Joshua 5:1-12

Israel Is Circumcised

1 Now it came about when all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the ¹Canaanites who were by the sea, ²heard how * the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan before * the sons of Israel until they had crossed, that their hearts melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer because * of the sons of Israel.

2 At that time the LORD said to Joshua, "Make for yourself ³flint knives and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time."

3 So Joshua made himself flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth *.

4 This is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: ⁴all the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, died in the wilderness along the way after they came out of Egypt.

5 For all the people who came out were circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness along the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

6 For the sons of Israel walked ⁵forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, that is, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished because they did not listen to the voice of the LORD, ⁶to whom the LORD had sworn that He would not let them see the land which the LORD had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

7 Their children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them along the way.

8 Now when they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed.

9 Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away ⁷the reproach of Egypt from you." So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.

10 While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal ⁸they observed the Passover on the evening of the ⁹fourteenth * day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho.

11 On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.

12 ¹⁰The manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land, so that the sons of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate some of the yield of the land of Canaan during that year.

Joshua 5:1-12 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOSHUA 5

The Canaanites being dispirited on the passage of the children of Israel through Jordan, Jos 5:1; Joshua is ordered to circumcise such of the people of Israel that were uncircumcised, Jos 5:2-9; in order to their eating of the passover, which was now to be kept, Jos 5:10; and they being now provided with corn sufficient, the manna ceased, Jos 5:11,12; and there appeared to Joshua a divine Person, in an human form, to encourage and direct him what to do in the conquest of the land, and particularly Jericho, Jos 5:13-15.

Cross References

• 1. Numbers 13:29
• 2. Joshua 2:10, 11
• 3. Exodus 4:25
• 4. Deuteronomy 2:14
• 5. Deuteronomy 2:7, 14
• 6. Numbers 14:29-35; Numbers 26:63-65
• 7. Zephaniah 2:8
• 8. Exodus 12:18
• 9. Joshua 4:19
• 10. Exodus 16:35

Footnotes

• [a]. Other mss read "we"
• [b]. I.e. the hill of the foreskins
• [c]. Lit "were finished"
• [d]. Lit "circumcised them"
• [e]. Lit "revived"
• [f]. I.e. rolling
• [g]. Lit "morrow"
• [h]. Lit "this"
• [i]. Lit "morrow"