Joshua 5:3

3 Joshua did those things which the Lord commanded, and he circumcised the sons of Israel in the hill of prepuces (and he circumcised the male Israelites at the Hill of the Foreskins).

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Joshua 5:3 In-Context

1 Therefore after that all the kings of Amorites heard, that dwelled over (the) Jordan at the west coast, and all the kings of Canaan, that wielded the nigh places of the great sea, that the Lord had dried the flowings of (the) Jordan before the sons of Israel, till they passed over, the heart of them failed, and the spirit dwelled not in them, dreading the entering of the sons of Israel. (And so when all the kings of the Amorites, who lived on the west side of the Jordan River, and all the kings of Canaan, who possessed the lands near the Mediterranean Sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the flowings of the Jordan River before the Israelites, until they had crossed over, their hearts failed, and there was no more spirit, or courage, left in them, for they all feared the coming of the Israelites.)

2 In that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make to thee knives of stone (Make thou some stone knives), and circumcise thou the sons of Israel the second time.

3 Joshua did those things which the Lord commanded, and he circumcised the sons of Israel in the hill of prepuces (and he circumcised the male Israelites at the Hill of the Foreskins).

4 And this is the cause of the second circumcision; all the people of male kind, that went out of Egypt, all the men fighters of them, were dead in (the) desert by the full long compasses of (the) way, (And this is the reason for the second circumcision; all the males, who went out of Egypt, yea, all their fighting men, who had died in the wilderness on the very long journey on the way,)

5 the which all were circumcised. But the other people that was born in desert by forty years, in the way of the full broad wilderness, was uncircumcised, (were all circumcised. But the other males, those who were born in the wilderness, were uncircumcised.)