Joshua 5:4

4 This is why Joshua circumcised the men: After the Israelites left Egypt, all the men old enough to serve in the army died in the desert on the way out of Egypt.

Joshua 5:4 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 5:4

And this [is] the cause why Joshua did circumcise
Or the reason of the command given him to circumcise the children of Israel at this time, namely, what follows:

all the people that came out of Egypt [that were] males, [even] all
the men of war;
meaning such that were twenty years old, and upwards:

died in the wilderness, by the way, after they came out of Egypt;
not directly, but in a course of forty years, as they journeyed through the wilderness; this is to be understood with an exception of Joshua, Caleb, Eleazar but then there was a large number who were under twenty years of age, that came out of Egypt, and were now living.

Joshua 5:4 In-Context

2 At that time the Lord said to Joshua, "Make knives from flint stones and circumcise the Israelites."

3 So Joshua made knives from flint stones and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth.

4 This is why Joshua circumcised the men: After the Israelites left Egypt, all the men old enough to serve in the army died in the desert on the way out of Egypt.

5 The men who had come out of Egypt had been circumcised, but none of those who were born in the desert on the trip from Egypt had been circumcised.

6 The Israelites had moved about in the desert for forty years. During that time all the fighting men who had left Egypt had died because they had not obeyed the Lord. So the Lord swore they would not see the land he had promised their ancestors to give them, a fertile land.