Joshua 5:5

5 All the people who went out were circumcised. But none of the people born in the desert on the way after they had left Egypt had been circumcised.

Joshua 5:5 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 5:5

Now all the people that came out were circumcised
All that came out of Egypt, and males, were circumcised, whether under or above twenty years of age; for though it is possible all were circumcised before they came out of Egypt, which favours the opinion of Dr. Lightfoot, that they might be circumcised during the three nights' darkness of the Egyptians, when they could take no advantage of it, as Levi and Simeon did of the Shechemites; and which seems more probable than that it should be on the night they came out of Egypt, when many must have been unfit for travelling, and seems preferable to that of their being circumcised at Mount Sinai, which was a year after their coming out of Egypt:

but all the people [that were] born in the wilderness by the way, as
they came forth out of Egypt, [them] they had not circumcised;
the reasons of which neglect; (See Gill on Joshua 5:2). The phrase, "by the way", seems to point at the true reason of it, at least to countenance the reason there given, which was on account of their journey; that is, their stay at any place being uncertain and precarious; so the Jews say {z}, because of the affliction or trouble of journeying, the Israelites did not circumcise their children. This is to be understood of all males only born in the wilderness, they only being the subjects of circumcision.

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FOOTNOTES:

F26 Pirke Eliezer, ut supra. (c. 29.)

Joshua 5:5 In-Context

3 So Joshua made flint knives for himself. He circumcised the Israelites at Foreskins Hill.

4 This is the reason Joshua did so: All the people who went out of Egypt, that is, all the men who were soldiers, had died in the desert on the way after they left Egypt.

5 All the people who went out were circumcised. But none of the people born in the desert on the way after they had left Egypt had been circumcised.

6 This was because the Israelites journeyed forty years in the desert until the whole nation died off. These were the men old enough to fight who went out from Egypt and who hadn't obeyed the LORD. The LORD had pledged to them never to show them the land that the LORD had pledged to their ancestors to give us. It is a land full of milk and honey.

7 Joshua circumcised their children, the ones the LORD had set in their place. They were uncircumcised because they hadn't been circumcised on the way.