John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Joshua 4 This chapter relates an order, that is men, should take twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, and carry them to the first place they lodged at as a memorial of their passage over it, Joshua 4:1; and how Joshua set up twelve other stones in the river itself, Joshua 4:9; and how many of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, went before the Israelites when they passed...
John Gill
Take you twelve men out of the people,.... Joshua had before this ordered twelve men to be taken from among them, which seems to have been done of himself; and now he has a direction from God for it, and what to employ them in: out of every tribe a man; so that what they did was in the name of the several tribes, and as representing them.
Matthew Henry
This chapter gives a further account of the miraculous passage of Israel through Jordan. I. The provision that was made at that time to preserve the memorial of it, by twelve stones set up in Jordan (ver. 9) and other twelve stones taken up out of Jordan, ver. 1-8. II. The march of the people through Jordan's channel, the two tribes first, then all the people, and the priests that bore the ark...