Joshua 5:4

4 This is the reason Joshua circumcised [them]: All the people who came out of Egypt who were males-all the men of war-had died in the wilderness along the way after they had come out of Egypt.

Joshua 5:4 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 5:4

And this [is] the cause why Joshua did circumcise
Or the reason of the command given him to circumcise the children of Israel at this time, namely, what follows:

all the people that came out of Egypt [that were] males, [even] all
the men of war;
meaning such that were twenty years old, and upwards:

died in the wilderness, by the way, after they came out of Egypt;
not directly, but in a course of forty years, as they journeyed through the wilderness; this is to be understood with an exception of Joshua, Caleb, Eleazar but then there was a large number who were under twenty years of age, that came out of Egypt, and were now living.

Joshua 5:4 In-Context

2 At that time the Lord said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelite men again."

3 So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelite men at Gibeath-haaraloth.

4 This is the reason Joshua circumcised [them]: All the people who came out of Egypt who were males-all the men of war-had died in the wilderness along the way after they had come out of Egypt.

5 Though all the people who came out were circumcised, none of the people born in the wilderness along the way were circumcised after they had come out of Egypt.

6 For the Israelites wandered in the wilderness 40 years until all the nation's men of war who came out of Egypt had died off because they did not obey the Lord. So the Lord vowed never to let them see the land He had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.