Joshua 4:20

20. Did Joshua pitch in Gilgal The Hebrew word here rendered pitch is precisely the same as that rendered set up in Joshua 4:9, where see note. These twelve memorial stones were here built up by Joshua into a perpetual monument, resting, doubtless, upon a pedestal, to render it more conspicuous. More than six hundred years afterwards the Minor Prophets, Hosea (Hosea 4:15; Hosea 9:15; Hosea 12:11) and Amos, (Amos 4:4; Amos 5:5,) repeatedly reprove the Jews for going to Gilgal “to multiply transgression;” and Stanley, in his History of the Jewish Church, suggests that this monument came to be regarded with idolatrous veneration, like the worship of the cross among the Papists.