4. The “great trees of Moreh” are mentioned in Deuteronomy 11:30.

At this time in the book of Joshua around 1380 Joseph was buried in his Egyptian sarcophagus Shechem.

The church is made up of believers who are sanctified positionally before God by the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation and who are commanded to sanctify themselves in thought, word and deed during their lives. Believers are told to live holy lives and to live at peace with each other, functioning together as one body.

Since believers still have a sin nature and the church is still a functioning assembly in the fallen cosmos, there will be errors, problems, conflicts, sin, immorality and false doctrine. These are some of the issues mentioned in Scripture that require church involvement:
1. Sinning against another member of the church (Mt.18:15-20)
2. Divisiveness (Rm.16:17; Titus 3:10)
3. Open sexual immorality
(1 Cor.5:1-13)
4. Teaching false doctrine (Rm16:17; Gal.1:8, 9;
2:11-14; 1 Tim.1:20; 6:3-5;
2 Jn.9-11; Rev.2:14-16)