Joshua 4:23

Ver. 23. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan— Joshua, considering the people of God here morally, as one person, speaks to them as if they had been of the number of those who had crossed the Red Sea on dry land. He wishes, by the miracle that God had just wrought for them, to recal to their minds that which had been wrought for their fathers, that by entertaining just sentiments of gratitude, as well for the favour they had so lately received, as that of which they still reaped the blessings, though granted to their fathers, they might entirely devote themselves to their nations' perpetual benefactor. So, that hence we learn, that nothing is more reasonable and just than to see among a people children celebrating with gratitude the deliverances and blessings of heaven towards their forefathers; inasmuch as they themselves gather the fruits derived from them, either by their continuance as a body of people, or by the peculiar privileges they enjoy, and which they could not enjoy without that continuance.