Joshua 5:6

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.^[a]

Joshua 5:6 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 5:6

For the children of Israel walked forty years in the
wilderness
Wanting a few days, the round number is given: not forty two, as the Septuagint version:

till all the people [that were] men of war, which came out of Egypt,
were consumed;
all that were above twenty years of age, excepting Joshua and Caleb:

because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord;
but murmured against him, and against his servants, and particularly against Aaron, being the high priest; and chiefly because of the report of the spies, and their murmurs then, which so incensed the Lord against them, that he threatened them with an entire consumption of their carcasses, and which accordingly was fulfilled, to which the following clause refers:

unto whom the Lord sware, that he would not show them the land which
the Lord sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that
floweth with milk and honey;
see ( Numbers 14:23 Numbers 14:24 ) .

Joshua 5:6 In-Context

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.

7 Joshua raised up their sons in their place; it was these he circumcised. They were still uncircumcised, since they had not been circumcised along the way.

8 After the entire nation had been circumcised, they stayed where they were in the camp until they recovered.

Footnotes

• [a]. Nm 14:23-24; Dt 11:9