Joshua 5:3

3 And Joshua made sharp knives of stone, and circumcised the children of Israel at the place called the “Hill of 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 And it came to pass when the kings of the Amorites who were beyond Jordan heard, and the kings of Phoenicia by the sea, that the Lord God had dried up the river Jordan from before the children of Israel when they passed over, that their hearts failed, and they were terror-stricken, and there was no sense in them because of the children of Israel.

2 And about this time the Lord said to Joshua, Make thee stone knives of sharp stone, and sit down and circumcise the children of Israel the second time.

3 And Joshua made sharp knives of stone, and circumcised the children of Israel at the place called the “Hill of Foreskins.”

4 And the way in which Joshua purified the children of Israel; as many as were born in the way, and as many as were uncircumcised of them that came out of Egypt,

5 all these Joshua circumcised; for forty and two years Israel wondered in the wilderness of Mabdaris—