Joshua 5:3

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

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 When all the Amorite kings across the Jordan to the west and all the Canaanite kings near the sea heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, they lost heart and their courage failed because of the Israelites.

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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or The Hill of Foreskins