Joshua 5:3

3 So Joshua made stone knives and circumcised the People of Israel at Foreskins Hill.

Joshua 5:3 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 5:3

And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children
of Israel
Not that Joshua circumcised them himself, any more than he made the knives himself, but he ordered both to be done, and took care that they were done. And as any that had skill might make the knives, so might any circumcise; circumcision was not restrained to any order of men, not to the priests and Levites, but any might perform it; so that though the number to be circumcised was great, it might soon be finished: and this was done

at the hill of the foreskins;
as the place was afterward called from hence; these being heaped up one upon another, made a hill of them, as the Jews say ^F25, being covered with dust. This circumcision performed by Joshua, or his orders, was typical of the spiritual circumcision without hands, which those that believe in Jesus, the antitype of Joshua, partake of.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F25 Pirke Eliezer, ut supra. (c. 29.) Jarchi in loc.

Joshua 5:3 In-Context

1 When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and the Canaanite kings along the seacoast heard how God had stopped the Jordan River before the People of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts sank; the courage drained out of them just thinking about the People of Israel.

2 At that time God said to Joshua, "Make stone knives and circumcise the People of Israel a second time."

3 So Joshua made stone knives and circumcised the People of Israel at Foreskins Hill.

4 This is why Joshua conducted the circumcision. All the males who had left Egypt, the soldiers, had died in the wilderness on the journey out of Egypt.

5 All the people who had come out of Egypt, of course, had been circumcised, but all those born in the wilderness along the way since leaving Egypt had not been.