When all the kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, who were by the sea, heard how Yahweh had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, their heart melted, and there was no more spirit in them, because of the children of Israel. At that time, Yahweh said to Joshua, “Make flint knives, and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time.” Joshua made himself flint knives, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. This is the reason Joshua circumcised them: all the people who came out of Egypt, who were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness along the way, after they came out of Egypt. 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. For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness until all the nation, even the men of war who came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they didn’t listen to Yahweh’s voice. Yahweh swore to them that he wouldn’t let them see the land which Yahweh swore to their fathers that he would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. Their children, whom he raised up in their place, were circumcised by Joshua, for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them on the way. When they were done circumcising the whole nation, they stayed in their places in the camp until they were healed.
Yahweh said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Therefore the name of that place was called Gilgal to this day. The children of Israel encamped in Gilgal. They kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho. They ate unleavened cakes and parched grain of the produce of the land on the next day after the Passover, in the same day. The manna ceased on the next day, after they had eaten of the produce of the land. The children of Israel didn’t have manna any more, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.
When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood in front of him with his sword drawn in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our enemies?”
He said, “No; but I have come now as commander of Yahweh’s army.” Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshiped, and asked him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”
The prince of Yahweh’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals, for the place on which you stand is holy.” Joshua did so.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 1. And it came to pass when, etc The…
1. And it came to pass when, etc The recognition of the fearful power of God had such an effect upon them that they were astonished and fainted with terror, but it did not incline their minds to seek a remedy for the evil. Their heart was melted inasmuch as destitute of counsel and strength they did not bestir themselves, but in regard to contumacy they remained as hard-hearted as before. We have already seen elsewhere how unbelievers, when smitten with fear, cease not to wrestle with God, and even when they fall, continue fiercely to assail heaven. Hence the dread which ought to have urged them to caution had no other effect than to hurry them on headlong. They were, however, terrified from above for the sake of the people, that victory might be more easily obtained, and the Israelites might be emboldened when they saw they had to do with an enemy already broken and stricken with dismay. Thus God spared their weakness, as if he had opened up the way by removing obstacles, because they had already proved themselves to be otherwise more sluggish and cowardly than was meet. The substance then is, that before the conflict commenced, the enemy were already routed by the terror which the fame of the miracle had inspired.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 14 The Amorites were on both sides [of] Jordan, whereof…
The Amorites were on both sides [of] Jordan, whereof two kings were slain already on the side toward Moab.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Jos 5:1 And it came to pass, when all…
Jos 5:1 And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which [were] on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which [were] by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
Ver. 1. Heard that the Lord, &c.] Aι βλαβαι ποδωκεις: Ill news is swift of foot, and, like ill weather, cometh before it is sent for.
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That their heart melted.] This fearfulness and faintheartedness had utterly unmanned them, expectorated all their courage, and so fitted them for desolation. {Deu 28:7} Metals melted lose their hardness: so men their hardiness by fear, that cowardly passion.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–15 The Amorites and the Canaanites are mentioned for all…
The Amorites and the Canaanites are mentioned for all the rest, as being the chief of them for number, and power, and courage.
Westward: this is added to distinguish them from the other Amorites, eastward from Jordan, whom Moses had subdued.
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All the kings of the Canaanites; so the proper place of this nation was on both sides of Jordan.
By the sea; the midland sea, all along the coast of it, which was the chief seat of that people, though divers colonies of them were come into and settled in other places.
Jordan was their bulwark on the east side, where the Israelites were; for it is very probable they had taken away all bridges near those parts; and the Israelites having been so long in that neighbouring country, and yet not making any attempt upon them, they were grown secure; especially now, when Jordan swelled beyond its ordinary bounds; and therefore they did not endeavour to hinder their passage.
Their heart melted; they lost all their courage, and durst attempt nothing upon the Israelites; not without God’s special providence, that the Israelites might quietly participate of the two great sacraments of their church, circumcision and the passover, and thereby be prepared for their high and hard work, and for the possession of the holy and promised land, which would have been defiled by an uncircumcised people.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 13 A vast show, no doubt, the numerous camp of…
A vast show, no doubt, the numerous camp of Israel made in the plains of Jericho, where now they had pitched their tents. Who can count the dust of Jacob? That which had long been the church in the wilderness has now come up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved, and looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. How terrible she was in the eyes of her enemies we are here told, Jos 5:1. How fair and clear she was made in the eyes of her friends, by the rolling away of the reproach of Egypt, we are told in the following verses.
I. Here is the fright which the Canaanites were put into by their miraculously passing over Jordan, Jos 5:1. The news of it was soon dispersed all the country over, not only as a prodigy in itself, but as an alarm to all the kings and kingdoms of Canaan. Now, as when Babylon was taken, One post runs to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to carry the amazing tidings to every corner of their land, Jer 51:31. And here we are told what impressions the tidings made upon the kings of this land: Their heart melted like wax before the fire, neither was there spirit in them any more. This intimates that, though the heart of the people generally had fainted before (as Rahab owned, Jos 2:9), yet the kings had till now kept up their spirits pretty well, had promised themselves that, being in possession, their country populous, and their cities fortified, they should be able to make their part good against the invaders; but when they heard not only that they had come over Jordan, and that this defence of their country was broken through, but that they had come over by a miracle, the God of nature manifestly fighting for them, their hearts failed them too, they gave up the cause for gone, and were now at their wits' end. And, 1. they had reason enough to be afraid; Israel itself was a formidable body, and much more so when God was its head, a God of almighty power. What can make head against them if Jordan be driven back before them? 2. God impressed these fears upon them, and dispirited them, as he had promised (Exo 23:27), I will send my fear before thee. God can make the wicked to fear where no fear is (Psa 53:5.), much more where there is such cause for fear as was here. He that made the soul can, when he pleases, make his sword thus to approach to it and kill it with his terrors.
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II. The opportunity which this gave to the Israelites to circumcise those among them that were uncircumcised: At that time (Jos 5:2), when the country about them was in that great consternation, God ordered Joshua to circumcise the children of Israel, for at that time it might be done with safety even in an enemy's country; their hearts being melted, their hands were tied, that they could not take this advantage against them as Simeon and Levi did against the Shechemites, to come upon them when they were sore. Joshua could not be sure of this, and therefore, if he had ordered this general circumcision just at this time of his own head, he might justly have been censured as imprudent; for, how good soever the thing was in itself, in the eye of reason it was not seasonable at this time, and might have been of dangerous consequence; but, when God commanded him to do it, he must not consult with flesh and blood; he that bade them to do it would, no doubt, protect them and bear them out in it. Now observe,
1. The occasion there was for this general circumcision. (1.) All that came out of Egypt were circumcised, v. 5. while they had peace in Egypt doubtless they circumcised their children the eighth day according to the law. But after they began to be oppressed, especially when the edict was made for the destruction of their male infants, the administration of this ordinance was interrupted; many of them were uncircumcised, of whom there was a general circumcision, either during the time of the three days' darkness, as Dr. Lightfoot conjectures, or a year after, just before their eating the second passover at Mount Sinai, and in order to that solemnity (Num 9:2) as many think. And it is with reference to that general circumcision that this is called a second, v. 2. But the learned Masius thinks it refers to the general circumcision of Abraham's family when that ordinance was first instituted, Gen 17:23. That first confirmed the promise of the land of Canaan, this second was a thankful celebration of the performance of that promise. But, (2.) All that were born in the wilderness, namely, after their walking in the wilderness, became by the divine sentence a judgment upon them for their disobedience, as is intimated by that repetition of the sentence, Jos 5:6. Al that were born since that fatal day on which God swore in his wrath that none of that generation should enter into his rest were uncircumcised. But what shall we say to this? Had not God enjoined it to Abraham, under a very severe penalty, that every man-child of his seed should be circumcised on the eighth day? Gen 17:9-14. Was it not the seal of the everlasting covenant? Was not so great a stress laid upon it when they were coming out of Egypt that when, immediately after the first passover, the law concerning that feast was made perpetual, this was one clause of it, that no uncircumcised person should eat of it, but should be deemed as a stranger? and yet, under the government of Moses himself, to have all their children that were born for thirty-eight years together left uncircumcised is unaccountable. So great an omission could not be general but by divine direction. Now, [1.] Some think circumcision was omitted because it was needless: it was appointed to be a mark of distinction between the Israelites and other nations, and therefore in the wilderness, where they were so perfectly separated from all and mingled with none, there was no occasion for it. [2.] Others think that they did not look upon the precept of circumcision as obligatory till they came to settle in Canaan; for in the covenant made with them at Mount Sinai nothing was said about circumcision, neither was it of Moses but of the fathers (Joh 7:22), and with particular reference to the grant of the land of Canaan, Gen 17:8. [3.] Others think that God favourably dispensed with the observance of this ordinance in consideration of the unsettledness of their state, and their frequent removals while they were in the wilderness. It was requisite that children after they were circumcised should rest for some time while they were sore, and stirring them might be dangerous to them; God therefore would have mercy and not sacrifice. This reason is generally acquiesced in, but to me it is not satisfactory, for sometimes they staid a year in a place (Num 9:22), if not much longer, and in their removals the little children, though sore, might be wrapped so warm, and carried so easy, as to receive no damage, and might certainly be much better accommodated than the mothers in travail or while lying in. Therefore, [4.] To me it seems to have been a continued token of God's displeasure against them for their unbelief and murmuring. Circumcision was originally a seal of the promise of the land of Canaan, as we observed before. It was in the believing hope of that good land that the patriarchs circumcised their children; but when God had sworn in his wrath concerning the men of was who came out of Egypt that they should be consumed in the wilderness, and never enter Canaan, nor come within sight of it (as that sentence is here repeated, Gen 17:6, reference being made to it), as a further ratification of that sentence, and to be a constant memorandum of it to them, all that fell under that sentence, and were to fall by it, were forbidden to circumcise their children, by which they were plainly told that, whatever others might, they should never have the benefit of that promise of which circumcision was the seal. And this was such a significant indication of God's wrath as the breaking of the tables of the covenant was when Israel had broken the covenant by making the golden calf. It is true that there is no express mention of this judicial prohibition in the account of that sentence; but an intimation of it in Num 14:33, Your children shall bear your whoredoms. It is probable the children of Caleb and Joshua were circumcised, for they were excepted out of that sentence, and of Caleb it is particularly said, To him will I give the land, and to his children (Deu 1:36), which was the very promise that circumcision was the seal of: and Joshua is here told to circumcise the people, not his own family. Whatever the reason was, it seems that this great ordinance was omitted in Israel for almost forty years together, which is a plain indication that it was not of absolute necessity, nor was to be of perpetual obligation, but should in the fulness of time be abolished, as now it was for so long a time suspended.
2. The orders given to Joshua for this general circumcision (Jos 5:2): Circumcise again the children of Israel, not the same person, but the body of the people. Why was this ordered to be done now? Answ. (2.) Because now the promise of which circumcision was instituted to be the seal was performed. The seed of Israel was brought safely into the land of Canaan. "Let them therefore hereby own the truth of that promise which their fathers had disbelieved, and could not find in their hearts to trust to." (2.) Because now the threatening of which the suspending of circumcision for thirty-eight years was the ratification was fully executed by the expiring of the forty years. That warfare is accomplished, that iniquity is pardoned (Isa 40:2), and therefore now the seal of the covenant is revived again. But why was it not done sooner? why not while they were resting some months in the plains of Moab? why not during the thirty days of their mourning for Moses? Why was it not deferred longer, till they had made some progress in the conquest of Canaan, and had gained a settlement there, at least till they had entrenched themselves, and fortified their camp? why must it be done the very next day after they had come over Jordan? Answ. Because divine Wisdom saw that to be the fittest time, just when the forty years were ended, and they had entered Canaan; and the reasons which human wisdom would have offered against it were easily overruled. [1.] God would hereby show that the camp of Israel was not governed by the ordinary rules and measures of war, but by immediate direction from God, who by thus exposing them, in the most dangerous moments, magnified his own power in protecting them even then. And this great instance of security, in disabling themselves for action just when they were entering upon action, proclaimed such confidence in the divine care for their safety as would increase their enemies' fears, much more when their scouts informed them not only of the thing itself that was done, but of the meaning of it, that it was a seal of the grant of this land to Israel. [2.] God would hereby animate his people Israel against the difficulties they were now to encounter, by confirming his covenant with them, which gave them unquestionable assurance of victory and success, and the full possession of the land of promise. [3.] God would hereby teach them, and us with them, in all great undertakings to begin with God, to make sure of his favour, by offering ourselves to him a living sacrifice (for that was signified by the blood of circumcision), and then we may expect to prosper in all we do. [4.] The reviving of circumcision, after it had been so long disused, was designed to revive the observance of other institutions, the omission of which had been connived at in the wilderness. This command to circumcise them was to remind them of that which Moses had told them (Deu 21:8), that when they should have come over Jordan they must not do as they had done in the wilderness, but must come under a stricter discipline. It was said concerning many of the laws God had given them that they must observe them in the land to which they were going, Deu 6:1; Deu 12:1. [5.] This second circumcision, as it is here called, was typical of the spiritual circumcision with which the Israel of God, when they enter into the gospel rest, are circumcised; it is the learned bishop Pierson's observation that this circumcision being performed under the direction of Joshua, Moses' successor, it points to Jesus as the true circumciser, the author of another circumcision than that of the flesh, commanded by the law, even the circumcision of the heart (Rom 2:29), called the circumcision of Christ, Col, Jos 2:11.
3. The people's obedience to these orders. Joshua circumcised the children of Israel (Jos 5:3), not himself with his own hands, but he commanded that it should be done, and took care that it was done: it might soon be despatched, for it was not necessary that it should be done by a priest or Levite, but any one might be employed to do it. All those that were under twenty years old when the people were numbered at Mount Sinai, and not being numbered with them fell not by the fatal sentence, were circumcised, and by them all the rest might be circumcised in a little time. The people had promised to hearken to Joshua as they had hearkened to Moses (Jos 1:17), and here they gave an instance of their dutifulness by submitting to this painful institution, and not calling him for the sake of it a bloody governor, as Zipporah because of the circumcision called Moses a bloody husband.
4. The names given to the place where this was done, to perpetuate the memory of it. (1.) It was called the hill of the foreskins, v. 3. Probably the foreskins that were cut off were laid on a heap, and covered with earth, so that they made a little hillock. (2.) It was called Gilgal, from a word which signifies to take away, from that which God said to Joshua (v. 9), This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt. God is jealous for the honour of his people, his own honour being so much interested in it; and, whatever reproach they may lie under for a time, first or last it will certainly be rolled away, and every tongue that riseth up against them he will condemn. [1.] Their circumcision rolled away the reproach of Egypt. they were hereby owned to be the free-born children of God, having the seal of the covenant in their flesh, and so the reproach of their bondage in Egypt was removed. They were tainted with the idolatry of Egypt, and that was their reproach; but now that they were circumcised it was to be hoped they would be so entirely devoted to God that the reproach of their affection to Egypt would be rolled away. [2.] Their coming safely to Canaan rolled away the reproach of Egypt, for it silenced that spiteful suggestion of the Egyptians, that for mischief they were brought out, the wilderness had shut them in, Exo 14:3. Their wandering so long in the wilderness confirmed the reproach, but now that they had entered Canaan in triumph that reproach was done away. When God glorifies himself in perfecting the salvation of his people he not only silences the reproach of their enemies, but rolls it upon themselves.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–15 And it came to pass, when all the kings…
And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward,.... On the side the Israelites were now on; and this is observed, to distinguish them from the other kings of the Amorites beyond Jordan, on the eastern side, who were already conquered by the Israelites, Sihon and Og, who seem to be a colony that went over from the Amorites in Canaan, and possessed themselves of that part of the land of Moab. These seem to be put for several others of the nations of the land not mentioned, who doubtless were as much dispirited as they; and they are the rather mentioned, because they were a principal nation, and a very powerful and warlike one, see Amo 2:9.
and all the kings of the Canaanites which were by the sea; the Mediterranean sea; the Septuagint version calls them the kings of Phoenicia; and that which was strictly and property so lay on that coast, in which were the cities of Tyre and Sidon, though the whole land of Canaan was sometimes so called; unless this is to be understood, either of the dead sea, or of the sea of Galilee; of which Canaanites, see Num 13:29; however, be they the one or the other, or both, as most likely, when they
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heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted,
neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel; they lost all their courage, and never recovered it any more; concluding it was all over with them, since such wonderful things were done for them by the Lord: the word "we" shows that the writer of this history was one that passed over Jordan, and who can be supposed but Joshua himself? this circumstance, I think, strongly corroborates that opinion.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–15 The Canaanites terrified, ver. 1. Circumcision renewed, ver. 2-…
The Canaanites terrified, ver. 1. Circumcision renewed, ver. 2- 9. The passover kept, ver. 10. The Israelites eat corn, and the manna ceases, ver. 11-12. Christ appears to Joshua, ver. 13-15.
Amorites - These and the Canaanites are mentioned for all the rest, as being the chief of them for number, and power, and courage. Westward - This is added to distinguish them from the other Amorites, eastward from Jordan, whom Moses had subdued. Canaanites - So the proper place of this nation was on both sides of Jordan. The sea - The midland sea, all along the coast of it, which was the chief seat of that people, though divers colonies of them were come into, and settled in other places. Jordan - Which was their bulwark on the east-side, where the Israelites were; for it is very probable they had taken away all bridges near those parts; and the Israelites having been so long in that neighbouring country, and yet not making any attempt upon them, they were grown secure; especially now, when Jordan swelled beyond its ordinary bounds; and therefore they did not endeavour to hinder their passage. Melted - They lost all their courage, and durst attempt nothing upon the Israelites; not without God's special providence, that the Israelites might quietly participate of the two great sacraments of their church, circumcision and the passover, and thereby be prepared for their high and hard work, and for the possession of the holy and promised land; which would have been defiled by an uncircumcised people.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 The effect produced on the minds of the Canaanites…
CHAPTER V
The effect produced on the minds of the Canaanites by the late
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miracle, 1.
Joshua is commanded to circumcise the Israelites, 2.
He obeys, 3.
Who they were that were circumcised, and why it was now done,
4-7.
They abide in the camp till they are whole, 8.
The place is called Gilgal, and why, 9.
They keep the passover in the same place, 10.
They eat unleavened cakes and parched corn, on the morrow after
the passover, 11.
The manna ceases, 12.
The captain of the Lord's host appears to Joshua, 13-15.
NOTES ON CHAP. V
Verse 1. The Amorites which were on the side of Jordan westward] It has already been remarked that the term Amorite is applied sometimes to signify all the nations or tribes of Canaan. It appears from this verse that there were people thus denominated that dwelt on both sides of the Jordan. Those on the east side had already been destroyed in the war which the Israelites had with Sihon and Og; with those on the west side Joshua had not yet waged war. It is possible however that the Amorites of whom we read in this verse, were the remains of those who dwelt on the east side of the Jordan, and who had taken refuge here on the defeat of Og and Sihon.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Jos 5:1. Amorites — These and the Canaanites are…
Jos 5:1. Amorites — These and the Canaanites are mentioned for all the rest, as being the chief of them for number, and power, and courage. On the side of Jordan westward — This is added to distinguish them from the other Amorites, eastward from Jordan, whom Moses had subdued. Which were by the sea — The midland sea, all along the coast of it, which was the chief seat of that people, though divers colonies of them were come into and settled in other places. That the Lord had dried up Jordan — Which was their bulwark on the east side, where the Israelites were; for it is very probable they had taken away all bridges near those parts; and the Israelites having been so long in that neighbouring country, and yet not making any attempt upon them, they were grown secure; especially now, when Jordan swelled beyond its ordinary bounds; and therefore they did not endeavour to hinder their passage. Their heart melted — They lost all their courage, and durst attempt nothing upon the Israelites. This did not happen without God’s special providence, that the Israelites might quietly participate of the two great sacraments of their church, circumcision and the passover, and thereby be prepared for their high and hard work, and for the possession of the holy and promised land; which would have been defiled by an uncircumcised people.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14 The Amorites were the principal of those nations which…
The Amorites were the principal of those nations which occupied the hill country of Judaea (Gen 10:16 note); the Canaanites of those that dwelt on the coast and low lands. These words are therefore equivalent to “all the kings of the highlanders, and all the kings of the lowlanders:” i. e. the kings of all the tribes of the country.
Until we were passed over - The use of the first person has been noted here, and in Jos 5:6 (compare Act 16:10), as suggesting the hand of one who himself shared in what he describes. But the text as read (though not written) by the Jewish authorities here, has the third person; as have some manuscripts, Septuagint, Vulgate, etc.: and a change of person like this in Hebrew, even if the text stand, does not of itself warrant the inference. (Compare Psa 66:6.)
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Time. While the enemy was rendered incapable of attacking…
Time. While the enemy was rendered incapable of attacking the Israelites by excessive fear (Calmet) and consternation, Josue was commanded to renew the sign of the covenant, by which they were to take possession of the land, and it is supposed that he complied the day after he arrived at Galgal; (Haydock) so that the wound would be healing, when the feast of the Passover commenced four days later. On the third day it is most painful. (Genesis xxxiv. 25.) --- Of stone. Hebrew tsurim, which some translate, "sharp;" but the Septuagint and the best interpreters agree, that the word indicates a stone. Such a knife was used by Sephora. (Exodus iv. 25.) It was supposed that sharp stones would cause less inflammation or danger. Samia testa....amputabant, nec aliter citra perniciem. (Pliny, [Natural History?] xxv. 12.) Herodotus (ii. 86,) observes, that the Egyptian embalmers opened the body of the deceased with a "sharp Ethiopian stone." The people of Africa, and of America, have frequently used stone to cut wood, &c. Some of the Fathers assert, that Christ was circumcised with a knife of stone. But any other sharp instrument might be used for the purpose. Any person might perform the operation. Izates, king of the Adiabenians, received circumcision from the hand of a surgeon. (Josephus, [Antiquities?] xx. 2.) (Calmet) --- Time. Not that such as had been circumcised before were to be circumcised again: but that they were not to renew, and take up again the practice of circumcision; which had been omitted during their 40 years’ sojourning in the wilderness; by reason of their being always uncertain whey they should be obliged to march. (Challoner) --- St. Augustine (q. 6,) seems to think that the Israelites despised this ceremony in the desert. Theodoret (q. 2,) supposes it was disused because it was not then necessary, to distinguish the Israelites from other nations. Masius is of opinion that God would not allow them to employ it, after their revolt at Cades-barne, when they would not take possession of the land of Chanaan; and hence they could not resume that privilege, till God had authorized them again, ver 7., and Numbers xiv. 33. The covenant with God, of which circumcision was the seal, had been, in the mean time, suspended. But as the Israelites are no where blamed, in Scripture, on account of this omission, it seems that God dispensed with them during the 38 years after they left Sinai, that the children might not be exposed to the evident danger of perishing, as the people knew not how soon the cloud would give notice for an immediate departure. (Calmet) --- Since they were now in te midst of the nations of Chanaan, this distinctive mark (Menochius) was to be henceforth diligently observed. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 4. The Dedication to the Holy War
4. The Dedication to the Holy War
Joshua 5
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a. The Effect of the Invasion on the Inhabitants of the Land
Jos_5:1
1And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites which were on the [other] side of [the] Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites which were by the sea, heard that the Lord [Jehovah] had dried up the waters of [the] Jordan from before the children [sons] of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children [sons] of Israel.
b. The Circumcision of the People
Jos_5:2-9
2At that time the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Joshua: Make thee sharp knives [knives of stone], and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. 3And Joshua made him sharp knives [knives of stone], and circumcised the children of Israel at 4the hill of the foreskins. And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: all the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even [omit: even] all the men of war 5[had] died in the wilderness by the way, after [as] they came out of Egypt. Now [For] all the people that came out were circumcised; but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised. 6For the children [sons] of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people [nation] that were [omit: that were] men [the men] of war, which came out of Egypt were consumed, because they obeyed not [hearkened not to] the voice of the Lord [Jehovah]: unto whom the Lord [Jehovah] sware that he would not show them the land which the Lord [Jehovah] sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey. 7And their children [sons], whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised: because they had not circumcised them by the way.1 8And it came to pass when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole [healed]. 9And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore [And] the name of the [that] place is called Gilgal unto this day.
c. The Passover. The Corn of the Land
Jos_5:10-12
10And the children [sons] of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even, in the plains of Jericho. 11And they did eat of the old corn [the produce] of the land in the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn [roasted ears] in the self-same day. 12And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn [produce] of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.
d. The Captain of the Lord’s Host
Jos_5:13-15
13And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14And he said, Nay; but as captain2 of the host of the Lord [Jehovah] am I now come.3 And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? 15And the captain of the Lord’s [Jehovah’s] host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy: and Joshua did so.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Starke has given to this chapter the somewhat clumsy yet substantially correct superscription: “The things which followed immediately upon the passage through the Jordan.” Thus we have here brought before us in succession, related and displayed, (a.) the effect of the invasion of Canaan upon the heathen, Jos_5:1; (b.) the circumcision of the people, Jos_5:2-9; (c.) the enjoyment of the bread of the land and the Passover in connection with the cessation of the manna, Jos_5:10-15; and finally, (d.) the appearance of the war-prince of God (Jos_5:13-15). In a critical point of view, this chapter offers, when compared with chapters 3 and 4, no difficulties, so to speak; since the continuity of the narration is interrupted by nothing and no repetitions occur. Even Knobel has received the same impression of the present chapter, except Jos_5:10-12. He ascribes all the rest to one and the same author, namely, that of the “Law Book.” Since for us this “Law Book” in Knobel’s sense has no existence, we can agree with him only in so far as we believe that in Jos_5:1-9; Jos_5:13-15 we meet with the same hand.
As to Jos_5:10-12, they stand nearly related to Jos_4:17; Jos_4:19, through the exact designation of time which characterizes them. In Jos_5:10 also, as there in Jos_5:12, Gilgal is mentioned, so that all which is reported between may be omitted, and in Jos_5:10 the author takes up the thread which he had dropped in Jos_5:4-15. On the other hand Jos_5:10 connects itself easily and naturally with Jos_5:9, so that there appears to be no absolute necessity to go back to Jos_4:19. When, however, we examine Jos_5:9 b more sharply, the whole turn of the sentence, and also the expression, here again repeated, “until this day,” presents itself as designed to introduce Jos_5:10-12, which we must refer to the Elohistic document, on account of its character in other respects, and therefore regard as the proper continuation of Jos_4:19.
a. Jos_5:1. The Effect of the Invasion upon the Heathen. The verse stands in the most exact connection with Jos_4:24. All the peoples of the earth were to learn how mighty is the hand of the Lord and fear Him. A first example of this effect is given by the Canaanites, whose heart melts, and whose courage flees. The terror which, according to the words of Rahab, had before seized them (Jos_2:9-11), had been increased by the marvelous passage of the Jordan. A panic had fallen upon them.—בְעֵבֶר does not refer here, as in Jos_1:14-15, to the country east of the Jordan, but as is shown by the careful addition יָמָּה to the west side of the river.—The more difficult Kethib עָבְרֵנוּ, is to be retained like לָנוּ, Jos_5:6. “In עָבְרֵנוּ the author assumes the person of the people and speaks in their name, as in Jos_5:6, comp. Psa_66:6.” (Knobel).4
b. Jos_5:2-9. The Circumcision of the People. This takes place upon an express command of Jehovah because, as Jos_5:4-6 state, it had been omitted in the wilderness. The covenant-people should, as such, bear the sign of the covenant which Abraham had formerly received as a seal (σφραγίς) of the righteousness of faith (Rom_4:11), and with it, as a sanctified people, holy to the Lord, enter into the promised land.
Knives of stone. Thus and not “sharp knives” must we translate הַרְבוֹת צֻרִים. Joshua follows the custom of antiquity which, as Exo_4:25 shows, performed circumcision with stone knives, because they had as yet no others. Afterwards this kind of knives, as being more venerable, were still employed in sacred transactions. [Among the additions of the LXX. at the end of this book, is the curious statement after Jos_24:30 : “there they placed with him in the tomb where they buried him, the knives of stone (τὰς μαχάιρας τὰς πετρίνας) with which he circumcised the sons of Israel in Gilgal.—Tr.] “The testa samia with which the priests of Cybele castrated themselves (Plin. 35, 46), and the stone knives of the Egyptian embalmers (Herod. 2, 86), may serve as parallels” (Winer, Bibl. Realw., s. v. “Messer.”) The Vulgate has rightly fac tibi cultros lapideos; the LXX. mingle together a right translation and wrong interpretation: ποίησο ν σεαυτῷ μαχαίρας πετρίνας ἐκ πέτραςἀκροτόμου. Stone knives were found also at the discovery of the pile-dwellings, e.g. in the lake of Zurich near Meilen (1854), where I myself saw them. They are very finely ground, and cut, not indeed like a knife of steel, but better than one would believe. Always, however, the operation with these instruments was a very imperfect one, and in the case before us extremely painful.5
[Circumcise again.… the second time.
שֵׁנִית does not indicate, of course, that the circumcision of the same people was to be repeated, but that, as the whole people which came out of Egypt had been circumcised, so now there should be a circumcision of the present people. Cf. Keil, Bib. Com. in loc. Masius understood שֵׁנִית to mark the reintroduction of the rite with reference to its first employment by Abraham. Com. in Josuam, p. 81. This is too far sought.—Tr.]
Hill of foreskins. Perhaps so named from this transaction. Lev_19:23, where circumcision of the trees is spoken of, appears not to belong here [against an intimation of Knobel’s].
Jos_5:4-7. Statement of the reason why Joshua performed this rite. Knobel expresses doubt whether what is here reported is historical fact. In support of this he appeals to the Elohist, who says nothing of such omission, Jos_4:19 compared with Jos_5:10. But even assuming that these passages are, as we concede, Elohistic, they do not suffice to impeach the historical character of the reason assigned, since they furnish at the most a very weak argumentum e silentio, while on the other side it is highly probable that although circumcision “had been sharply enjoined” on the Israelites at Sinai (Lev_12:3), they had, in their unsettled wanderings, neglected to follow the command of God. The same thing took place later in the case of the Passover, through hundreds of years, as we learn from 2Ki_23:22.
Jos_5:6. All the nation, the men of war. According to Num_14:22-30 the adult generation, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, were doomed to die in the wilderness, and a new generation must enter into Canaan. That the men of war specially are mentioned, agrees with Num_14:29-32, according to which all who were mustered after their number (Comp. Num_1:45 ff.), from twenty years old and upward, should die in the wilderness. Since, then, the former circumcised men of war were no more, their bodies having fallen in the wilderness, on account of disobedience, the present race of young men must, before they dare undertake the conquest of Canaan, first receive the sign of the Lord’s covenant of which we just now spoke.
A land that floweth with milk and honey. Exo_3:8; Exo_3:17; Exo_13:5; Exo_16:14; Exo_33:3; Lev_20:24; Num_13:27; Num_14:8; Deu_1:3, and often. “Milk and honey are productions of a land rich in grass and flowers which make residence therein pleasant and beautiful. Both articles were abundantly produced in Canaan, even in a state of devastation, Isa_7:15; Isa_7:22. Milk, eaten partly sweet and partly thick or curdled, that of cows as well as of goats and sheep (Deu_32:14), was prominent in the diet of the ancient Hebrews, as in that of the Orientals of the present day. This is because Palestine was and is so well suited to the care of cattle, comp. Winer. Realw. ii. 768 ff. The land yielded great quantities of honey also, especially that from wild bees (Jdg_14:8; 1Sa_14:26; Mat_3:4), and still yields it in its wasted condition” (Keil). [See references Introd. § 6, p. 27.] That we are to understand here real honey and not syrup, appears from its connection with milk. Keil quotes similar descriptions from Euripides and Theocritus. Thus it is said in Eurip. Bacchæ, Josh 142:
‘Pεῖ δὲ γάλακτι πέδον
‘Pεῖ δ̓οἴνῳ, ῥεῖ δὲ μελισσῶν
Nέκταρι……
No mention is made here of wine, although the vine thrives extraordinarily well, especially in the region of Hebron. Compare also Num_13:21; Num_13:24, as well as the beautiful expression that each one dwelt, or should dwell, under his vine and figtree, 1Ki_4:25; Mic_4:4.
Jos_5:7. Them Joshua circumcised, that is, as in Jos_5:3, Joshua ordered their circumcision. The operation itself was performed by the several fathers of families, as it is related of Abraham, Gen_17:23 ff., for which Act_16:3 also may be compared. Thus we most easily escape the difficulty which otherwise arises, (a) in view of the great number to be circumcised, and (b) of the shortness of the time, since according to Jos_5:10 they celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth of the month Abib. We surely cannot think of help from the mothers and other women (Rosenmüller). We refrain from an exact determination of the number of those circumcised, such as Keil has attempted (pp. 74, 75).6
Jos_5:8. Till they were healed. “When the whole people were circumcised they remained in their place (Exo_10:23; Exo_16:29) in the camp, that is, did not leave the camp nor undertake anything until they were healed. This is חָיָה, prop, to live, become lively (Gen_16:27), revive (Job_14:14; Eze_37:3), then also to be healed (2Ki_1:2; 2Ki_8:8). On the third day the pain was at its height (Gen_34:25).” (Knobel.)
Jos_5:9. The reproach of Egypt. The reproach which has attached to the people all the way from Egypt, and which consists in the misery of the people who had there become a people of slaves. This reproach had not yet been removed while they were journeying through the wilderness, because God had been angry with his people for their disobedience, and they on their part had neglected circumcision.7 Now a new day has dawned. The reproach is rolled away through the resumption of the sacred covenant-rite. Hence Isaiah also, at a later period, warns them (Exo_30:1-5) against alliances with Egypt, lest the strength of Pharaoh should become a shame (בּשֶׁת) to them, and prophesies expressly that Egypt will be no help nor any profit at all, but a shame and a reproach. One day, however, a time will come, according to the testimony of the same prophet (Exo_25:8), when the Lord will swallow up death forever, and wipe away the tears from every face, and take away the reproach of his people from off the earth. The reproach of former slavery is meant, the reproach of banishment, of widowhood, as it is called. Isa_54:1. חֶרפַּת is synonymous with בּשֶׁתּ or גְּרוּפָּה קָלוֹן ,בּוּז (Isa_30:5; Psa_69:20; Psa_119:22; Pro_18:3; Eze_5:15).
And the name of this place is called Gilgal unto this day; according to the view of the author, because God had in this place rolled away the reproach from off his people. Knobel, Fürst, and others, question this derivation because two cities besides of this name are mentioned, one between Dor and Thirza (Jos_12:23), and another, six Roman miles north of Antipatris (Deu_11:30), “which Eusebius still knew by the name of Magdala, and accurately indicates.” Accordingly other derivations have been sought. The name should signify, in reference to Jos_4:19-24, the place of the stone-heap, or stone-heap monument, or = נִּלְגַּל, a wheel-shaped height, to which גֻּלְגֹּלֶת = Golgotha might be cited as analogous. Fürst, and Knobel (on Jos_15:7) explain the word by circle, circuit, like the cognate גָּלִיל (hence Galilee), as also we have גְּלִילוֹת, Jos_18:7, for הַגִּלְגָּל, Jos_15:7, and according to LXX. גָּלִילJos_12:23. Subsequently גִּלְגָּל was pronounced גֻּלְגֹּל (Γολγων, Golgol), cf. Phœn. אִי־גִּלְגָּל (coast of the circle), pr. nom. of the city Igilgili (’Ιγιλγίλει, Ptol. 4, 2, litus Igilgilitanum, in Amm. 29, 5, 5; now G’i’-’gelli, near the river Ampsaga in Algiers); גָּלְגָּל (Gulgog), pr. nom. of a Phœnician settlement in Cyprus.” We adopt this last-named etymology, since manifestly these places previously bore the name Gilgal, and not, like Bethel or Bethlehem (Gen_28:19; Gen_35:15; Gen_35:19), a different one. But after a definite historical event had occurred here, which was recalled by the word, the name Gilgal was subsequently interpreted symbolically by the Israelites. Compare with this, out of the most recent history, the symbolical significance of the name Königgrätz = (dem) König g’räth’s [the king succeeds.]8
c. Jos_5:10-12. The Passover, connected with the first Enjoyment of the Bread of the Land, and the Cessation of the Manna. On the special relation of this short passage, which in every view suits very well with the entire narrative, we have already commented, on Jos_4:15-17; Jos_4:19. “The children of Israel encamped in Gilgal where they had already pitched, according to Jos_4:19, and observed the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening. The designation of time recalls Exo_12:6; Exo_12:18; Lev_23:5; Num_9:3; Num_28:16, and is not met with elsewhere in the Pentateuch” (Knobel).
Jos_5:11. On the morrow after the passover; not as Keil strangely supposes, on the sixteenth, but on the fifteenth, precisely according to the precept of the law, Lev_23:5; Lev_6:9
In the self-same day, “on which they observed the Passover.” For the evening of the fourteenth belonged to the fifteenth day, see Exo_12:6; Gen_1:5 (Knobel). [Or, the self-same day on which they ate the unleavened bread from the new grain. Tr.]—מֵעֲבוּר הָאָרֶץ, of the produce of the land. According to Gesen. the etymology is uncertain. Fürst derives עָבוּר from עבר = to make fruitful. Both compare the Aram. עוֹבָרָא, fœtus, surculus. Targum and Peshito use עָבוּר for דָּגָן and יבוּל. Instead of עבור הארץ, which occurs nowhere else in the O. T., תְּבוּאַת אֶרֶץ is used Lev_23:39, as well as here in the latter part of Jos_5:12. In the translation, the distinction between the words is attempted to be preserved by “produce” (not old corn) and “fruit” (yield). The word תְּבוּאת means precisely “income” (from בוא).
Roasted, ears. Roasted harvest ears are meant; an article of food still much esteemed by the Arabs. [See Smith’s Dict. of the Bible, art. “Ruth, Book of,” p. 2756 b.]
Jos_5:12. And the manna ceased on the morrow after they ate, etc. On the sixteenth therefore, the manna ceased, because the people had now arrived in Canaan, and no longer needed this bread of the wilderness (Exo_16:15; Exo_16:31 ff.; Num_11:6 ff.; Deu_8:3; Neh_9:20; Psa_78:24; Joh_6:31; Joh_6:49; Joh_6:58; Rev_2:17). At this place also the ark was substituted for the pillar of cloud and of fire, as the guide in the way.10 They stand in the most intimate relation to each other, since in the plan of God, the historical development of the people was gradually to take the place of his immediate guidance and support.
In respect to the manna itself, it is well known that reference has often been made to the tamariskmanna of the Sinaitic peninsula, which results from the puncture of the leaves of the Tamarix mannifera, or orientalis, by an insect of the coccus family (Coccus manniparus), and in the form of a sweet, honey-like resin. So the whole body of rationalist interpreters, explain. On the other side, von Raumer (The March of the Israelites, p. 21 ff.) maintains that, “that manna of the Israelites differed from the present tamarisk-manna toto cœlo; the honest student of Scripture cannot possibly regard that “corn of heaven,” that “angel’s food,” as it is called (Psa_78:25 ff.), with which God fed his people, as being the same as the louse-production (!) of the naturalist.” Stiff supranaturalism! to which even Hengstenberg and Keil do not agree. These assume rather that in the feeding with manna, “the supernatural rises on the ground of the natural, as in the case of the miracles in Egypt, and in that of the quail-food.” See Keil on this passage (p. 83 ff.).
As analogous to this we might cite the miraculous feeding in John 6 where also the natural basis of bread and fish was present (Joh_6:9). The miracle consists in both cases in the increase, on the grandest scale, of the food which they already had. While now, even in the most rainy seasons, not more than fifty or sixty pounds is gathered, the Israelites gathered, according to von Raumer’s calculation, at least on certain occasions, near 600,000 pounds. It lay after the dew like frost around the camp (Exo_16:14). God rained it on the Israelites (Psa_78:25). This last expression, which however is employed also concerning flesh, Josephus follows when he says (Ant. iii. 1, 6), that it still rains manna in the wilderness of Sinai. Keil disputes this statement of Josephus, because (a) it is supported by no trustworthy authority; (b) it is made by him evidently on the ground of uncertain accounts which had come to him by hearsay. Recent travellers know nothing at all of any manna rain.11 The great abundance of the manna, therefore, remains a miracle. In respect to the substance also a difference between the manna of the Bible, and that of the present day seems to hold good, since the latter cannot be pounded, ground, baked in cakes, as is reported (Num_11:7-8) concerning the former. A further, “essential” difference we cannot assume, with Keil, at least not on the ground that “the present manna is used only as an accompaniment to other food and as a dainty, or even as a purgative medicine,” since Num_11:6 proves how greatly the Israelites loathed the manna as the solitary staple of their diet. Their soul was dried away (יְבֵשָׁה) upon it. They longed therefore for flesh, which the Lord also gave them (Num_11:31; Psa_78:27; Psa_105:40), as conversely he had before (Exo_16:13) given them first quails and then manna. Keil concludes his explanation of our passage in these words: “The feeding of the Israelites with manna remains, therefore, a miracle of God which has indeed, in nature, a faint analogue, but can never be explained on natural principles.” In this he means right, as his preceding exposition shows, but ought rather to have said that this miracle rises indeed on a foundation given in nature, but can by no means be identified with the phenomenon of the manna still commonly exhibited at the present day, nor be fully explained by it.12
As to the etymology, the word מָן according to Exo_16:15; Exo_16:31, has its name from מָן, what?, but this is elsewhere only Chaldee. Gesenius derives it from the Arabic, and explains it as meaning part, present, gift, namely of heaven, as the Arabs actually call it. He thus follows Kimchi, and Ibn Esra, who also compare Heb. מָנָה. Fürst resorts to an extra-Semitic etymology, because the manna was strange to the Hebrews, and they (Exo_16:15; Exo_16:31) had no name for it. We think this unnecessary, and would rather refer the word to the unused root מָנָה = מָנַן, to divide, to part, to measure, precisely as מֶן, Psa_68:24. Compare also שַׁן from חַן ,שָׁנן (in compounds like חַנִּיאֵל, sounded also חַן) from חָנַן.
c. Jos_5:13-15. The War-Prince of God. As the people receive the consecration to the holy war through circumcision and the Passover, so Joshua, their leader, receives his through the appearance of the prince over Jehovah’s army, who commands him, as was done to Moses (Exo_3:5), to take off his shoes because the place whereon he stands is holy.
Jos_5:13. By Jericho [lit.: in Jericho], (cf. Jos_10:16; Jos_24:26; Gen_13:18). The man bears a drawn (Luther: bare) sword in his hand. Such an one is borne also by the angel who meets Balaam in the way (Num_22:23), and not less by the Cherub at the gate of Paradise (Gen_3:24). Joshua, thus proving that God has not in vain admonished him (Jos_1:6-7; Jos_1:9) to be strong and firm, goes near the apparition and asks the man: Art thou for us or for our adversaries? “The question was appropriate for the military leader of the Israelites” (Knobel.)
Jos_5:14. “The one addressed answers in the negative, and belongs, therefore, neither to one nor to the other, but is rather the captain of Jehovah’s host, that is, prince of the angels. For these, called also the host of heaven (1Ki_22:19), are to be understood as the צְבָא יי, as Psa_103:21; Psa_148:2” (Knobel). Compare further, 2Ch_18:18, and Luk_2:13. And Jehovah himself is “Jehovah of hosts,” or more fully, “Jehovah God of hosts” (Jer_5:14; Jer_15:16), as God is called by the prophets and frequently, in the Psalms, Isa_6:3; Isa_37:16; Isa_51:15; Jer_33:11; Amo_9:5; Psa_24:10; Psa_80:8; Psa_84:2; in the N. T. Jam_5:4. On the significance of this angel see below, Theological and Ethical.
Am I now come.13 For what, is not told, since Joshua interrupts the angel, and with the deepest reverence asks: What speaks my Lord (אֲדֹנָי as Gen_19:18, not אֲדֹנִי, should be read [?] because Joshua recognizes the man as a higher being; Knobel) to his servant.
Jos_5:15. Loose thy shoes from off thy feet, prop, throw off thy shoes from thy feet. We point according to Exo_3:5, שַׁל־נְעָלֶיךָ מֵעַל רַגלֶיךָ instead of נַעַלְךָ and רַגְלֶךָ. [This change is of very doubtful warrant.] De Wette and Luther also adopt the plural in their translations. The shoes must be removed because to them cleaves defilement from the earth, which God has cursed (Gen_3:17.) Hence the priests also must wash their hands and feet, when they entered the sanctuary (Exo_30:19; Exo_40:32), and went in probably barefooted. But a direct precept to go barefoot is nowhere found.
For the place .… is holy. It is holy from the appearance here of the angel. Probably the latter communicated still further to Joshua what he was to do. Knobel supposes directions for the approaching war, as well as promises and encouragements; rightly.
[There is much in favor of the view advocated by Keil, and many before him, that the communication of the angel to Joshua is contained in Jos_6:2-5. Chapter Jos_5:13 to Jos_6:5, would thus constitute one paragraph; Jos_6:1 being a parenthetical statement of the historical circumstance which gave occasion for this divine intervention; and the division of chapters ought to be before or after the entire paragraph. That the Angel should be at last recognized by the narrator as Jehovah and so designated, Jos_6:2, is in full accordance with Gen_18:17; Gen_18:20. This conception of the scene prevents the theophany from being so aimless and void of result as it otherwise appears.
Is it accidental merely that the former appearance also of the Jehovah-angel, to Abraham, is represented as having occurred immediately after the circumcision of his family, Genesis 17.—Tr.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Circumcision and the Passover were the two covenant signs and seals (σφραγίδες) of the O. T.
The former was, as Christ himself testifies, older than Moses; it was of the fathers (Joh_7:22), since God, as Stephen says, Act_7:8, had given the covenant of circumcision to Abraham. By it the nation was, through its fathers and youths, consecrated to Jehovah. That was to be indeed a holy people, which belonged to him as the people of his possession. To the true Israelites, therefore, who perceived in the circumcision of the flesh an index to the circumcision of the heart, which must be freed from all impurity even through pain, it was a token of exalted honor.14 In later times, indeed, upon the entrance of heathen customs, many became ashamed of it, and artificially removed the traces of it. It was performed, as is well known, on the eighth day (Gen_17:12; Luk_2:21), and only he who was circumcised could partake of the Passover which was the other covenant sign of the O. T. (Gen_12:1 ff., and especially Gen_12:43 ff.). This latter was of Mosaic origin, and was first of all a meal of thankful, joyous remembrance of the deliverance of the people out of Egypt, of their exemption (פֶּסַח) from the plague, of the rescue from the house of bondage. Both signs point beyond themselves to other and greater things, to baptism and the Lord’s supper, which are of a more universal, spiritual nature, but just as exactly and intimately connected with each other as circumcision and the Passover.
2. The captain of the Lord’s host is the angel of the presence or face (Exo_23:20) in whom was God’s name (Exo_5:21), of whom God says to Moses (Exo_33:14), “My presence shall go, thereby will I lead thee.” From the passages quoted he assumes an altogether peculiar position towards God, who raises him above all other angels, so that we may perhaps recognize in him the λόγος incarnandus. Comp. also Pro_8:30.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The terror of the Canaanites.—The heart melts, courage flees when one knows not the living God yet hears of his mighty deeds.—Where there is no confidence in God there is no courage. The consecration of the people for the occupancy of the Holy Land through, (1) the circumcision of the warriors born in the Wilderness. (2) The Passover kept by all Israel.—Circumcision and the Passover in their typical relation to baptism and the Lord’s supper. The sacraments of the Old and those of the N. T.—As the enjoyment of the paschal lamb and the sweet bread was conditioned on the circumcision of the participant, so is that of the Holy Supper on baptism.—Of the true circumcision, which is performed not on the body but on the heart (Rom_2:29; Col_2:11).—Death the punishment of disobedience.—Through the wilderness to Canaan!—The heavenly Canaan much richer, more lovely and beautiful than the earthly, of which, however, it is said that it is a land flowing with milk and honey.—To-day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you! This word is fulfilled, (1.) at Gilgal; (2.) much more gloriously at Golgotha.—The reproach of Egypt—sin and its misery.
The first Passover on the soil of Canaan: (1) A feast of thankful remembrance; (2) a feast of blessed hope. The bread of the land although not manna, yet also bread from heaven!—There is a manna which never fails. Comp. John 6, Revelation 2.—The true bread of life.
The consecration of the army-leader Joshua by the appearance of the captain of God’s army. (1) Who stood opposite him? (2) How did Joshua behave? (3) What command did he receive?—The brave question of Joshua: Art thou for us or our adversaries?—The prince of the Lord’s host in his relation to Christ the prince of life.—Joshua’s humility the more beautiful because accompanied with steadfast courage. So should Christians also be as Joshua was, courageous and humble minded. They will be so if they themselves know the true source of courage and humility, the living God.—Loose thy shoes from off thy feet, for, etc. Comparison of the call of Moses (Exodus 3) and the consecration of Joshua.—Comparison of the consecration of the leader Joshua and of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6).—”And Joshua did so.” Let us also always do what God commands.
Starke: God’s words and works have not the same effect with the ungodly and the pious.—If the Israelites could not without the bodily circumcision enter the earthly Canaan, how should it be possible for any one without the spiritual circumcision of the heart to enter into the heavenly Canaan.—Who loves God, him God loves in return and reveals Himself to him (Joh_14:21).—Even the exalted in this world should not be ashamed to bow the knee before God. 1Ki_8:54; Psa_95:6.
Bibl. Wirt: When God will punish a land or a people He gives them first a fearful and faint heart, Lev_26:36; Deu_28:65; Deu_11:25.
Cramer: He who will have prosperity and a blessing, must begin his enterprise with God, with his word and the use of the holy sacraments, Pro_1:7, Mat_6:33. God usually performs no miracles when one can have natural means to accomplish something, and then He points us to the ordinary way of subsistence and toil; He will bless that and will support us therein. Therefore, Christian, sing, pray, and go on in God’s ways.
Gerlach: “The Lord cometh,” when his people especially feel their need of his help, and become comfortably conscious of his presence and aid, Gen_18:1.
[Matt. Henry (on Jos_5:13-15): Observe, I. the time when he was favored with this vision; it was immediately after he had performed the great solemnities of circumcision and the Passover; then God made Himself known to him. Note, we may then expect the discoveries of the divine grace, when we are found in the way of our duty, and are diligent and sincere in our attendance on holy ordinances.
II. The place where he had this vision; it was by Jericho.… There he was (some think) meditating and praying; and to those who are so employed God often graciously manifests Himself. Or, perhaps, there he was to take a view of the city, to observe its fortifications and contrive how to attack it, and perhaps he was at a loss within himself how to make his approaches, when God came and directed him. Note, God will help those that help themselves: Vigilantibus non dormientibus sucurrit lex—”The law succors those who watch, not those who sleep.” Joshua was in his post as General when God came and made Himself known to him as Generalissimo.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1][Jos_5:7.—More accurately: And their sons he raised up in their stead: them Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised; for they had not circumcised them by the way.—Tr.]
[2][Jos_5:14.—Scarcely any problem is more perplexing to the translator of the O. T. than to find appropriate designations for the officials and dignitaries, civil and military, among the Jews and related nations. The word שׁטִרִים has already afforded an illustration. An identical revision of the entire O. T. with reference to this point would doubtless be requisite to remedy the difficulty, and could then, from the very nature of the case, attain only to partial success. The English Vers. is, however, unnecessarily vague. Thus, besides “captain,” as here, שַׂר is rendered by at least a dozen different terms, while “captain” answers to nearly or quite as many Hebrew words. The same is true of נָשִׂיא, prince, and in a great measure of many others. The result is indistinctness and confusion to the reader where the Hebrew to the Hebrews was probably clear and specific. Doing our best, we could not, perhaps, from our inadequate terminology in this sphere, do with less than three different words for שַׂר, in its civil, military, and occupational applications; as captain or general (used 1Ch_27:34), governor, chief. And so mutatis mutandis with the rest.—Tr.]
[3][Jos_5:14.—If, as many suppose, the angelic communication was interrupted here by Joshua’s startled sense of awe and reverence, the connection would be better indicated by a dash in place of the period, thus: Am I now come—And Joshua etc.—Tr.]
[4][Yet this form of expression has been not without reason long held, and still is by Keil and others, as a proof that the narrative was written by one who had shared in the transaction.—Tr.]
[5][See Dr. Hackett’s addition to art. “Knives,’ in Smith’s Dict. of the Bible, Amer. ed.—Tr.]
[6][Keil elaborately calculates that from 670,000 to 720,000 required to be circumcised, while there were besides from 280,000 to 330,000 circumcised in early life who might perform the labors of the Passover celebration.—Tr.]
[7][Besides the common answer to the question, Why the rite of circumcision had been disused for thirty-eight years in the wilderness, namely, that the unsettled condition of the people would not allow it to be practiced conveniently or safely (?) Masius subjoined: “Quod filii non circumcidermtur, pœnœ species fuisse videtur qua Deus non tam ipsos plectebat filios quam impiorum parentum urebat animos, quum viderent liberos suos sacrosancti fœderis symbolo carere. Huc enim, mihi certe, videntur spectare illa in Numeris xiv.. 33 Dei verba, cum dicit: Vestra ipsorum corpora, etc., q. d. quia abdicastis vos a mea familia per rebellionem, filis quoque vestri adoptionis nota carebunt quamdiu vos in vivis eritis. Several modern critics (Keil, Hengstenberg) make this the principal reason for the long abeyance of circumcision.—Tr.]
[8][There is no evidence, however, that there had been any town or inhabited place here before to require a name at all. No trace of one has been discovered or is likely to be. It was merely a suitable camping-ground, as they found it, perhaps on the easternmost verge of fertile land—Josephus says it was about one and a quarter miles from Jericho,—and was named simply by and for themselves. And why not Gilgal (as suggested by “rolling”) then as well as anything? It certainly is not against this that people of the same language gave the same name to many other places for related reasons.—Tr.]
[9][And yet, considering that the law forbade them (Lev_23:14) to eat roasted ears, etc., until the day on which they brought an offering to their God, which offering (Jos_5:12) was to be made on the day in which they “waved the sheaf,” which again (Jos_5:11) was the morrow after “the Sabbath” (commonly understood to mean here the day of “holy convocation,” i.e. the fifteenth of the month), there is much reason for Keil’s view. And so many commentators have always held. The chief doubt seems to rest on the reference of the word Sabbath in this passage. See the main points of the dispute indicated in Smith’s Dict, of Bible, Art. “Passover,” (g) p. 2346, and Pentecost, note b, p. 2341 f.—Tr.]
[10][This is probable, yet the pillar of cloud and fire has for some time disappeared from the narrative.—Tr.]
[11][Comp. the phenomena of “Honey-dew” familiar to every naturalist. This sometimes occurs over wide districts of America and Europe in such abundance as to drop freely from the leaves and twigs of various species of trees, while yet several years may elapse without any at all, or at the most only a trifling quantity being seen. Apiarians have much occasion to notice it. Whether it is uniformly the excretion of Aphides in any of their widely different kinds, or sometimes a direct exudation from the trees, and if the latter, from what cause, are still disputed questions. On the whole subject of the manna see the Dict. of the Bible, s. v.; Ritter in Gage’s Transl. ii pp. 271–292.—Tr.]
[12][Dr. Stowe in the Bible Dict. s. v. regards it as wholly miraculous.]
[13][The עַתָּה, “now,” in this phrase is probably designed to indicate that the speaker is present to make a communication of importance, cf. Dan_9:22; Dan_10:11; Dan_10:14. So Masius, referring to those passages: “Significant iste verba eum qui sic loquitur de re quapiam singulari adesse, suamque prœsentiam declarare.”—Tr.]
[14][On the significance of circumcision, see Ebrard’s interesting views in his Dogmatik, § 526, briefly stated by the present writer in the Baptist Quarterly for July, 1869.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 CIRCUMCISION IS RENEWED. (Jos 5:2-12)
CIRCUMCISION IS RENEWED. (Jos 5:2-12)
At that time--on the encampment being made after the passage.
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the Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives--Stone knives, collect and make them ready. Flints have been used in the early times of all people; and although the use of iron was known to the Hebrews in the days of Joshua, probably the want of a sufficient number of metallic implements dictated the employment of flints on this occasion (compare Exo 4:25).
circumcise again the children of Israel the second time--literally, "return and circumcise." The command did not require him to repeat the operation on those who had undergone it, but to resume the observance of the rite, which had been long discontinued. The language, however, evidently points to a general circumcising on some previous occasion, which, though unrecorded, must have been made before the celebration of the passover at Sinai (compare Exo 12:48; Num 9:5), as a mixed multitude accompanied the camp. "The second time" of general circumcising was at the entrance into Canaan.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 CONSTERNATION OF THE CANAANITES, Jos_5:1.
CONSTERNATION OF THE CANAANITES, Jos_5:1.
1. It came to pass — Immediately after the Israelites had crossed, the miracle was heralded to all the kings of the land. This verse is closely related to the last verse of the preceding chapter, showing how the miracle of the Jordan at once made the neighbouring nations know the power of Jehovah’s hand. It also serves to show why Joshua might, without fear of attack, embrace this opportunity to circumcise the people.
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Amorites — See note on Jos_2:10.
On the side of Jordan westward — Literally, beyond Jordan seaward. The Amorites east of the Jordan, ruled by Sihon and Og, had been already defeated.
The Canaanites, which were by the sea — The various heathen tribes and nations along the Mediterranean Sea. A narrow plain extends along this sea from Gaza in the south to the northern limits of Phenicia. The Amorites and Canaanites, because of their superiority in numbers and political power, are put here apparently for all the nations of the land.
We were passed over — This expression naturally implies that the writer was an eye-witness of the scene described.
Their heart melted — Their hope and courage died within them, for they despaired of conquering an almighty foe.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Ch. Jos_5:1-9. Renewal of the Rite of Circumcision
Ch. Jos_5:1-9. Renewal of the Rite of Circumcision
1. when all the kings of the Amorites] This verse stands in close connection with the last verse of the preceding Chapter. All the peoples of the earth were “to know the Name of the Lord” and to fear Him. A first example of this is seen in the case of the Canaanite nations.
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which were by the sea] See note above on Jos_3:10.
their heart melted] The terror which, as Rahab had told the spies, had already seized them was greatly increased by the news of the marvellous passage of the Jordan. Wyclif renders it, “the herte of hem is discomfortid, and abood not in hem spiryte of hem.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (1) The Amorites . . . and . .…
V.
(1) The Amorites . . . and . . . Canaanites.—Two principal nations seem to be here mentioned as representatives of the rest.
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We.—See Note on Jos_5:6.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Which were on the side of Jordan westward. A…
THE CIRCUMCISION.
Which were on the side of Jordan westward. A large portion of the territory of the Amorites had, as we have seen, (Jos_3:10) been already conquered. The remaining tribes on the other side Jordan were apprehensive of the same fate. For "on the side," the original has "across." Having hitherto written of Israel as on the eastern side of Jordan, he continues the same expression after he has narrated the crossing. But writing as he did on the west side of Jordan, and for readers the vast majority of whom were on the west side of Jordan, he adds the expression "westward" (literally, seaward) to prevent any possibility of mistake. Until we were passed over. The Masorites, in the Keri, have corrected the text (Chethibh) into "until they were passed over." Kennicott states that this reading is confirmed by twenty-seven Hebrew MSS., which have probably adopted the reading from the Masoretic correction. The LXX accepts the Chethibh. The probability, however, is that this is one of the many instances of a conjectural emendation of a difficult passage, it not having been seen that the historian was either quoting a document contemporary with the events described, or more probably using the word to identify himself as an Israelite with the acts of his fathers in past times. This is the opinion of Rabbi David Kimchi. Knobel refers to Psa_66:6. See also ver. 6 of this chapter, and Jos_24:5, Jos_24:6, 7 Jud_1:11:17; cf. 19. We must not, then, assume from this passage that the Book of Joshua was written by one who himself had a share in the events recorded, in the face of many indications we have of a later origin. (see Jos_4:9, etc.) A fuller discussion of this subject will be found in the introduction. Their heart melted. Confirming what Rahab had said. (Jos_2:11) Similar terror has often been struck into the hearts of peoples, especially of peoples enervated by habits of licentious indulgence, by the approach of enemies who have successfully and rapidly overcome obstacles deemed insurmountable. Such an effect was produced in Persia by Alexander"s victories at the Granicus and Issus. Such an effect, again, was produced in Italy by the tidings of the approach of Alaric and Attila. If we may trust the monk of St. Gall, a similar terror fell on the degenerate Lombards at the approach of Charles the Great, after his daring passage of the Alps. In this case the miraculous element was added, and the inhabitants of Canaan, and of Jericho especially, remained for the time panic stricken, not daring to combine to strike a blow against these daring invaders, who in addition to their bravery seemed under the special protection of Heaven. When they had recovered from the consternation into which the passage of the Jordan had thrown them, the sense of an imminent danger forced them at last to make an effort at resistance (see Jos 10).
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Vers. 1-9. The great renewal of the covenant.
Matthew Henry very felicitously quotes here and combines the two passages, (Son_8:5 and Son_6:10) "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved, who looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" Terrible as an army in the eyes of her enemies (ver, 1); fair as the moon, clear as the sun, when the reproach of Egypt is rolled away (ver. 9).
I ISRAEL IS A TYPE OF THE CHURCH OF GOD IN HER WARFARE AGAINST SIN. When God"s Church resolutely binds herself to the conflict with the powers of evil, their heart must needs melt, neither is there spirit in them any more. "Then Satan doth fear, his citadels fall," says the hymn. For the Church comes in the strength of her Lord. The "strong man armed" must have his "armour, wherein he trusted," taken from him, and the spoils of human souls which he has so industriously acquired must be divided, because "the stronger than he" has come upon him and bound him. Satan has no weapons for a hand-to-hand conflict with the Body of Christ. His weapons are to corrupt, to deceive, to persuade to a spirit of compromise with the world. So it has ever been that he has triumphed by corrupting the Church of God. Whenever God"s disciples have gone forth to battle boldly and unflinchingly against evil, they have been victorious. They first humbled impurity and licentiousness, as well as unbelief. If they did not destroy these enemies of the soul, they at least compelled them to hide their heads, to shrink into corners, to admit unwillingly the superiority of purity and faith by ceasing to parade sins of this kind openly before the world. Next came the conflict with brute violence, which was kept in awe by the sacred character of the ministers of religion. Shameless and cynical effrontery in vice among those very ministers of religion, when the Church became corrupt, was next put down, even in spite of the weapons of force and temporal authority. So in later days a good cause has ever been victorious against the most overwhelming odds, when it has been prosecuted with perseverance and faith. Witness the abolition of slavery, first here, and next in America, so that even the Portuguese themselves, once the most hardened offenders in this respect, are now offering their cooperation with the English to put it down. So, again, the voice of God"s faithful ones has spoken, and men dare not now stand up to take away one another"s lives in this Christian land for a few hasty words, spoken without reflection. This may embolden us when we take up our weapons of prayer and holy exhortation to denounce the sins that yet remain among us the reproach of intemperance, the scandalous opium traffic by which the revenue of India is largely supported, our commercial dishonesty, and all the other reproaches of our age. Against these must the Church of Christ gird on her armour, and never cease to wage a conflict, until the promised day shall come, when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." But one caution must be borne in mind. When we buckle on our armour afresh to contend against our enemies, we must first cross our Jordan. We must solemnly, that is, sever ourselves from the wayward and wandering past. Like Daniel, (Da 9) we must "speak, and pray, and confess our sin, and the sin of our people." And then we must solemnly renew our covenant, our broken covenant, with God. Then may we advance without fear to the attack, and if Jesus be our leader, the battle may be long, but we cannot fail to have victory in the end.
II ISRAEL IS A TYPE OF THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL IN THE SAME WARFARE. Just as in the case of the Church, so in the case of the individual, must there be the moment of conversion, the settled and deliberate resolve to break with the past, and the passage, under the guidance of the ark of the covenant, the law of God, and the conscience, the sign of His presence in the heart into the condition of fellowship with God. Then must come the solemn renewal of the covenant, the circumcision of the heart, the mortifying of the flesh, the cutting off even those innocent enjoyments which have been found dangerous in times past, through the weakness of the flesh. Then the feast by faith upon the flesh and blood of the true Paschal Lamb, the making memorial of our deliverance through Him from a cruel bondage, and then we must prepare for the assault. Nor need we fear defeat. Satan trembles when he sees us determined. His heart melts within him as he sees us advancing under the leadership of Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, and as long as we are resolute in the strife, the victory is secure. Yet it is not always won in the same manner. Some sins fall like Jericho, by the might of prayer. Some, like Ai, when evil has obtained a lodgment within, are only overcome after a shameful humiliation, repaired by a firm determination to put away the secret defilement. Others, like the rest of the cities which Joshua destroyed, will only succumb after a determined and persevering resistance. But the result is the same in the end. "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper," if thou art only steadfast in following wherever Jesus leads. "Terrible as an army is she who cometh up out of the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her beloved.
III WORLDLY WISDOM MUST BE LAID ASIDE WHEN WE HAVE TO BATTLE WITH SIN. Nothing could be more foolish, humanly speaking, than for Joshua to have ordered a general circumcision of the children of Israel at this time. Simeon and Levi (Gen_34:25) had taken advantage of this moment to overcome the Shechemites. And, leaving God out of the question, if the inhabitants of the land had descended upon the Israelites at the moment of their helplessness, they would have been sure of an easy victory. But these Israelites were under the protection of God. He could have worked another miracle to protect them from their enemies, as easily as He had brought them over Jordan. But He worked no miracle this time. He inspired terror into the minds of the inhabitants of Canaan, so that they dare not attack them. They were quite safe under His protection, as long as they obeyed His voice. This should teach us
1. Not to slight the means of grace. "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." And yet it is equally true that he who refused to be circumcised as God had commanded him, "that soul" was to be "cut off from his people." So in these days, those who "forsake the assembling of themselves together," who make light of Christian baptism, who neglect the Lord"s Supper, who treat with disdain the ordinances set up by lawful authority in the Church, who kick at authority and despise reproof, shall not be unpunished.
2. Not to combat sin with worldly weapons. Such maxims as "honesty is the best policy," and other similar ones which put the practice of virtue upon grounds of success in this life and worldly convenience, will always fail us at the critical moment. Let the temptation be only strong enough; let it only be clearly more to our advantage at the moment when we are assailed to yield than to resist, and the "cunning bosom sin" (George Herbert) will "blow away" all that" array" of "fences" which worldly wisdom has set around our actions. Nothing but the rooted conviction, "Thou God seest me;" nothing but the question, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" will be powerful enough to defeat the assaults of sin in cases of secret overwhelming temptation. If that is not motive strong enough, nothing will be. Had the Israelites omitted to fence themselves with the protection of God"s covenant, their prudence would not have availed them against the overwhelming numbers of their adversaries. But confidence that they were in the keeping of a higher power led them to consecrate themselves first to God, and then to go out to battle against His enemies and theirs.
3. Not to neglect our duty for fear of consequences. No one could have been under a greater temptation to do this than Joshua. By his obedience he was placing himself and his people in a position of the most imminent peril. Yet we hear of no hesitation. He does what he ought to do as a matter of course. Faith is weaker with the great mass of professing Christians than it was with Joshua. Both in public and private affairs men continually plead the urgency of the case as an excuse for a slight dereliction of duty. This is the case
(a) in affairs of State. And this is especially the case when the duty is what is (though erroneously) called a religious duty. Thus in India, some years ago, our missionaries were discouraged in their efforts, because it was supposed that British authority would be endangered by their successes. The opium traffic, above referred to, is defended on the ground of the evils to India which would result from a financial deficit. We sometimes hear "British interests" put above duty. Yet without attempting to decide whether this has been so in any given case, the broad general principle must be laid down that no fear of consequences to our vast and most valuable power ought to induce us, as a nation, to take one single step that cannot be defended on the grounds of abstract justice. We may be certain that in the long run the most conscientious policy will be the most advantageous. Yet even if not, "let justice be done, though the heavens should fall." We find the same tendency at work
(b) in the affairs of the Church. Those who are in high office in the Church often display over timidity from the sense of the grave responsibility that action throws upon them. Nor should such a sense of responsibility be absent. Yet where duty is clear there is no responsibility at all.
Consequences in such a case should not be weighed. They may sometimes though not so often as is supposed serve to help in the decision where duty lies. But they cannot be pleaded as an excuse for neglecting duty. Lastly
(c), we come to the case of private persons, and we find the same tendency at work. The tradesman or professional man adopts the commercial morality of his fellows, whether it be right or wrong, and says that he shall be ruined if he does not. Let him take example by Joshua.
IV THE SOLEMN RENEWAL OF THE COVENANT WAS A RENEWAL OF ITS RESPONSIBILITIES AND BLESSINGS. The covenant of circumcision had its spiritual meaning, which Moses as well as St. Paul pointed. "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your head.
1. It was a covenant of mortification. It implied the restraint of the lusts of the flesh by a painful process. This is to be the Christian"s daily work. In the place of comfort, luxury, and ease, we are to be the disciples of Him who "had not where to lay his head." The promptings of our lower nature are constantly to be kept in check. Strict and severe moderation in all allowed comforts is our duty. Even our leisure and our recreations must often be broken in upon by the thought of the needs of those for whom Christ died, and for whom He would have us live. "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps." The Christian life, therefore, is incompatible with self indulgence.
2. It was a covenant of warfare. The covenant was solemnly renewed on the entrance into the promised land. But it was understood that, before the blessings of that land could be enjoyed, every nation that inhabited it must be extirpated. In like manner the Christian is pledged to an unceasing warfare with sin.
3. The covenant, once broken, could be renewed when the Israelites were willing to renew it. And so it is with the Christian. He may cast himself out of the favour of God by his disobedience. But God yearns after him, and, as in the parable of the prodigal son, sees him when "yet a great way off," and runs to meet him. Only there must be the willingness to endure the restraints of the covenant. The step to reconciliation is circumcision. That is, we cannot be reconciled to God until we have sincerely resolved to "mortify and kill all vices;" to live a hard and self denying life; to be watchful against the flesh and its tyranny, and to devote ourselves heart and soul to the service of our Master, with all its grievous restraints upon self pleasing and self interest.
4. The renewal of the covenant removed the reproach of Egypt. The Scriptures of both the Old and New Testament are full of God"s mercy to penitent sinners. "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still". (Jer_31:20) "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him:... for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found". (Luk_15:22-24) The past is forgotten when the sinner turns to God. "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." "Ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. (1Pe_2:25. See also 2Co_5:17-21 Eph_2:1-6, etc.) We may approach God in all confidence as our loving Father; (Eph_2:18 Eph_3:12) not from any trust in our own merits, but because we are "accepted in the beloved". (Eph_1:6)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 10, 13 Their heart melted . . . because of the…
Jos_5:1
Their heart melted . . . because of the children of Israel.
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Divine control over all
Kings and princes, captains and nobles, are most perfectly under the control of God; not only their counsels and operations, but their very spirits are subject to the influence of His secret and all-pervading dominion; they are restrained by cowardice, or incited by courage; intimidated by fear, or emboldened by valour, as best may promote the purposes of Providence and the interests of the Church. More has often been effected by this, wherein has appeared no human agency, than could have been by all the advantages of physical strength. It has been seen in the procedure of the Divine government, and opening of the secret counsels of heaven, that turns the most peculiar and results the most momentous have proceeded from this invisible working of God. But for this, the condition of Israel, as frequently appeared in review, would have inspired their adversaries, and, in the mere opposing of force to force, insured to them triumph. A spirit of blindness and infatuation has been permitted to seize the enemies of the Church, and to fall upon the powers of the world, or the Lords people had again and again been swallowed up. The expedients of infinite wisdom, and resources of almighty power, never fail: they are innumerable, and always at command; not confined to the common laws of nature, but comprehend the secret dominion of spirits, and that unlimited range of omnipotence, by which, in special operations, all things are possible with God, and present to instant adoption, as the purposes of His love may require, or the counsel of His will determine. (W. Seaton.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 CHAPTER X. CIRCUMCISION AND PASSOVER- MANNA AND CORN. Jos_5:1-12.
CHAPTER X. CIRCUMCISION AND PASSOVER- MANNA AND CORN. Jos_5:1-12.
THE first two facts recorded in this chapter seem to be closely connected with each other. One is, that when all the Amorite and Canaanite kings on the west side of the Jordan heard of the miraculous drying up of the waters and the passage of the Israelites, "their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more." The other is, that the opportunity was taken then and there to circumcise the whole of the generation that had been born after leaving Egypt. But for the fact recorded in the first verse, it would have been the most unsuitable time that could be conceived for administering circumcision. The whole male population would have been rendered helpless for the time, and an invitation would have been given to the men of Jericho to commit such a massacre as in the like circumstances the sons of Jacob inflicted on the men of Shechem (Gen_34:25). Why was not this business of circumcising performed while the host were lying inactive on the other side, and while the Jordan ran between Israel and his foes? It was because the kings of the Canaanites were petrified. It is true they plucked up courage by-and-by, and many of the kings entered into a league against Joshua. But this was after the affair of Ai, after the defeat of the Israelites before that city had showed that, as in the case of Achilles, there was a vulnerable spot somewhere, notwithstanding the protection of their God. Meanwhile the people of Jericho were paralysed, for though the whole male population of Israel under forty lay helpless in their tents, not a finger was raised by the enemy against them.
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It is with no little surprise that we read that circumcision had been suspended during the long period of the wilderness sojourn. Why was this? Some have said that, owing to the circumstances in which the people were, it would not have been convenient, perhaps hardly possible, to administer the rite on the eighth day. Moving as they were from place to place, the administration of circumcision would often have caused so much pain and peril to the child, that it is no wonder it was delayed. And once delayed, it was delayed indefinitely. But this explanation is not sufficient. There were long, very long periods of rest, during which there could have been no difficulty. A better explanation, brought forward by Calvin, leads us to connect the suspension of circumcision with the punishment of the Israelites, and with the sentence that doomed them to wander forty years in the wilderness. When the worship of the golden calf took place, the nation was rejected, and the breaking by Moses of the two tables of stone seemed an appropriate sequel to the rupture of the covenant which their idolatry had caused. And though they were soon restored, they were not restored without certain drawbacks, - tokens of the Divine displeasure. Afterwards, at the great outburst of unbelief in connection with the report of the spies, the adult generation that had come out of Egypt were doomed to perish in the wilderness, and with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, not one of them was permitted to enter the land of promise. Now, though it is not expressly stated, it seems probable that the suspension of circumcision was included in the punishment of their sins. They were not to be allowed to place on their children the sign and seal of a covenant which in spirit and in reality they had broken.
But it was not an abolition, but only a suspension of the sacrament for a time that took place. The time might come when it would be restored. The natural time for this would be the end of the forty years of chastisement. These forty years had now come to an end. Doubtless it would have been a great joy to Moses if it had been given him to see the restoration of circumcision, but that was not to take place until the people had set foot on Abraham's land. Now they have crossed the river. They have entered on the very land which God sware to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to give it them. And the very first thing that is done after this is to give back to them the holy sign of the covenant, which was now administered to every man in the congregation who had not previously received it. We may well think of it as an occasion of great rejoicing. The visible token of his being one of God's children was now borne by every man and boy in the camp. In a sense they now served themselves heirs to the covenant made with their fathers, and might thus rest with firmer trust on the promise - ''I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee."
Two other points in connection with this transaction demand a word of explanation. The first is the statement that ''all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised" (Jos_5:5). If the view be correct that the suspension of circumcision was part of the punishment for their sins, the prohibition would not come into operation for some months, at all events, after the exodus from Egypt. We think, with Calvin, that for the sake of brevity the sacred historian makes a general statement without waiting to explain the exceptions to which it was subject. The other point needing explanation is the Lord's statement after the circumcision - "This day have I rolled the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal (i.e., Rolling) unto this day." How could the suspension of circumcision be called the reproach of Egypt? The words imply that, owing to the want of this sacrament, they had lain exposed to a reproach from the Egyptians, which was now rolled away. The brevity of the statement, and our ignorance of what the Egyptians were saying of the Israelites at the time, make the words difficult to understand. What seems most likely is, that when the Egyptians heard how God had all but repudiated them in the wilderness, and had withdrawn from them the sign of His covenant, they malignantly crowed over them, and denounced them as a worthless race, who had first rejected their lawful rulers in Egypt under pretext of religion, and, having shown their hypocrisy, were now scorned and cast off by the very God whom they had professed themselves so eager to serve. We may be sure that the Egyptians would not be slow to seize any pretext for denouncing the Israelites, and would be sure to make their jibes as sharp and as bitter as they could. But now the tables are turned on the Egyptians. The restoration of circumcision stamps this people once more as the people of God. The stupendous miracle just wrought in the dividing of the Jordan indicates the kind of protection which their God and King is sure to extend to them. The name of Gilgal will be a perpetual testimony that the reproach of Egypt is rolled away.
Circumcision being now duly performed, the way was prepared for another holy rite for which the appointed season had arrived - the Passover. Some have supposed that the Passover as well as circumcision was suspended after the sentence of the forty years' wandering, the more especially that it was expressly enacted that no uncircumcised person was to eat the Passover. We know (Num_9:5) that the Passover was kept the second year after they left Egypt, but no other reference to it occurs in the history. On this, as on many other points connected with the wilderness history, we must be content to remain in ignorance. We are not even very sure how far the ordinary sacrifices were offered during that period. It is quite possible that the considerations that suspended the rite of circumcision applied to other ordinances. But whether or not the Passover was observed in the wilderness, we may easily understand that after being circumcised the people would observe it with a much happier and more satisfied feeling. There were many things to make this Passover memorable. The crossing of the Jordan was so like the crossing of the Red Sea that the celebration in Egypt could not fail to come back vividly to all the older people, - those that were under twenty at the exodus, to whom the sentence of exclusion from Canaan did not apply (Num_14:29). Many of these must have looked on while their fathers sprinkled the lintels and door posts with the blood of the lamb, and must have listened to the awful death-cry of the firstborn of the Egyptians. They must have remembered well that memorable midnight when all were in such excitement marching away from Egypt; and not less vividly must they have remembered the terror that seized them when the Egyptian host was seen in pursuit; and then again the thrill of triumph with which they passed between the crystal walls, under the glow of the fiery pillar; and once more the triumphant notes of Miriam's timbrel and the voices of the women, "Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider He hath cast into the sea." And now these days of glory were coming back! As surely as the passage of the sea had been followed by the destruction of the Egyptians, so surely would the passage of the Jordan be followed by the destruction of the Canaanites. Glorious things were spoken of the city of their God. The benediction of Moses was about to receive a new fulfilment - ''Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places."
The remembrance of the past is often an excellent preparation for the trials of the future, and as often it proves a remarkable support under them. It was the very nature of the Passover to look back to the past, and to recall God's, first great interposition on behalf of His people. It was a precious encouragement both to faith and hope. So also is our Christian Passover. It is a connecting link between the first and second comings of our Lord. The first coming lends support to faith, the second to hope. No exercise of soul can be more profitable than to go back to that memorable day when Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. For then the price of redemption was paid in full, and the door of salvation flung wide open. Then the Son sealed His love by giving Himself to the cross for us. What blessing, whether for this life or the life to come, was not purchased by that transaction? Life may be dark and stormy, but hope foresees a bright tomorrow. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory."
Yet another incident is connected with this transition period of the history. ''They did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day. And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year." It is not necessary to suppose that they did not partake at all of the fruits of the land till the morning after that Passover. The conquest of Sihon and Og must have put a large share of produce in their hands, and we can hardly suppose that they did not make some use of it. The narrative is so brief that it does not undertake to state every modification that may be applicable to its general statements. The main thing to be noticed is, that while the manna continued to descend, it was the staple article of food; but when the manna was withdrawn, the old corn and other fruits of the country took its place. In other words, the miracle was not continued when it ceased to be necessary. The manna had been a provision for the wilderness, where ordinary food in sufficient quantity could not be obtained; but now that they were in a land of fields and orchards and vineyards the manna was withdrawn.
We have already adverted to the Bible law of the supernatural. No sanction is given to the idea of a lavish and needless expenditure of supernatural power. A law of economy, we might almost say parsimony, prevails, side by side with the exercise of unbounded liberality. Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes to feed the multitude, but He will not let one fragment be lost that remains after the feast. A similar law guides the economy of prayer. We have no right to ask that mercies may come to us through extraordinary channels, when it is in our power to get them by ordinary means. If it is in our power to procure bread by our labour, we dare not ask it to be sent direct. We are only too prone to make prayer at the eleventh hour an excuse for want of diligence or want of courage in what bears on the prosperity of the spiritual life. It may be that of His great generosity God sometimes blesses us, even though we have made a very inadequate use of the ordinary means. But on that we have no right to presume. We are fond of short and easy methods where the natural method would be long and laborious. But here certainly we find the working of natural law in the spiritual world. We cannot look for God's blessing without diligent use of God's appointed means. More generally, this occurrence in the history of Israel, the cessation of one provision when another comes into operation, exemplifies a great law in providence by which the loss of one kind of advantage is compensated by the advent of another. In childhood and early youth we depend for our growth in knowledge on the instructions of our teachers. What puzzles us we refer to them, and they guide us through the difficulty. If they are wise teachers they will not tell us everything, but they will put us on the right method to find out. Still they are there as a court of appeal, so to speak, and we have always the satisfaction of a last resort. But the time comes when we bid farewell to teachers. Happily it is the time when the judgment becomes self-reliant, independent, penetrating. We are thrown mainly upon our own resources. And the very fact of our having to depend on our own judgment fosters and promotes independence, and fits us better for the responsibilities of life. When we become men we put away childish things. A habit of leaning on others keeps us children; but grappling with difficulties as we find them, and trying to make our way through them and over them, promotes manliness. The manna ceases, and we eat the fruit of the land.
So in family life. The affection that binds parents and children, brothers and sisters to one another in the family is both beautiful and delightful; and it were no wonder if, on the part of some, there were the desire that their intercourse should suffer no rude break, but go on unchanged for an indefinite time. But it is seldom God's will that family life shall remain unbroken. Often the interruption comes in the rudest and most terrible form - by the death of the head of the house. And the circumstances of the family may require that all who are capable of earning anything shall turn out to increase the family store. It is often a painful and distressing change. But at least it wakens up all who can do anything, it rescues them from the temptation of a slumbering, aimless life, and often draws out useful gifts that turn their lives into a real blessing. And there are other compensations. When Sarah died, Isaac was left with an empty heart; but when Rebecca came to him, he was comforted. The precise blank that death leaves may never be wholly filled, but the heart expands in other directions, and with new objects of affection the gnawing void ceases to be acutely felt. As old attachments are snapped, new are gradually formed. And even in old age a law of compensation often comes in; children and children's children bring new interests and pleasures, and the green hues of youth modify the grey of age.
Then there is the happy experience by which the advent of spiritual blessings compensates the loss of temporal. Nothing at first appears more desolate than loss of fortune, loss of health, or loss of some principal bodily sense - like sight or hearing. But in a Milton intellectual vigour, patriotic ardour, and poetic sensibility attain their noblest elevation, though
"Cloud and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair. Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."
It is the total loss of hearing, the result of a sudden accident, that turns the slater, John Kitto, into a most instructive and interesting Oriental scholar and writer. How often temporal loss has proved in a higher sense spiritual gain, all Christian biography testifies. Such instances are not uncommon as that which the Rev. Charles Simeon gives, in speaking of some blind men from Edinburgh whom nearly a century ago he found at work in a country house in Scotland: "One of the blind men, on being interrogated with respect to his knowledge of spiritual things, answered, 'I never saw till I was blind; nor did I ever know contentment while I had my eyesight, as I do now that I have lost it; I can truly affirm, though few know how to credit me, that I would on no account change my present situation and circumstances with any that I ever enjoyed before I was blind.' He had enjoyed eyesight till twenty-five, and had been blind now about three years."
"Life of Rev. Charles Simeon," p. 125.
Lastly, of all exchanges in room of old provisions the most striking is that which our Lord thus set forth: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you." If we should think of life, even the Christian life, as a mere time of enjoyment, albeit spiritual enjoyment, no statement could be more paradoxical or unpalatable. It is because life is a training school, and because what we most need in that school is the immediate action of the Divine Spirit on our spirits, purifying, elevating, strengthening, guiding all that is deepest in our nature, that our Lord's words are true. Very precious had been the manna that ceased when Jesus left. But more nourishing is the new corn with which the Spirit feeds us. Let us prize it greatly so long as we are in the flesh. We shall know the good of it when we enter on the next stage of our being. Then, in the fullest sense, the manna will cease, and we shall eat the corn of the land.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 13 Jos_5:1. Amorites] Deriv. from Amar = “high,” “lofty.” The…
PREPARATION FOR THE LORD’S WAR
CRITICAL NOTES.—
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Jos_5:1. Amorites] Deriv. from Amar = “high,” “lofty.” The people were “dwellers in the mountains” (cf. Num_13:29, and chap. Jos_11:3). Kurtz and Fürst think that the word has an allusion to the large stature of the race: “lofty, high-towering, gigantic” men. Sometimes, and apparently in this verse, the term Amorites is applied to the inhabitants of the land generally. In chap. Jos_10:5, the king of Jerusalem, who ruled over Jebusites, is mentioned as one of five kings of the Amorites. Spirit] Lit. “breath.” The stopping or taking away of the breath is indicative of the extreme astonishment and fear by which they were overwhelmed.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jos_5:1
THE FEAR OF THE UNGODLY
In the facts of which this verse assures us, and in the history to which it refers us:—
I. We have conviction coming through the manifest working of God.
1. The occasion of man’s idolatry and sin is ever found in low and poor thoughts of God. Let God be distant and remote from a man’s consciousness, let Him be thought of infrequently and feebly, and the result will soon be seen in a following after “other gods.” Joshua’s predecessor, through whom God was so manifestly present before the Israelites, had not left the people six weeks ere they said unto Aaron, “Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, we wot not what is become of him.” The history of these Canaanites must have contained a similar experience. Sons of Noah though they were, and intense as must have been the religious remembrances of their fathers, Ham and Canaan, the power and goodness and justice and the very being of God had become a mere tradition. On the basis of the Usherian chronology, barely nine hundred years had elapsed since the awful deluge. In the antediluvian age this was only about the period of a lifetime, and if in the subsequent generation the sons of Ham lived as long as the sons of Shem—a term of some four hundred and thirty years—Canaan himself would possibly have been living, to teach the fear of the Lord among his descendants, for nearly half the period between the days of the flood and the crossing of the Jordan. Nor had the Canaanites been left without at least one solemn intervening remonstrance. Just about midway between the time of the flood and the entrance of the Israelites into their land, and possibly not fifty years after the death of Canaan, another and an awful judgment had told these people of an all-seeing and omnipotent God, who was determined to punish sin. It was on the families of the Canaanites that God poured out the terrible fire of Sodom and Gomorrah (comp. Gen_10:19 with Genesis 19) God ought not to have been so absent from the thoughts of these men; but they had long suffered His very name to become merely a story of the past, and on neither name nor story did they trouble themselves much to think. Hence they went after idols, the idols being, as idols always are, the embodiment of the wicked and corrupt desires which ever follow forgetfulness of God, With no consciousness of God’s presence, they had long been led to unrestrained idolatry and unchecked wickedness. He who, in these days, loses the sense of God’s presence and power and goodness and purity, loses all that can keep him from idolatry and its consequent degradations. The very name EMMANUEL—God with us—tells where our danger most lies, and wherein the blessedness of following Christ so much consists.
2. The manifest interposition of God, in great works for His people, brings conviction to the most hardened and abandoned of men. So long as men only hear of God, they can disbelieve Him, and more or less undisturbedly pursue their own way; but when God works in a manner for which no human hand or name is a sufficient explanation, immediately the unbelieving are arrested. The great cause of all that is different between the disciples of Christ and the unbelieving in the present day is given in the Saviour’s own words—“Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more, but ye see Me.” The one effort of such modern scientists as are virtually atheists seems to be to account for such works as are too great for man by some other name than that of GOD. If “protoplasm” could only account for life; if “development” would but be sufficiently agreeable to stand as an equivalent for its various forms; if the movements of life would only allow themselves to be called “automatic;” and if human consciousness, which will keep looking upward, and lisping that great word GOD, could only be taught to pronounce the obscure and ugly compound “anthropomorphism,” then, surely, the world, and even its more wicked sons and daughters, might have peace. True, some of us might still want a long word to explain fulfilled prophecies, and shew us how Nature taught some of her more reverent children to “shew us things to come,” and to shew them in marvellous fulness of detail seven or eight centuries—not to say more—before they came to pass. The more anthropomorphic of us might require a good many Greek vocables, and tax rather tiresomely the patience and scholarship of the learned sons of science to put them pleasantly together, ere we could keep that great word GOD from speaking within and echoing through our consciousness, when we read together, as making one chapter, the well-authenticated works and CLAIMS and CHARACTER of Jesus Christ. There might be a few other things which, in the event of insufficient explanation, we should require to read of in awkward and unnatural phrases ere we could persuade ourselves that they were the outcome merely of Nature. Meanwhile, like the Amorites and Israelites before the divided Jordan, we behold many wonderful works around us in life and behind us in history, for which we can only find one equivalent cause, and that cause GOD.
3. History shews us that when standing immediately before the greater and more manifest works of God, men hare ever felt that from them there was no appeal. At the Red Sea the long enslaved Israelites sang, “The Lord is my strength and song.” Their history but too sadly proves their readiness to forget Jehovah; they could not but own Him there, and on many similar occasions afterwards. The assembled people on Carmel waited all day in the spirit of judgment; we feel their indecision and unformed conclusions in their very silence. The whole attitude of the host was one of expectancy and waiting. The very act of pronouncing their verdict tells us that they were at least not biessed before it was given. It was only after the laboured failure of the Baalites, the scorn and confidence of Elijah, and after seeing the fire of heaven lick up the water and attack the sacrifice, that they cried with one accord, “Jehovah, He is the God.” However much he might have doubted before or after, amid the solemn darkness, the rending earthquake, and the awful words of Calvary, the centurion could only feel and say, “Truly this was the Son of God.” The arrogant Sanhedrin, who thought they had disposed for ever of the Master, and could do as they would in contemning the work of the disciples, “when they saw the lame man healed, could say nothing against it.” It is easy enough to try and dismiss numberless cases like these by saying that such conclusions of men are not spoken in calmness, but under the influence of excitement and awe. That is the very difficulty. How is it that ever, when the heart stands in awe before unusual power, it remembers God, and is troubled? We can understand the relapse into the normal unbelief when the sounds of the call to faith have died away in the distance. How is it that whenever the supernatural is present, men invariably stand convinced of the unseen God? It is no answer to this question to talk of superstition; when all the talk about superstition is ended, it still remains to be asked, “Why should superstition ever lead men into the presence of God, and never choose to leave them elated or abashed before the majesty of Nature? There can be only one answer: The soul is responding to the voice of its Maker, and that Maker is God.
II. We see conviction invariably working fear. Insensibly and instantaneously, as these Canaanites behold the river divided, and remember the overthrow of Sihon and Og, and the miracle at the Red Sea, they are filled with fear of the Lord God of Israel. It is ever thus with those who have forgotten Jehovah, and turned to devices of their own.
1. The fear which comes from ignorance. Not “seeing Him who is invisible,” men cannot endure the works which declare His presence.
2. Fear as intensified by sin. Sinful Adam heard the voice of God, and, for the first time, so far as we know, he was afraid. When guilty Herod heard of the fame of Jesus, he said, “John the Baptist is risen from the dead.” Conscience, as Trench has pointed out, is, in its very structure, a solemn word. “It is from ‘con’ and scire.’ But what does that ‘con’ intend? Conscience is not merely that which I know, but that which I know with some one else.… That other knower whom the word implies is God.” So, when we transgress, we have only to be brought by some of His works into the consciousness of the Lord’s presence, and sin intensifies fear at once. We feel that the guilt which we know, He knows also. And from this law none escape:
“What art thou, thou tremendous Power,
Who dost inhabit us without our leave;
And art within ourselves another self,
A master-self, that loves to domineer,
And treat the monarch frankly as the slave?”—Young.
3. Fear as a Divine provision and ordinance. God had determined and appointed this very melting of heart which the Amorites now suffered. Forty years previously God had said to Moses, about this very trepidation, “I will send my fear before thee.” The fear of the wicked is no less God’s ordinance now than it was of old.
III. The fear thus wrought by God is seen becoming helpful to speedy salvation, or accessory to sudden destruction. Rahab feared, and believed, and sought deliverance, and was saved; the Canaanites feared, and resisted, and were destroyed. Montaigne said, “Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving.” Happy is he in whom the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Where this is not so, fear is often immediately preliminary to overthrow. It is the awful gloom of coming destruction which is seen overshadowing those whom it hardly waits longer to involve, and the very fear of the coming calamity hastens the end which it so solemnly predicts.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Jos_5:1.—RELIGIOUS CONVICTION.
I. The essence of true religious conviction is conviction of the presence of God. For want of that, these men had turned idolaters. Had they always felt the God of Israel as near as they felt Him now, the worship of their idols would have been an impossibility. When we get and continue to know and feel that God is round about us, all else in religious life will follow.
1. Assured of God’s presence, we shall immediately feel the reality and guilt of sin. Job said, “Now mine eye seeth Thee, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Isaiah in his vision saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and cried, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Peter, beholding the Deity of Christ through His mighty working, started back abashed, saying, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” So it has ever been: to see God present is to feel that sin is very real and very offensive.
2. Assured of God’s presence, we have no peace till we feel that sin is put away by forgiveness. With deep and true insight Milton tells us how the prince of darkness was troubled in the presence of holiness—
“Abashed the devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is.”
So must unforgiven men ever feel troubled by the presence of God. When Peter first saw the Deity of the Saviour, he had no peace in that holy and to him awful presence; after he had been a long time with Jesus, and had learned of Him, and when he was in the rapture or a diviner mood, he cried as he beheld the glory of the transfigured Son of God, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles.” It is only when we have learned the love and forgiveness of the Saviour, and come ourselves somewhat into the mind of Christ, that we are able to endure His presence. Then that presence is no longer our keenest pain, but becomes our deepest peace.
3. A growing sense of God’s presence is the essential accompaniment of a religious life. When Nathanael came to Christ, he came sceptically, nor did he care to conceal his doubts. With that frank guilelessness on which he seems to have prided himself, and which, as far as it was good, even Christ admired, he bluntly told out his unbelief in the question, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” How did the Saviour convict this man of the Divine presence? Christ told him his secrets; He looked into his heart, and exposed this conceit of an open and transparent nature, on which this guileless Jew prided himself, as being so unlike many of his nation. “Behold,” says the Saviour, “an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” Nor was this all; Christ told the honest Jew how he had been praying under that secluded fig-tree, as pious Jews were wont to withdraw for prayer—praying but a short time before, and praying, it may be, about this very matter of the coming Messiah, to which the thoughts of his more godly countrymen were at this time so earnestly directed. It was enough: Nathanael felt that God was there. Very much under the influence which, in a similar case, had made the Samaritan woman exclaim, “He told me all things that ever I did,” Nathanael cried out, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.” Did the Saviour intimate that this conviction was sufficient, and that the matter of this man’s new-found faith might rest there? Quite the contrary. Belief was to go on. Christ Himself might withdraw; but to this, as to every truly religious soul, conviction of the Divine presence was to become a growing thing. When Christ as manifest in the flesh was far away, when no one was near, this belief should go on till he could say with his great countryman, “Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.… Thou hast beset me behind and before.” Conviction of a present God was to be a growing thing; so Christ says, “Your faith now is only the beginning of the faith of the future; you shall see greater things than these. Through my mediatorial work you shall see heaven and earth united. Hereafter ye—you and such as believe with you—shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”
Thus conviction first feels God near through some extraordinary manifestation; and, given that God’s mercy spares, and His grace still plies the convicted one, the religious life goes on to all its future developments in the consciousness that God is round about it. The first feeling arising from a sense of that Presence is fear, the after feelings are love and joy, while the culmination is peace, even in the grim presence of death: “I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” These Canaanites only knew that sense of God’s presence which precedes judgment and destruction: every living man, in the one way or the other, must awake to a sense of that presence sooner or later.
II. The medium of this conviction of God’s presence is God’s working. The Canaanites heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan, and forthwith they believed in a “God nigh at hand.” (Cf. instances in previous outline.) Jacob beheld the wonders of God in his dream, and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” The centurion at the cross, and the jailor of Philippi, looked each on supernatural things, and each at once told out his faith. The chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death, because “by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.” The present attempts which are being made in the name of Science to banish God’s working from the faith of men, touch the question of religion in a point most vital and important. Where “the arm of the Lord is not revealed,” God’s servants still have to ask, “Who hath believed our report?” Give the name of “eternal laws” or “evolution” to account for the works of God; get men to believe that which the terms imply, and then there is no need for God at all. How much we lose, if the arm of the Lord is not revealed to us! Think of Belshazzar and his lords, when they held high carnival in Babylon. It may be that some among the thousand courtiers at the feast only saw the writing on the wall, and not the hand that wrote. But “the king saw the part of the hand that wrote: then the king’s countenance was changed.” To him the words would have an awful meaning. It makes all the difference, in our reading of life around us, whether the arm of the Lord which does the writing is hidden or revealed.
In view of the somewhat lofty tone of some modern scientists it may be allowable to ask, How much right have these who speak most dogmatically to speak on this question at all? It may be remarked:
1. Every man is born with the faculty, or capacity, of spiritual perception. We each come into the world with powers which, if cultivated, will presently enable us to see God. Men are born with capacities for seeing mathematics, poetry, and music; yet the work of a senior wrangler, of Tennyson, or Beethoven, would be utterly incomprehensible to an ordinary farm labourer.
2. Of all human powers of perception, the God-seeing sense is the most refined. Other faculties must be trained by a suitable experience, but this most of all. Let a man live forty or fifty years as if there were no such things as arithmetic, poetry, or music, and, practically, there will be no such things. May it not be so in the matter of these spiritual perceptions? Untaught men cannot look over and read a music score of a dozen staves like Costa and Barnby, or Stainer and Best. Can a man who ignores God year after year be in a position to see God?
3. If not, how utterly incompetent unspiritual men are to pronounce on spiritual things! Some men act as if mental and spiritual insight are identical; why should they be identical, any more than physical and mental perception? Each kind of eve is only good for its own sphere. Some men seem to think that scientific culture and spiritual culture are one and the same thing. They have mistaken spectrum analysis for spiritual vision. It is like using the microscope to find out if there is any music in the Old Hundredth or the Twelfth Mass. It is much the same as climbing to the top of the Matterhorn, where there is a wide outlook, in order to see through a mathematical problem. It is as though a man should take a telescope to try and perceive if his friend loved him, or seize on an opera glass to discover the exquisite pathos of the twenty-third Psalm. The philosophers appear to have forgotten what they of all men should remember,—the eye and the world must fit; the power of perception, and the sphere in which it is exercised, must be appropriate. Meanwhile we may feel thankful that men who have given a lifetime to find out God do not pronounce against His existence. We might be alarmed if Abraham and Moses and Isaiah, if John and Peter and Paul, if Luther and Baxter and Wesley, if Newton and Simpson and Farraday joined to say, “We have thought on this question reverently and devoutly for many years, we have tried to live in that spiritual purity which is said to be, and which, from the nature of the case, must be necessary in order to see God, and we come to the conclusion that while there may be a God, or may not be, we have no data by which to form any conclusion.” Without judging others, it is a matter for devout gladness that in all the pages of history we have no names of men who, having followed after God throughout life in that reverence which alone becomes such a pursuit, and which alone could hope to succeed in finding Him, have turned round at the close of life, and pronounced their faith mistaken. It is at least significant that history as well as Scripture always shews the path of such as one that “shineth more and more.” This world has tempted many to deny the faith; we cannot recollect that the grave has so tempted one.
“A candle wakes some men, as well as a noise; the eye of the Lord works upon a good soul, as well as His hand; and a godly man is as much affected with the consideration, ‘Thou God seest me,’ as with ‘The Lord strikes me.’ ” [Dr. Donne.]
“Fear is entirely based on a consideration of some possible personal evil consequence coming down upon me from that clear sky above me. Love is based upon the forgetfulness of self altogether. The very essence of love is that it looks away from itself and to another.”
“Fill the heart with love, and there is an end to the dominion of fear. The love of God entering into a man’s heart, destroys all tormenting fear of Him. All the attributes of God come to be on our side. He that loves has the whole Godhead for Him.” [Mac Laren.]
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Jos_5:2. Sharp knives] Marg. “knives of flints” (cf. Exo_4:25). The reason for using stone knives may have been more on account of legal than of physical considerations. The use of iron was certainly forbidden in some covenant rites (cf. Exo_20:25; Deu_27:5; chap. Jos_8:31). [“Among the additions of the LXX. at the end of this book is the curious statement after chap. Jos_24:30 : ‘There they placed with him, in the tomb where they buried him the knives of stone (τὰς μαχάιρας τας πετρίνας) with which he circumcised the sons of Israel in Gilgal.’ ”—Dr. Bliss.] The second time] Perhaps the phrase, as is intimated in the verses which follow, has regard to the circumcising, at two different periods, or times, of the entire host of men now assembled in Canaan. Mentally, the host is divided into two parts, which are circumcised some at one time, some at another; the time of the earlier circumcision was in Egypt, and “the second time” of circumcision was this at Gilgal. The reference made by Masius to two general circumcisions, one at the time of the introduction of the rite by Abraham, and the other here, an idea often noticed since, appears too remote, and is rather opposed than otherwise to the fourth and fifth verses. A similar use of this phrase occurs in Isa_11:11.
Jos_5:4. This is the cause] The cause of this general circumcision is stated at length, the explanation reaching to the close of Jos_5:7. The reason why the rite had been omitted during the sojourn in the wilderness is given in Jos_5:6. The people had broken the covenant, and “the Lord sware that He would not shew them the land.” The oath of the wilderness cancelled for the time the oath to Abraham, and Jehovah would not allow the people to set the oath that was suspended over against the oath which was in force.
Jos_5:9. The reproach of Egypt] Not necessarily any one phase of the reproach arising out of their past relation to Egypt, but the reproach in all its forms. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal] Marg. = “rolling.” “It denotes liberty: they looked on themselves as freed from the miseries which they had undergone” (Josephus, Ant. v. 1. 11). “All objections (of the rationalists) indicate an utter inattention to the fact that most of the O. T. etymologies contain allusions to words and their meaning, rather than such full explanations of them as befit a lexicon” (Keil).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jos_5:1-9
THE RENEWAL OF THE COVENANT
Probably there is nothing throughout the entire book of Joshua which appeals to us more solemnly and more graciously than this most significant resumption of covenant rites at this particular period. The account of the giving of this covenant is contained in Genesis 15. At that time Abraham had no children, and the covenant was sealed on the side of God only, the vision of the burning lamp being its sign. Some fourteen or fifteen years later, when Ishmael was thirteen years old, the covenant was renewed, or rather completed, the seal on the human side being circumcision. The covenant was, that Abraham should have a numerous seed to inherit the land, of Canaan, or, as it was sometimes called, the Promised Land. Here, then, at the very time of entering into the land, the rite is renewed. The land can only be taken possession of under the covenant. Not an enemy shall fall, not a town capitulate, not an acre shall be really their own, till that covenant is recognised by all Israel.
I. The relation between God’s covenant and His people’s transgression. The rite of circumcision had been faithfully observed in Egypt; the rite had not been observed in the wilderness (Jos_5:4-5). This neglect during the wilderness life was, almost certainly, not because of any difficulties of journeying, for the people sometimes encamped for an entire year in one place. The reason for the cessation of circumcision lay in the fact that the people had ignored the covenant itself. They had said with almost one voice, “Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.” They deliberately rejected the covenant then and there. At the same time God rejected them. For the time the covenant was suspended. The sixth verse, therefore, connects the cessation of circumcision with the Lord’s counter-oath. God would not have the people guilty of a solemn farce. Every act of circumcision in the wilderness would ignore this later oath of Jehovah. As confirmatory of this, it should be remembered that the passover was probably not observed in the wilderness any more than circumcision. Israel had been told to keep the passover “as an ordinance for ever.” At the end of the first year, before the rebellion, they did keep it at Sinai (cf. Num_9:1-5). Apparently they did not observe it afterwards till the occasion mentioned in this chapter. Here, then, is a most significant break. There is no feast of the Exodus, for the Exodus had been ignored; there is no rite of the covenant, for the covenant had been foresworn. What bearing has all this on us?
1. See what God thinks of services that are unreal. God would have no feast of the Exodus from the people who said, “Let us return unto Egypt;” God would have no covenant rite from the people who thought indifferently of the covenant. Both feast and rite would be hollow and false, and a mockery. How this old sermon of the desert comes preaching itself on to us, across all the centuries which roll between us and these ancient servants of Jehovah. Think of it in connection with all the worship in which we fail to worship Him. Think of it in connection with many of the hymns which we join in singing, the prayers which we offer, and the heartless service which some are tempted to render. Think of the Lord’s Supper—the feast of the new covenant—if there be no real covenant between us and God. God would have no service from us rather than a service which is unreal. He seeks the heart. Sham adoration is no pleasure to Him (cf. Isa_1:11-15).
2. See how solemn and sacred is God’s view of His own promises. All the time the covenant was in force the covenant rite was to be observed. The bondage of Egypt made no difference. Unlike men, God does not think His promises something to take notice of in proportion as they look promising. Difficulties and bonds and slavery made no difference whatever in the sight of God. In Egypt’s darkest days they were still to circumcise their children. But they were not to celebrate that rite a day after the rebellion. God would not have two sets of promises in force at the same time, one of which contradicted the other. Oh, how sacred to Him is His holy word! It is all yea, and all amen. It is said that Sir William Napier one day met a poor child crying bitterly because she had broken a bowl which she had been carrying along the road towards her home. Having no money with him, he promised to meet her at the same place and hour on the next day, and to give her money to buy another. On reaching his home, he found an invitation to dine out with a gentleman whom he particularly wished to see. As it would interfere with his pre-engagement with the child, he declined it, saying, “I could not disappoint her, she trusted me so implicitly.” God loves our implicit trust, too; but, excepting where He has made it thus conditional, the fulfilment of His word does not depend on our confidence. Each promise stands fast in His own eternal truthfulness.
3. This history suggests the question, Does God, when we sin, regard His covenant with us in Christ as broken? The history indicates the answer as clearly as it prompts the inquiry. It was not for every sin that God looked on the covenant as violated; it was only for this deliberate rejection of the covenant. The people often sinned, but it was only when they proposed to return to Egypt, and voted the covenant of no account, that God took them at their thought and word. So he who looks on Christ as “without form or comeliness,” and thus carelessly neglects and ignores the Saviour for the pleasures of sin, puts himself in a similar position, and where God has no covenant with him personally. No transgression is so fatal as unbelief.
4. Salvation is not in the covenant, but in the grace and love of God. It is very blessed to be able to feel that even when God regarded the covenant as solemnly broken by the people, His mercy was sufficient for all the way of the wilderness. Think of it, a broken covenant, and manna every morning; a broken covenant, and water from the rock; a broken covenant, and the man who wanted to curse, crying successively, “How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed?” “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob;” “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!” Think of it, no covenant, and the ark built prospectively, in view of its renewal; no covenant, and the pillar in which the Lord abode going with them all the way; no covenant, and the trespass of Baal-peor forgiven; no covenant, and mercies that should make way for the song, “What ailed thee, O Jordan, that thou wast driven back?” God loves us enough to bless and help and save us, if there were not a single promise in the Bible. He does not propose to go on with our salvation because He has become entangled in His words; the promises are but given to still our fears and encourage us by hope and assurance. As for our salvation, that is ever in the grace and love of God.
II. The relation between a renewed covenant and fresh acts of faith and submission. The covenant was to be renewed by a rite which would, for some days, disable the greater part of the army in the very presence of their enemies (cf. Gen_34:25). Too much stress, however, must not be laid on this. There would still be about a quarter of a million men between forty and sixty years of age, who were circumcised in Egypt, left to guard the camp. Still, man for man, these Israelites were probably not to be compared to their disciplined and warlike enemies, and the state of the camp would seriously encumber their operations in the event of an attack. Perhaps faith was still more tried in the trial of their patience. This time must have seemed the best of all times to press forward. The two spies had reported that their enemies’ hearts had failed them, and since then Jordan had divided to disconcert them even more. At the very moment when victory would seem easy, God detains them for one or two weeks.
1. Getting into union with God does not mean getting into a state of freedom from trial. He whom God brings near to Himself may even have to hear his Lord say, “I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
2. Neither does union with God mean liberty to follow our own ideas and wishes. The Divine teaching in this hour of covenant mercy went on to say, “Wait on the Lord; sink your thoughts and desires in His.”
3. Union with God means that God is to be first in everything. There is always time to worship and serve and honour Him.
III. The relation between a restored covenant and fitness for conflict. Israel was to stay and seek fresh union with God before attempting to fight a single battle. The position is strikingly similar to that of the apostles, to whom Christ said, “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” So were these ancient servants to tarry in the camp at Gilgal.
1. If we would work for God successfully, we must seek the help of God. Israel was repeatedly taught this. When the siege of Jericho did begin, God shewed them that He must be “all in all.” The same truth was taught in a different way shortly afterwards at Ai. So all our conflict and service for Christ must fail, without God for our strength. He who would often win in the fight must often and personally reconsecrate himself to God.
2. The rule is equally absolute in our personal contest against sin. Israel learned to say in after days, “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.” God had so often helped them from the hills, as at Rephidim and Sinai and Carmel, that even their enemies had come to believe “The Lord is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys.” It was not wonderful, with such a history, that the Israelites came to feel that everything depended on the presence of God. Let us not seek to enter into conflict with sin, unmindful of His word, who says, “Without Me ye can do nothing.” The battle will be too hard for the best of us without Jesus.
IV. The relation between an intact covenant and the removal of our reproach. “The name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day,” meaning a rolling away, or, as Josephus prefers to render it, “liberty,” still giving the idea of being no longer in bondage to this reproach. What was this reproach of Egypt? It is by no means necessary to contend, as some have done, for one selected phase of the reproach. It may be taken as bearing in at least three directions.
1. There was the reproach of the long bondage itself. The Israelites had sojourned in Egypt for more than two hundred years, and during the greater part of that time they had been treated as slaves. God had now rolled away this reproach; they were free, and were henceforth to be a nation themselves.
2. There was the reproach which came of their lunging to return to Egypt. In this longing the covenant had been broken, and in the rite which renewed the covenant, telling, as it did, of Divine forgiveness, the reproach, in this aspect also, was rolled away.
8. Then there was the reproach of the Egyptians themselves (cf. Exo_32:12; Num_14:13-16; Deu_9:28). All these reproaches were removed by the covenant. Bunyan tells us of the burden which rolled away as Christian looked upon the cross. The blood of the everlasting covenant can alone assure us of the rolling away of the reproach of sin.
V. The relation between God’s recognised covenant and His people’s triumphant inheritance. When the covenant was once restored, the inheritance was only a question of time. No enemies against whom the people should be divinely led would be able to withstand them. “If God be for us, who shall be against us?” We, too, in all our struggles and fightings, may come off “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Jos_5:2-3.—DIVINE THOUGHTS ON HUMAN SERVICE.
I. While Divine wisdom takes account of human ideas of urgency, God’s ways are ever above the ways of men. Men would feel this an unsuitable time and place to perform a rite which would disable all in the army under forty years of age. Men would feel that this time of fear on the part of enemies was the very season in which to press forward. God usually works by what we term natural means. Ordinarily He moves to the accomplishment of His purposes in ways which seem best adapted to secure the desired issues. To overcome the Midianites with Gideon’s three hundred men, to inflict terror on the Philistines, and slay them in multitudes by a single man, as by Samson, or as by Jonathan and his armour-bearer, are exceptional and not usual instances of Divine working. Yet when God would lay special emphasis on particular teachings, He often departs from plans and ways which seem best to us. He who serves under God must not wonder if he sometimes comes to places where his own favourite ideas and cherished plans have to be set aside.
II. All successful work for God supposes submission and self-denial on the part of His people. The way to possess the land is His way, not ours. His way may disappoint us, and may be a way of suffering, but it has possessions at the end: our way may seem easy and more natural, yet it leads to nothing but shame and confusion of face. “The meek shall inherit the earth.” The words, “Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt,” may lead to the cross; they also lead to the riven sepulchre and to the ascension, and make way for the song, “He shall reign for ever and ever.” He who thus sank His will in the will of Heaven said, ere He left us, “If any man serve ME, him will my Father honour.”
III. God, who leads His people to wars and fightings, loves first to animate and strengthen them for the conflict. The Israelites, through their own sin, had to endure the toil and sorrows of the wilderness, feeling that the covenant was set aside. They would breathe as in a new atmosphere now that they were again taken into union with God. They would go up to fight, having their arms nerved by promises of victory, made not only to them, but to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
IV. The first of all our religious duties is to become reconciled to God. Nothing is acceptable from us till we ourselves are accepted. The rite of the covenant, in which the people gave themselves again to God, made fit way for the feast of the passover. No amount of going to the house of God, no constancy in hymn-singing, Bible-reading, or religious work, can be acceptable to God from any man or woman who still rejects Christ.
“The path of duty is the path of safety; and it is impossible for any soul to be injured while walking in the way of obedience.” [Clarke.]
“The Israelites were now circumcised for three reasons:—
1. To shew that they held, and would continue in, the same faith with their father Abraham, to whom this sign was first given.
2. That they would be separated from the wicked manners of the heathen Canaanites, into whose land they were now come, and would have nothing in common with them.
3. For the mystery which was chiefly respected herein, viz., our Jesus bringing of us into the land of life, by our drawing the sword, and fighting as it were with ourselves.” [Ferus.]
Jos_5:4-7.—QUALIFICATIONS FOR RELIGIOUS ORDINANCES.
Consider:—
I. The celebration of religious ordinances as independent of outward surroundings. “All the people that came out were circumcised.” Nothing in Egypt disqualified them for those rites of formal service incidental to the dispensation of the first covenant. The spirit of religions service is ever the same. That being so, we see that—
1. Slavery is no disqualification for participating in ordinances. The Israelites were in a bitter bondage; that made no difference to the liberty which they had in God. The Lord’s Supper, ten years ago, might be partaken as acceptably to God by Christian slaves in the Southern States of America, as by any free citizen of the freest nation upon earth. The baptism of a bondsman may be as much a baptism into Christ as that of a freeman. In thus drawing near to God,
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.”
2. Poverty is no disqualification. The Israelites could call very little their own, but they might approach God in the rites which He had appointed. The poorest of Christian communicants is no farther from the Saviour because of his poverty. It is said that the late Duke of Wellington was on one occasion taking the Lord’s Supper in the country, when a poor labourer in a smockfrock, not knowing who he was, came and knelt beside him. As one of the churchwardens whispered to the labourer to retire, the Duke, noticing the action, turned and said, “Let him remain; we are all equal here.” Even so: the liberty of God’s children knows no limitation from poverty.
3. Persecution and contempt are no disqualification. The Hebrews in Egypt could not call even their children their own; it made no difference before God that they were smitten and despised of men. Our liberty to serve and follow the Saviour does not stand in the good opinion of our fellows.
4. Mental degradation is no disqualification. The abject state of these men, who on leaving Egypt were so untutored and debased by bondage, was not one jot off from their religious freedom. Even in Egypt they administered to each other the rites of the covenant. The “Education Act” is a great boon to many as earthly citizens; no man needs it as a preliminary to intercourse with the Saviour.
5. Ecclesiastical deficiencies are no disqualification. The tribe of Levi was not then set apart for religious ministration. There was no high priest, no priest at all, no ecclesiastic of any kind; and yet, in this most ritualistic dispensation, even that made no difference. “All the people that came out were circumcised.” The ordinance was not dependent on priestly administration. Many religious men in the present day are claiming large prerogatives as to the intercourse of their fellow-men with God. These men claim an essential place of mediation between each ordinary worshipper and his God. Perhaps no Scripture is more pressed and distorted than the verse (Joh_20:23), “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” The circumstances under which these words were spoken are conveniently forgotten by those who press for auricular confession and mediatorial prerogatives. At the time when the Saviour uttered these words, there were no written words of the new dispensation to guide anxious men and women who wished to know if their sins were forgiven. The Gospel, upon which we can so readily fall back to help us in our anxieties, was not a word of it written. It is almost impossible for us, with all our light, to mentally put ourselves in the position of a man who, under the new preaching of John the Baptist and the apostles, might come to cry out in an agony of spirit for some assurance that he was forgiven. So the extraordinary power bestowed on the apostles was not even the outcome of their official position, but of the urgent needs of the anxious. Jesus breathed on the apostles, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” The Holy Spirit was so to guide them, that they should be able to pronounce to the anxious whether God had forgiven them or not. The men who felt sin an intolerable burden, and who had no written Gospel to go to, as we have, might go to these God-guided men, and they in turn should be so infallibly directed, that where they declared sin remitted, it should be remitted, and where they pronounced it retained, it should be retained. In other words, they should be so instructed as to declare the mind of God on each particular case. We even see something of the exercise of this prerogative by the apostles. To the agonised jailer of Philippi, Paul says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” On the other hand, Peter says to the commercial Simon Magus, “Thy money perish with thee.” The “delivering unto Satan,” of which Paul speaks, was probably simply the exercise of this declarative power. Other instances might be named, and these expounded in fuller detail; they should be enough to shew how utterly untenable is the priestly rendering of the verse in question. Even the ritual of the Old Testament gives no such place to men as this. There might be no priests; religious ordinances might be administered notwithstanding.
II. The disqualification for religious ordinances arising from unforgiven sin. “All the people that were born in the wilderness.… they had not circumcised.” The reason for this is stated at length in the sixth verse. On account of the rebellion, God had sworn a punishment which should endure to the end of the forty years. During that time there might be no circumcision at all. All the bondage of Egypt could not break in upon their glorious liberty as the children of God; what all the tyranny of Egypt could never accomplish, their personal sin had wrought in a single day.
1. Wilful disobedience in any one thing is the rebellion of the heart. We are apt to measure our disobedience to God by the magnitude of the things in which we fail to yield. We persuade ourselves that the thing is small, and that therefore the sin is small. The sin is that we have dared to disobey. One wilful sin carries with it all the heart into an act of disobedience; it is the rebellion of the whole man, until the sin is realised and confessed and abandoned.
2. The heart that is in rebellion against God cannot worship God. It is a contradiction. It is playing at adoration, and indulging in practical despising. It is an endeavour to mix absolute and essential opposites.
3. God sometimes sees it well to punish sin even after repentance. Many of the Israelites doubtless repented of their transgression. Even this repentance may have been largely owing to the penalty of forty years’ wandering which God had sworn to inflict. If the penalties of sin could be all averted, and immediately averted, by our repentance, a premium would be put on guilt by the cheap facilities with which its painful consequences might be avoided whenever we chose.
III. The distinction made in the history between judicial pardon and Divine love. The sin could not be said to be forgiven while the punishment continued. Judicially, the offence was not put away till the penalty was withdrawn. But God’s love was every day proclaiming itself through all the forty years. The mercies which were new every morning were telling of forgiveness in the Divine heart.
1. The suffering which men feel on account of sin is no evidence that God does not love them. Given that a man has to trace his trials to his transgressions, there is still much to proclaim that God is love, and that God loves him.
2. To walk gratefully in the sense of God’s love is to have the promise that any present suffering for sin will be ultimately put away. Just as every year in which the Israelites walked in submission to God, and in the consciousness that He loved them still, told of an ever-narrowing margin to that life in the wilderness; so he who yields where he has rebelled, and rejoices in Divine mercy, may contemplate the time when the love of God will remove all his present suffering. Even the cross of Christ may not at once put away the penalties of past transgressions; yet, to accept Christ crucified is to know the love and to have the promise of the salvation of God.
Where God speaks, it matters not whether we read prophecy or history; they are ever alike. Thirty-eight years before, the sentence had gone out against every living man of the host, saving Caleb and Joshua; it is only a matter of course that we read here, “All the men of war died in the wilderness.”
The fact that the fulfilment of God’s word is recorded so quietly, and that it excites in us so little surprise, assures us of the absolute truthfulness of Divine words, and of our inward acquiescence in their statements.
Divine promises are not more sure than Divine threatenings. The graves of the rebels are as certainly found in the wilderness as the homes of the obedient are found in Canaan. When all the theories of men on the improbability of final punishment have been elaborately expounded and carefully proved, hell will still remain as sure as heaven; the “lake of fire,” though ever so figurative, will be seen to have as much reality as the “sea of glass like unto crystal,” or the “streets of pure gold.” During those thirty-eight years which followed the sentence on Israel, there would have been time and room for a great many sermons on Num_14:28-35, in which some of the gentlest hearts and noblest spirits might have clearly proved the mercy of God, and the improbability of so many deaths in so short a time. For all that, when the years had ended, there were exactly as many graves in the wilderness as had been predicted.
Jos_5:4.—FRUITS OF SIN.
I. Sin as the cause of our disappointments. “The Lord sware that He would not shew them the land.”
II. Sin as the occasion of much of our poverty. The Lord would not give them the land “flowing with milk and honey.”
III. Sin as the instrument of death. “They were consumed because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord.”
IV. Sin as revealing Divine mercy even more than Divine anger. The deaths were spread over forty years. Space was given for repentance, and opportunity offered for securing eternal life. God’s anger is not vindictive; it has little in common with the anger of men; it waits to save with an everlasting salvation; if it destroy some suddenly, it generally appears that these are so evil that they will probably prevent the repentance of others. Thus the very anger of God seems rooted and grounded in love.
Jos_5:7.—DIVINE PATIENCE AND MERCY.
I. The Lord’s independence of particular men. If the fathers failed, He would raise up the children.
II. The Lord’s steady persistence in His purposes. Although the generation then living had proved themselves unfit for Canaan, God would not be defeated in His promise to Abraham.
III. The Lord’s abundant and stately patience. “One day with Him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
IV. The Lord’s merciful beginning with individual men. The children of the slain are permitted to begin their new life in the full covenant rights which their fathers had once enjoyed.
Jos_5:9.—REPROACH ROLLED AWAY.
I. The reproach of man is ever of men and by men.
1. It has its occasion in man’s sin.
2. It is ever ministered by men: “God, who upbraideth not,” is said to cause those who sin to be a reproach, and to bring reproach upon them; but He Himself reproaches not. The word partakes of the idea of taunting, and God could not descend to that. It is men, who also have sinned, who reproach their fellows when suffering for sin.
II. The effectual rolling away of reproach is ever of God. The Scriptures abound with records of prayers to God to take away reproach, of praises to God for taking it away, or of God’s assurances that He will deliver His people, and vindicate them against those who have held them in contempt. It is only God who dares to say, “I will blot out thy transgressions.”
III. The removal of man’s reproach should lead to the perpetuation of God’s praise. “Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.” The place was named after the mercy, thus declaring the goodness of the Lord throughout many generations. What memorials should we raise for the rolling away of our reproach on Calvary! The Israelites had only Gilgal; we have Golgotha. “Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach,” who has taken ours away, that it should be remembered against us no more for ever.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Jos 5:13-14
Jos 5:13-14
I. There is a lesson here, not inappropriate to the present times, in the fact that Christ appeared to Joshua as a "man of war." Would that image have been used, would Christ have assumed that form, if all war were out of the question?
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II. It is still more important to remark how strikingly the manifestations of Christ accommodate themselves to the various circumstances of His people. To Abraham, a wanderer and sojourner in Canaan, He manifests Himself as a wayfaring man. To Jacob, on the eve of an expected conflict with his brother, Christ shows Himself as a comforter. To Joshua, a soldier and an officer, Christ, too, is a soldier in command.
III. Joshua stood before the heavenly Captain, with the shoes from off his feet, to receive orders about the conducting of the siege. So let it be with us all. As soon as a providence, a word, a will, of God shows the special presence of Deity, let it have supremacy, and every human authority, however high, stand in the posture of silent obedience.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 243.
Consider this narrative—
I. As describing an anticipatory appearance of Christ. In reality Christ was not "a man" before He was born in Bethlehem. It was not the body, but only the appearance, of a man that Joshua saw.
II. This narrative foreshadows a peculiar relation that exists between Christ and His followers. (1) They are the Lord’s host. The Church is a host on account of its numbers, its unity, its order. (2) Of this host Christ is the Captain. He is Captain by sanction of law and by suffrage of the army, and He is Captain throughout all time.
III. See the consequences of this relation. (1) As Captain of the Lord’s host, Christ summons His people to a life of warfare. (2) He requires unquestioning obedience to His authority. (3) He furnishes His soldiers with power for their warfare: the power of His Spirit, His truth, and His love. (4) As Captain of the Lord’s host, Christ leads us to an enterprise that must end in glory to His own name and to each individual who is on His side.
C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 89.
Notice:—
I. The agitation of uncertainty in the breast of Joshua. Suddenly, while he brooded, a man stood over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand. He saw a vast armed figure towering above him in fighting attitude. He asked with painful suspense, "Art thou for us or for our adversaries?" wondering anxiously what the apparition meant, and what it portended, whether success or defeat in the coming campaign. And it is with like uncertainty that we front now the new year. We most of us know enough of life to discern, if we lift our eyes, a man with a drawn sword in his hand. We ask in vain as Joshua did when he cried, "Art thou for us or for our adversaries?" The angel says to the wistfully inquiring man, "As captain of the host of the Lord I am now come."
II. Here, then, was what Joshua saw in looking forward to the future. He did not see victory or defeat, but he saw, to his comfort and relief, that the forces which he led were not his host merely, but the host of the Lord, and that they, together with their leader, were in the hands of the Lord.
III. The message that Joshua received was no declaring of things that had been kept hidden, no weighty revealings, only a plain and familiar admonition to cherish within him a right temper of mind, a right spirit, to see to it that he walked reverently and cultivated purity, as one who dwelt in a temple. That was all the heavens told him when they leaned toward him with a word. "Take heed to yourself, to your character and conduct; be dutiful; be loyal to the vision that is yours." And what better, richer gift could we have from above than a deepened sense of duty and a fresh impulse toward reverent and noble living?
S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood, p. 215.
References: Jos 5:13-15.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 285; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 795. 5—Parker, vol. v., pp. 126, 136. Jos 6:18.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v.,p. 59. Jos 6:20.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 285. Jos 6:26.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 150. 6—Parker, vol. v., p. 147; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 629. Jos 7:3.—Ibid., vol. xxiii., No. 1358. Jos 7:10.—J. B. Heard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 40; S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 3rd series, No. 10:7:13.—Parker, vol. v., p. 276. Jos 7:15.—Ibid., Jos 7:16-26.—Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 454. Jos 7:18—Parker, vol. v., p. 172. Jos 7:19.—C. J. Vaughan, Liturgy and Worship of the Church of England, p. 53; J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 406. Jos 7:19, Jos 7:20.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide, p. 83. Jos 7:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., No. 113. Jos 7:20, Jos 7:21.—S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 2nd series, No. 9:7:21.—A. Mursell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 104. 7—Parker, vol. v., pp. 156, 163. Jos 8:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii., No. 1358. Jos 8:31.—Parker, vol. v., p. 277. 8—Ibid., p. 179. Jos 9:2-27.—Ibid., p. 186. Jos 9:14.—P. Robertson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 226; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 364. Jos 10:11.—Parker, vol. v., p. 195. Jos 10:12-15.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. i., p. 1. Jos 10:12-43.—Parker, vol. v., p. 202. Jos 10:39.—J. B. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 83.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v14
Joshua
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LORD’S HOST
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Jos 5:14.
The army of Israel was just beginning a hard conflict under an untried leader. Behind them the Jordan barred their retreat, in front of them Jericho forbade their advance. Most of them had never seen a fortified city, and had no experience nor engines for a siege. So we may well suppose that many doubts and fears shook the courage of the host, as it drew around the doomed city. Their chief had his own heavy burden. He seems to have gone apart to meditate on what his next step was to be. Absorbed in thought, he lifts up his eyes mechanically, as brooding men will, not expecting to see anything, and is startled by the silent figure of ‘a man with a sword drawn’ in his hand, close beside him. There is nothing supernatural in his appearance; and the immediate thought of the leader is, ‘Is this one of the enemy that has stolen upon my solitude?’ So, promptly and boldly, he strides up to him with the quick challenge: ‘Whose side are you on? Are you one of us, or from the enemy’s camp?’ And then the silent lips open. ‘Upon neither the one nor the other. I am not on your side, you are on mine, for as Captain of the Lord’s host, am I come up.’ And then Joshua falls on his face, recognises his Commander-in-Chief, owns himself a subordinate, and asks for orders. ‘What saith my Lord unto his servant?’
Now let us try to gather the meaning and the lessons of this striking incident.
I. I see in it a transient revelation of an eternal truth.
I believe, as the vast majority of careful students of the course of Old Testament revelation and its relation to the New Testament completion believe, that we have here not a record of the appearance of a created superhuman person, but that of a preliminary manifestation of the Eternal Word of God, who, in the fulness of time, ‘became flesh and dwelt among us.’
You will observe that there run throughout the whole of the Old Testament notices of the occasional manifestation of a mysterious person who is named ‘the Angel,’ ‘the Angel of the Lord.’ For instance, in the great scene in the wilderness, where the bush burned and was not consumed, he who appeared is named ‘the Angel of the Lord’; and his lips declare ‘I am that I am.’ In like manner, soon after, the divine voice speaks to Moses of ‘the Angel in whom is My name.’
When Balaam had his path blocked amongst the vineyards, it was a replica of the figure of my text that stayed his way, a man with a drawn sword in his hand, who spoke in autocratic and divine fashion. When the parents of Samson were apprised of the coming birth of the hero, it was ‘the Angel of the Lord’ that appeared to them, accepted their sacrifice, declared the divine will, and disappeared in a flame of fire from the altar. A psalm speaks of ‘the Angel of the Lord’ as encamping round about them that fear him, and delivering them. Isaiah tells us of the ‘Angel of his face,’ who was ‘afflicted in all Israel’s afflictions, and saved them.’ And the last prophetic utterance of the Old Testament is most distinct and remarkable in its strange identification and separation of Jehovah and the Angel, when it says, ‘the Lord shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Angel of the Covenant.’ Now, if we put all these passages-and they are but select instances-if we put all these passages together, I think we cannot help seeing that there runs, as I said, throughout the whole of the Old Testament a singular strain of revelation in regard to a Person who, in a remarkable manner, is distinguished from the created hosts of angel beings, and also is distinguished from, and yet in name, attributes, and worship all but identified with, the Lord Himself.
If we turn to the narrative before us, we find there similar phenomena marked out. For this mysterious ‘man with the sword drawn’ in his hand, quotes the very words which were spoken at the bush, when he says, ‘Loose thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.’ And by fair implication, He would have us to identify the persons in these two great theophanies. He ascribes to Himself, in the further conversation in the next chapter, directly divine attributes, and is named by the sacred name; ‘The Lord said unto Joshua, see, I have given into thy hand Jericho and its king.’
If we turn to the New Testament, we find that there under another image the same strain of thought is presented. The Word of God, who from everlasting ‘was with God, and was God,’ is represented as being the Agent of Creation, the Source of all human illumination, the Director of Providence, the Lord of the Universe. ‘By him were all things, and in him all things consists.’ So, surely, these two halves make a whole; and the Angel of the Lord, separate and yet so strangely identified with Jehovah, who at the crises of the nation’s history, and stages of the development of the process of Revelation, is manifested, and the Eternal Word of God, whom the New Testament reveals to us, are one and the same.
This truth was transiently manifested in our text. The vision passed, the ground that was hallowed by His foot is undistinguished now in the sweltering plain round the mound that once was Jericho. But the fact remains, the humanity, that was only in appearance, and for a few minutes, assumed then, has now been taken up into everlasting union with the divine nature, and a Man reigns on the Throne, and is Commander of all who battle for the truth and the right. The eternal order of the universe is before us here.
It only remains to say a word in reference to the sweep of the command which our vision assigns to the Angel of the Lord. ‘Captain of the Lord’s host’ means a great deal more than the true General of Israel’s little army. It does mean that, or the words and the vision would cease to have relevance and bearing on the moment’s circumstances and need. But it includes also, as the usage of Scripture would sufficiently show, if it were needful to adduce instances of it, all the ordered ranks of loftier intelligent beings, and all the powers and forces of the universe. These are conceived of as an embattled host, comparable to an army in the strictness of their discipline and their obedience to a single will. It is the modern thought that the universe is a Cosmos and not a Chaos, an ordered unit, with the addition of the truth beyond the reach and range of science, that its unity is the expression of a personal will. It is the same thought which the centurion had, to Christ’s wonder, when he compared his own power as an officer in a legion, where his will was implicitly obeyed, to the power of Christ over diseases and sorrows and miseries and death, and recognised that all these were His servants, to whom, if His autocratic lips chose to say ‘Go,’ they went, and if He said, ‘Do this,’ they did it.
So the Lord of the universe and its ordered ranks is Jesus Christ. That is the truth which was flashed from the unknown, like a vanishing meteor in the midnight, before the face of Joshua, and which stands like the noonday sun, unsetting and irradiating for us who live under the Gospel.
II. I see here the Leader of all the warfare against the world’s evil.
‘The Captain of the Lord’s host.’ He Himself takes part in the fight. He is not like a general who, on some safe knoll behind the army, sends his soldiers to death, and keeps his own skin whole. But He has fought, and He is fighting. Do you remember that wonderful picture in two halves, at the end of one of the Gospels, ‘the Lord went up into Heaven and sat at the right hand of God, . . . they went forth everywhere preaching the Word’? Strange contrast between the repose of the seated Christ and the toils of His peripatetic servants! Yes, strange contrast; but the next words harmonise the two halves of it; ‘the Lord also working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.’ The Leader does not so rest as that He does not fight; and the servants do not need so to fight, as that they cannot rest. Thus the old legends of many a land and tongue have a glorious truth in them to the eye of faith, and at the head of all the armies that are charging against any form of the world’s misery and sin, there moves the form of the Son of Man, whose aid we have to invoke, even from His crowned repose at the right hand of God. ‘Gird thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Most Mighty, and in Thy majesty ride forth prosperously, and Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things.’
If this, then, be for us, as truly as for Joshua and his host, a revelation of who is our true leader, surely all of us in our various degrees, and especially any of us who have any ‘Quixotic crusade’ for the world’s good on our consciences and on our hands, may take the lessons and the encouragements that are here. Own your Leader; that is one plain duty. And recognise this fact, that by no other power than by His, and with no other weapons than those which He puts into our hands, in His Cross and meekness, can a world’s evils be overcome, and the victory be won for the right and the truth. I have no faith in crusades which are not under the Captain of our salvation. And I would that the earnest men, and there are many of them, the laborious and the self-sacrificing men in many departments of philanthropy and benevolence and social reformation-who labour unaware of who is their Leader, and not dependent upon His help, nor trusting in His strength-would take to heart this vision of my text, and see beside them the ‘man with the drawn sword in his hand,’ the Christ with the ‘sharp two-edged sword going out of his mouth,’ by whom, and by whom alone, the world’s evil can be overcome and slain.
Own your General; submit to His authority; pick the weapons that He can bless; trust absolutely in His help. We may have, we shall have, in all enterprises for God and man that are worth doing, ‘need of patience,’ just as the army of Israel had to parade for six weary days round Jericho blowing their useless trumpets, whilst the impregnable walls stood firm, and the defenders flouted and jeered their aimless procession. But the seventh day will come, and at the trumpet blast down will go the loftiest ramparts of the cities that are ‘walled up to heaven’ with a rush and a crash, and through the dust and over the ruined rubbish Christ’s soldiers will march and take possession. So trust in your Leader, and be sure of the victory, and have patience and keep on at your work.
Do not make Joshua’s mistake. ‘Art Thou for us?’-’Nay! Thou art for me.’ That is a very different thing. We have the right to be sure that God is on our side, when we have made sure that we are on God’s. So take care of self-will and self-regard, and human passions, and all the other parasitical insects that creep round philanthropic religious work, lest they spoil your service. There is a great deal that calls itself after Jehu’s fashion, ‘My zeal for the Lord,’ which is nothing better than zeal for my own notions and their preponderance. Therefore we must strip ourselves of all that, and not fancy that the cause is ours, and then graciously admit Christ to help us, but recognise that it is His, and lowly submit ourselves to His direction, and what we do, do, and when we fight, fight, in His name and for His sake.
III. Here is the Ally in all our warfare with ourselves.
That is the worst fight. Far worse than all these Hittites and Hivites, and the other tribes with their barbarous names, far worse than all external foes, are the foes that each man carries about in his own heart. In that slow hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot struggle I do not believe that there is any conquering power available for a man that can for a moment be compared with the power that comes through submission to Christ’s command and acceptance of Christ’s help. He has fought every foot of the ground before us. We have to ‘run the race’-to take another metaphor-’that is set before us, looking unto Jesus,’ the great Leader, and in His own self the Perfecter of the faith which conquers. In Him, His example, the actual communication of His divine Spirit, and in the motives for brave and persistent conflict which flow from His Cross and Passion, we shall find that which alone will make us the victors in this internecine warfare. There can be no better directory given to any man than to tread in Christ’s footsteps, and learn how to fight, from Him who in the wilderness repelled the triple assault with the single ‘It is written’; thus recognising the word and will of God as the only directory and defence.
Thus, brethren, if we humbly take service in His ranks, and ask Him to show us where our foes within are, and to give us the grace to grapple with them, and cast them out, anything is possible rather than ultimate defeat, and however long and sore the struggle may be, its length and its severity are precious parts of the discipline that makes us strong, and we shall at last be more than conquerors through Him that loveth us.
IV. Lastly, I see here the Power which it is madness to resist.
Think of this vision. Think of the deep truths, partially shadowed and symbolised by it. Think of Christ, what He is, and what resources He has at His back, of what are His claims for our service, and our loyal, militant obedience. Think of the certain victory of all who follow Him amongst ‘the armies of Heaven, clad in fine linen, clean and white.’ Think of the crown and the throne for him that ‘overcomes.’
Remember the destructive powers that sleep in Him: the ‘drawn sword in His hand,’ the ‘two-edged sword out of His mouth’ the ‘wrath of the Lamb.’ Think of the ultimate certain defeat of all antagonisms; of that last campaign when He goes forth with the ‘name written on His vesture and on His thigh “King of kings and Lord of lords.”‘ Think of how He ‘strikes through kings in the day of His wrath, and fills the place with the bodies of the dead’; and how His ‘enemies become His footstool.’
Ponder His own solemn word, ‘He that is not with Me, is against Me.’ There is no neutrality in this warfare. Either we are for Him or we are for His adversary. ‘Under which King? speak or die!’ As sensible men, not indifferent to your highest and lasting well-being, ask yourselves, ‘Can I, with my ten thousand, meet Him with His twenty thousand?’ Put yourselves under His orders, and He will be on your side. He will teach your hands to war, and your fingers to fight; will cover your heads in the day of battle, and bring you at last, palm-bearing and laurel-crowned, to that blissful state where there will still be service, and He still be the ‘Captain of the Lord’s host,’ but where ‘swords will be beaten into ploughshares’ and the victors shall need to ‘learn war no more.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Renewal Of Circumcision And Celebration Of The Passover
Renewal Of Circumcision And Celebration Of The Passover
The two incidents recorded in Jos_5:2-12;—Circumcision and the Passover—represent the final stage in the preparation of the people for the Holy War. The Circumcision was a necessary preliminary (Exo_12:44, Exo_12:48) to the Passover Feast, besides marking for the new generation a reversal of the sentence of 'excommunication 'virtually pronounced in Num_14:33-34;'; and the Passover—the first recorded celebration since the first anniversary of its institution (Num_9:5)—was signalised also by the cessation of the extraordinary 'sacrament' of Manna. Thus the period of the Wanderings is definitely brought to a close.
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1. Amorites] represent, roughly speaking, the inhabitants of the highland districts. Canaanites] = 'lowlanders,' in the specialised sense, the dwellers on the maritime plain. Until we were passed over] RM 'until they were passed over.' It was always thus read by the Jews.
2-9. Renewal of the Rite of Circumcision. This was necessary, because all those who had come out of Egypt already circumcised (except, of course, Joshua and Caleb) had died in the wilderness; while the new generation of males had not been circumcised by the way (Jos_5:7). This omission of the rite was of course not necessitated by the journeyings, which were certainly not continuous. It was more probably a deliberate disciplinary regulation, as a sign of the broken covenant: see prefatory remarks.
2. Sharp knives] RV 'knives of flint.' LXX curiously relates (in an addition to Jos_24:30) that these knives were buried with Joshua in his tomb. Flint knives were used for religious purposes by the Egyptians.
9. The reproach of Egypt] This may mean that the Egyptians, laying great stress on circumcision themselves, regarded the fact of uncircumcision as a reproach. Gilgal] mg. 'Rolling. 'This etymology, like that of 'Babel 'in Gen_11:9, is now generally recognised as unscientific. It is rather a play on words than a derivation. Yet though the word 'Gilgal' probably signified originally a sacred 'circle' of stones—analogous to the druidic circle found in Britain—it certainly meant, to the Hebrews, the rolling away of reproach.
10. Kept the passover on the fourteenth day] of Nisan, as ordained in Exo_12:6. They had probably selected the lambs four days before, immediately on their arrival at the camp (see on Jos_4:19); and had rested quietly for three full days after the circumcision. This is the third recorded Passover; the second (Num_9:5) being the first anniversary of the institution. There are only three subsequent observances of the Passover recorded in the OT., viz. Josiah's (2Ki_23:21-23), Hezekiah's (2 Chronicles 30), and that of the returned exiles (Ezr_6:19.), and all of these are after the discovery of the Book of the Law by Hilkiah in 621 b.c. But a notice in 2Ch_8:13 ascribes to Solomon similar observances, and critics admit (cp. HDB. art. 'Passover') that unrecorded observances may have gone on all along.
11. On the morrow] The feast of Mazzoth, or Unleavened Bread, was a distinct festival (cp. Lev_23:5-6) of seven days' duration, following on the one-day feast of the Passover. The two came naturally, in the course of centuries, to be regarded as a single festival, to which either title could be applied (cp. e.g. Luk_22:1).
12. The manna ceased] see prefatory note.
13-15. Vision of the Heavenly Captain.
13. A man] clearly, as elsewhere in Holy Scripture (cp. e.g. Gen_18:2; Gen_32:24; Dan_9:21; Zec_1:8; Act_1:10), an angelic being, to be identified with the promised guide of Exo_23:20-23 (cp. Exo_33:2). Of this angel the Lord says (Exo_23:21): 'My name is in him'; and in Isa_63:9 he is called 'the angel of his presence' (see on Exo_3:2).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv2, 11, 15 Circumcision is the "sign" of the Abrahamic Covenant Gen…
circumcision
Circumcision is the "sign" of the Abrahamic Covenant Gen 17:7-14; Rom 4:11. "The reproach of Egypt" was that, during the later years of the Egyptian bondage, this separating sign had been neglected (cf. Exo 4:24-26 and this neglect had continued during the wilderness wanderings. The N.T. analogue is world conformity; the failure openly to take a believer’s place with Christ in death and resurrection.; Rom 6:2-11; Gal 6:14-16. Spiritually it is mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit.; Rom 8:13; Gal 5:16; Gal 5:17; Col 2:11; Col 2:12; Col 3:5-10.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 5. At Gilgal
5. At Gilgal
CHAPTER 5
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1. The terrified enemies (Jos 5:1)
2. Circumcision commanded and executed (Jos 5:2-9)
3. The Passover kept (Jos 5:10)
4. The old corn of the land (Jos 5:11-12)
5. The captain of Jehovah’s host (Jos 5:13-15)
The events at Gilgal are of much interest. Jehovah had brought His people over Jordan. All His promises were kept. He had promised to deliver them out of Egypt and to bring them into the land of Canaan. All is now accomplished. The wilderness is behind them and they face the marvellous land with its riches and resources, the land flowing with milk and honey. The advance and the conquest is next in order. At the Red Sea their enemies were slain by the power of God, but now, after the power of God had brought them into the land, the real conflict begins.
Gilgal, the new ground gained and occupied by the people brought over Jordan, is the type of the resurrection-ground upon which our feet have been planted. That we are risen with Christ and seated in Him in the heavenly places must be constantly remembered, as Israel could never forget at Gilgal that they had been brought over Jordan into the land. The memorial stones served as a constant reminder.
But before they could advance a number of things took place. First we read of the fear which took hold on the kings of the Canaanites. Their hearts melted. They were the instruments of Satan under whose control they were; their fear denotes Satan’s fear. He knew the power of Jehovah, which had brought them into the land. The enemy is defeated by the death and resurrection of our Lord. Through death He has annulled him, who has the power of death, that is the devil. Being in Christ, risen with Christ and seated in Him in the heavenly places, we can look upon the enemy as conquered. Yet it is only in the Lord and in the power of His might that we are strong. Apart from Him we become the easy prey of our enemy. What an encouragement to Israel it must have been, when they learned, as no doubt they did, that the mighty enemies, who had inspired such terror to their fathers over thirty-eight years ago, were now trembling. Israel’s fear was gone, because God’s power was on their side. What confidence we should have when we remember that “we are translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love”! Victory is on our side. All we need to do is to put on the whole armour of God, to resist the devil and he will flee from us.
Circumcision is next commanded by Jehovah. “At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.” This command was carried out at once and the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. Therefore the place was called Gilgal, which means “rolling.” The circumcision was carried out on all the males, who were born in the wilderness (verses 5 and 7). The rite of such deep meaning had been neglected. No doubt they had plenty of excuses for that during the wilderness journey. No command was given to circumcise during the thirty-eight years’ wandering. It was suspended; it may have been a punishment for their unbelief But now all is changed. They are in the land. The Passover, the great memorial feast, was about to be kept. The uncircumcised could not eat the Passover. The reproach of Egypt, for as uncircumcised they were the same as in bondage in Egypt, in no covenant with Jehovah, is rolled away. The visible token of belonging to Jehovah was now borne by every male in the camp.
Joshua exhibited the courage of faith in circumcising the thousands of Israelites at that time. His action has been called “most unmilitary.” He put the vast majority of his fighting men into an unfit condition. What if these Canaanites should have fallen upon the settlers in their territory? May Joshua not have remembered the dastardly crime of the sons of Jacob? See Gen 34:24-26. He knew no fear, his first concern was to yield obedience to God. They tarried for several weeks at Gilgal.
What are the typical lessons of all this? Circumcision stands for the carrying out of the sentence of death to the flesh. The death of Christ is for His people a circumcision. “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (Col 2:11). But this fact that we are dead to sin by the circumcision, the death of Christ must be carried out practically. The sharp knife has to be applied to the flesh and the things of the flesh. The members, which are on earth, must be mortified, which means, put into the place of death, where the death of Christ has put them. If it is not done the reproach of Egypt will rest upon His people and they are unfit to enjoy their heavenly possession, and unable to advance in the things of Christ.
Gilgal, therefore, stands for the judgment of self. This is the place of our strength and power. Israel had always to return to Gilgal; when they did not they were defeated. Defeat, failure in our walk, always drives us back to self-judgment and humiliation. Victory and blessing may keep us from it; and that is our real spiritual danger.
Passover is kept next. See Numbers 9 and our annotations there. What blessed memories must have come to them? They remembered that fearful night in Egypt and how Jehovah had passed over them, when He saw the blood of the lamb. Notice the difference between these two Passovers. The first they kept as guilty; they needed protection. But now they keep it as delivered and brought into the land. And we have a feast of remembrance likewise, the Lord’s table. “Do this in remembrance of Me.” It must be kept by us on resurrection-ground, realizing that we are dead with Christ and risen with Him; self-judgment is needed as well.
“The remembrance of the past is often an excellent preparation for the trials of the future, and as often it proves a remarkable support under them. It was the very nature of the Passover to look back to the past, and to recall God’s first great interposition on behalf of His people. It was a precious encouragement both to faith and hope. So also is our Christian Passover. It is a connecting link between the first and second comings of our Lord. The first coming lends support to faith, the second to hope. No exercise of soul can be more profitable than to go back to that memorable day when Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. For then the price of redemption was paid in full, and the door of salvation flung wide open. Then the Son sealed His love by giving Himself for us. What blessing, whether for this life or the life to come, was not purchased by that transaction? Life may be dark and stormy, but hope foresees a bright tomorrow. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” (Professor W.G. Blaikie).
Then the manna ceased and they ate the old corn of the land. Both foods are typical of Christ, the food God has given to His people. The manna is the type of Christ, on earth, in humiliation. The old corn is Christ in Glory. May we constantly feed on both.
Then Joshua meets before Jericho the man with the drawn sword. What a courageous man Joshua was! He meets the stranger alone. Most likely he had no sword, while the man had his sword drawn. He soon hears who the stranger is. It is the same One who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, to Abraham at Mamre, to Jacob at Peniel and to others afterward. It is Jehovah in visible form. These theophanies were surely not incarnations, yet they foreshadowed the incarnation of the Son of God. Here Jehovah who in the fulness of time became Man, appears as a man of war, as Captain of the host of the Lord. The host are Israel. And He is the Captain of our salvation.
The book of Joshua is the book of conflicts and conquests. The sword is freely used in carrying out the divine judgments upon the ungodly tenants of the land. Yet the first drawn sword, mentioned in the book, is in the hand of the Lord as He appeared unto Joshua. He fights for His people. He will yet execute the righteous judgments in the earth, It will be when He appears the second time.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The Circumcision of the People
The Circumcision of the People
v. 1. And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of the Jordan westward, the mighty heathen nations which occupied chiefly the mountainous section of Canaan, for among these the Amorites were the strongest, and all the kings of the Canaanites which were by the sea, the heathen nations occupying the lowlands in the neighborhood of the Mediterranean Sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, for it is an eye-witness who is relating this story, that their heart melted, dissolved in apprehension and terror, neither was there spirit in them any more, they lost the last vestige of courage, because of the children of Israel. It was the terror of the Lord which fallen upon them, causing all life and energy to be taken from them.
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v. 2. At that time the Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, literally, knives of stone, made with a very sharp cutting edge, used extensively at that time, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. As the people that came out of Egypt had been circumcised, so now there was to be a circumcision of the new generation, by which the solemn rite was solemnly reintroduced.
v. 3. And Joshua made him sharp knives and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins, for the place was later known as Gibeah-haaraloth, because the foreskins were buried there.
v. 4. And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise, why the Lord’s order went forth to Joshua, and the latter had the order executed: All the people that came out of Egypt that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, in the course of the desert journey, after they came out of Egypt, Num 14:29; Deu 2:16.
v. 5. Now, all the people that came out were circumcised, the rite having been observed with all strictness in Egypt; but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, the entire journey in the wilderness being included under this heading, them they had not circumcised.
v. 6. For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, mustered as being able to bear arms in battle, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord; unto whom the Lord sware that He would not show them the land which the Lord sware unto their fathers that He would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey, Num 14:23. The extraordinary fertility of the country is here once more emphasized, as so often in the Old Testament, Exo 3:8-17; Exo 13:5; Exo 16:14; Lev 20:24; Num 13:27; Deu 1:3. The meadow-lands of Canaan, with their rich carpet of grasses and flowers, were well suited for the raising of herds and flocks, while the bees found the abundance of fragrant flowers with their rich nectar eminently satisfactory for the production of honey.
v. 7. And their children, whom He raised up in their stead, the Lord had them take the place of those who were fallen in the wilderness, them Joshua circumcised, their circumcision he ordered; for they were uncircumcised, because they, the several fathers of the families, had not circumcised them by the way. It was necessary that the present race of young men should receive the sign of the Lord’s covenant before they dared undertake the conquest of Canaan.
v. 8. And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp till they were whole, had recovered from the. effects of the operation. During this time there were at least some three hundred thousand men to take care of the necessary preparations for the celebration of the Passover and to guard against an eventual attack on the part of the heathen armies.
v. 9. And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you, namely, that resulting from the report that God had led His people out of Egypt merely for the purpose of striking them down in the wilderness, Exo 32:12; Num 14:13-16; Deu 9:28. The act of circumcision at Gilgal was God’s proclamation of the full restoration of the covenant, as first made with Abraham and at Sinai. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal (rolling away) unto this day. The sacred covenant rite had now been resumed, and all reproach had been removed. Israel was consecrated for the possession of the Holy Land, for it is an obedient, consecrated people whom the Lord desires for His own.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14 their hearts melted ... there was no longer any…
their hearts melted ... there was no longer any spirit in them
These two phrases mean basically the same thing and emphasize the intensity of their fear. (See: Parallelism)
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their hearts melted
Here "hearts" refers to their courage. They were so afraid that it was as if their courage melted away like wax in a fire. AT: "they lost all their courage" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
there was no longer any spirit in them
Here "spirit" refers to their will to fight. AT: "they no longer had any will to fight" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
king
Amorite
Jordan River
Canaan
the sea
Yahweh
water
Israel
spirit
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 5:1 After news of Israel’s crossing of the Jordan…
5:1 After news of Israel’s crossing of the Jordan River spread, all of southern Canaan was in a state of alert awaiting Israel’s expected invasion. • With Israel’s impossible crossing of the Jordan, the Canaanites lost heart and were paralyzed with fear. They knew they faced the people of a God more powerful than any they worshiped.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.