CHAPTER 5
1. Now when all the kings of the Emorites who were on the seaward side of the Yarden and all the kings of the Kanaanites who were on the sea heard that YHWH had dried up the waters of the Yarden from in front of the descendants of Israel until we had had crossed over, their courage began to melt, nor was there any more spirit in them due to the presence of the descendants of Israel.
We had crossed: This very different narrative pattern is very telling. It emphasizes that all of us crossed over. None of the army was left on the other side, even those who had settled there. This news traveled very quickly, even some 40 or 50 miles away to those on the Mediterranean coast—all without e-mail or instant messaging! There were people watching this approaching war camp, an undoubtedly trying to arm themselves better or prepare supplies for a siege. Because of “our lady on the wall”, we know that Y’rikho, the main gateway to the Land, was already fearful, and it was a place from which news would go forth. This nervousness was YHWH’s intent, because if we take an enemy’s confidence away, he will fall. How can one plot a military strategy against the Elohim who controlled such things as rivers? But it was not even the anomaly of the Yarden drying up that made them afraid; it was the fact that this army all had one mind and the same purpose. They did not straggle, but hurried across because they respected those who made this easy crossing possible. They are united behind their leader, and actually followed his instructions. They were not selfishly vying for first place. The stories these children had heard while growing up included that of Qorakh and others who refused to obey Moshe’s orders. They witnessed their parents dying because they could not be united behind the leader YHWH chose. This generation was different. It had promised to obey Y’hoshua, and not only that but to kill anyone who did not. (1:16) They put themselves and their own ideas and opinions aside to do what YHWH wanted done in the way He wanted it done. This is a much bigger miracle than the river drying up. These people were the real miracle. Many have tried to outsmart YHWH, and could not, so they attack His people instead. But because Israel was walking in obedience to YHWH under the authority of the one He had put in place, there was no chink in their armor. This people that had been lost for 40 years were now a military powerhouse, and their every move was watched. People are watching us today in the same way from the sidelines, to see if we are really are who we say we are or if this is just another fad, to see if we will be successful and if YHWH is indeed with us and Israel will come back together as we say.
2. At that time, YHWH told Y’hoshua, “Make for yourself stone blades, and return [and] circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.”
At that time: when the window was open to strike because the enemies were at their weakest, and they had just come from a “mountaintop experience” (though they were at the lowest place on earth), because this vantage point showed that there was still something keeping them from being able to complete the Passover. Stone: traditionally it was specifically flint, but the text actually uses the generic word for a large rock. If bronze and iron tools were already common, why did they use this seemingly antiquated method? Actually the flint knife was the way of mercy, because when broken along the right plane and filed to an edge, it is as sharp as any modern surgical instrument, and therefore less painful. It still was not pleasant for these people who were not circumcised on the eighth day, when the prothrombin and vitamin K are at their highest in one's lifetime and the blood clots readily. There was a price to pay for their parents' disobedience: it hurt! This is a very tender area, but every man had to submit to this before the people as a whole could go any further. Flint is not as easy to shape as metal, and thus the people had not continued making them once they were sentenced to die without entering the Promised Land. They probably assumed their children would also die in the wilderness as well, since they saw YHWH as cruel, when the fault was their own; He specifically promised to take their children to the place they themselves had forfeited. The fact that Y’hoshua had to make these knives shows that they did not have any, and thus that they had not intended to keep this command. If we do not have the sign of the covenant, we have broken the covenant itself, and where there is no sign, it means we are not “open for business”, or at least that there is nothing in the “store” that is worth having. How can we say we are Israelites but not bear the identifying mark? But few other than the Levites and Y’hoshua and Kalev were circumcised anymore. A second time: When was the first? Not when their parents were circumcised, for they did not walk in obedience to what it represented, so this circumcision did not count. The one they were to parallel was the circumcision of Avraham’s household (Gen. 17:10ff), for he used a flint knife. So maybe it was a blessing that their parents had not circumcised them, so they couild identify with Avraham rather than their immediate forefathers, who had the sign of the covenant, but did not live up to it. There are many external signs—wedding rings, or colors that identify someone as a member of a street gang or motorcycle gang. But this sign is different. It is kept “in your pants”—not seen by anyone except those you are most intimate with. It is concealed, for it is more of a reminder to the individual that he is part of the covenant. But sometimes even the hidden things come out through other signs that the covenant is real in us. Circumcision is a removal of obstructing and unnecessary flesh, and it symbolizes putting away anything in us that is not serving YHWH, as when Avram left his whole heritage and culture behind to go where YHWH commanded him. Elsewhere in Scripture, we read of uncircumcised hearts, eyes, ears, and lips—i.e., anywhere there is flesh in a place that needs to be exposed to the “knife” YHWH uses to remove it.
3. So Y’hoshua made himself [some] stone blades and began circumcising the sons of Israel toward the Hill of Foreskins.
4. And this is the reason that Y’hoshua circumcised all the people who came out of Egypt: The males—all the men of war—had died in the wilderness on the journey, as they came out from Egypt,
5. because all the people who had come out had been circumcised, but none of the people who had been born in the wilderness on the journey as they came out of Egypt had been circumcised,
6. since the sons of Israel had walked [for] forty years in the wilderness until the whole nation--the men of war who had come out of Egypt, who did not listen to the voice of YHWH, to whom YHWH had sworn not to let them see the Land that YHWH had sworn to their ancestors to give to us (a Land that gushes forth milk and honey)--had been consumed.
For 40 years, they were without the prescribed sign of the Covenant. YHWH had still dwelt among them and given them protection, provision, and the Torah for instruction. But these blessings only meant that He was extremely merciful. He upheld His side of the covenant for Avraham’s sake. Just because things are “coming up roses” for us does not imply that we are doing everything right. Had Moshe known that no one was circumcising their children, he might have been less patient about it, though he himself had hesitated to carry out this practice (Ex. 4:24ff) because it did not sit well with his wife. But as when he was about to take up his role as leader, YHWH gave him no choice but to obey or die, and now that the Israelites were in the Land and ready to carry out justice on the Kanaanites, they had to be more blameless than they. The season left no room for compromise or neglect, just like ours today.
7. But He raised up sons in their place; them Y’hoshua circumcised, because they had not circumcised them on the way.
8. And what took place when the whole nation was finished being circumcised was that they stayed in their places in the camp until they had revived.
Revived: i.e., healed and regained their strength. Since the tenth and the fourteenth of the month are both identified (v.10 and 4:19), there are three days between, at the end of which they "came back to life". The long delay before any attack would also serve to increase the fearfulness of the Kanaanites. This army has been through pain and bleeding together. Now they are in full unity, and that is truly scary to their enemies.
9. And YHWH told Y’hoshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from upon you.” So he called the name of that place Gilgal to this day.
Gilgal means “rolling” or a wheel, undoubtedly a reference to the “circle” that has been cut away. Reproach: shame or disgrace, but from a root word meaning to pull off or expose, or even to betrothe. Having a foreskin is thus a sign of being betrothed to Egypt. (1 Maccabees tells us that many Jews, when courting Greek culture to enhance their own standing in the world, actually had operations to make it appear that they had never undergone this ritual. YHWH was angry at Egypt for taking His wife into its harem (as it had done to Avram). Egypt is not kind to its betrothed; it enslaves them. B y this sign—the sign that symbolizes exposing our lives to one another—He removes the betrothals of Egypt from us, tearing down the wrong wall and building another in the right place. He was giving them what their fathers had not, and what their fathers had but misused. He “bled” out of them what was left of Egypt. Most of them have never seen Egypt, being too young, but they had carried things over that their parents had bred into them—enslaving ideas that their parents had brought out with them. Now that they had crossed the river, they could deal with the remnants of something they had never seen but which had left them with the wrong priorities, just as the Church or a culture that says “it is all about me” had done for us. But even Yahshua said a sword would sometimes have to come between us and our parents. We would bleed for this covenant.
10. As the descendants of Israel camped at Gilgal, they prepared the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, on the transitional plains of Y’rikho.
Just when one would have thought they would be rewarded, Y’hoshua does ythis instead, for there is a much bigger job in front of them, so he does not let them pat themselves on the back. They could not even celebrate the huge accomplishment they had just undergone. There was no time to wait, since the Passover cannot be eaten by any uncircumcised male, but the third day is when there is the most pain. (Gen. 34:25) So at this time each year, at minimum, we each need to “check our circumcision” to see if we are really living up to the covenant, because it is surprising what can grow back that you thought was all gone.
11. And they ate of the overflow of the Land the morning after the Passover—unleavened bread and parched grain on this same day.
Overflow: We are not permitted to eat of new crops until after the firstfruits are brought the day after the Sabbath after Passover. (Lev. 23:14) Parched grain is specifically forbidden until “that same day”—the same phrase used here—suggesting that the Passover fell at the end of a Sabbath this year (meaning they could not roast a lamb until after sunset). This could be hinted at in v. 8 when compared with Ex. 16:29. The Aramaic text adds “the first fruits”, reflecting the halakhic argument over when the sheaf is offered. But the term here for overflow (based on the word for crossing a boundary or going beyond) implies grain which was not needed for immediate use and therefore stored up. Thus it was old grain, which would not violate Lev. 23:14. There was a king of Gilgal (12:23), though it would be some time before he would be attacked. So there must have already been a town with storehouses near their camp. But with the Israelites on the march, any who did not live within walled cities would head there, leaving their crops behind. The Land was providing for Israel even before the first battle.
12. And the manna stopped, [beginning] from the next day after they had eaten of the overflow of the Land. And there was no more manna for the descendants of Israel, but they ate from the produce of the land of Kanaan that year.
Stopped: from the same root word as “Sabbath”. It almost sounds like they are being punished for doing right. They were injured and the manna, the only bread most of them had known all their lives, was nowhere to be found. Had they done the wrong thing by hurrying across the river and keeping the Passover? Now all of a sudden they have to feed themselves; it does not seem fair! The more they do, the more YHWH seems to take from them. But it is called growing up. These people should have been circumcised at 8 days old, but now they are finally entering the covenant, and now that they have taken responsibility, greater responsibility comes. YHWH made one form of provision cease, and began another, to remind us that He, not it, is what we depend on. He continued providing until we were in a position to take responsibility for working the land ourselves. This is how His “grace” works during our exile as well, but we are approaching a time when we will again be able to work, and thus responsible to do so. The honeymoon period will be over. The manna never falls in the Land to which we are about to cross over again. What will change for us? He still has grain stored up for us, but we have to know how to search it out in His Word.
13. Now it came about that when Y’hoshua was at Y’rikho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo and behold, a man was standing right in front of him with his sword drawn in his hand. So Y’hoshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?”
He is having a “Yaaqov moment”—an unknown man appears, apparently to fight him. But he has a whole army behind him now, so he can approach anyone who has a sword and demand to know where he stands: Is he loyal to us or to them? Many do not even get to the point of deciding where they stand, but a leader needs to know where each stands, so he can protect his camp. So he asks point-blank questions and expects an answer. That is a true leader.
14. And he said, “No, because I have now come [as] the captain of the army of YHWH.” And Y’hoshua fell to his face on the earth and bowed down and said to him, “What is my Master saying to His servant?”
Are you for us or for them? “No!” This unexpected answer indicates that he was for neither, but only for YHWH. If Y’hoshua also lined up with YHWH’s agenda, there would be no threat from him. Y’hoshua probably thought he himself was the captain of YHWH’s army, because all Israel was following him, though he has never been called that. It is not enough to recognize that we are Israel; we need to take on all the signs of what this means, letting our light shine by being a people who love one another. Only after Israel has again begun walking in the signs of the covenant and given absolute devotion to Y’hoshua are they given the offer of being part of something larger--the army of YHWH. It was no longer about them or even about bringing judgment on their enemies, but about YHWH. We need to keep the same perspective. Who was this man? There are many theories, many of which see him as something superhuman. But he probably was not a glowing “angel” as we think of them, because Y’hoshua was not terrified, and even challenged him, probably with his own sword drawn. He might have just been a descendant of Melkhitzedeq who had come down from Yerushalayim, which is only 15 miles away. We are not told, so it is not necessary to know. The point is that Y’hoshua found him worthy of honor because, like Moshe in Egypt, he came in YHWH’s name. Y’hoshua has some reason to believe him, and recognizes that he is in the presence of someone greater and with more authority than he--someone to lower himself before. He does not merely back down, but immediately hits his face.
15. And the captain of the army of YHWH said to Y’hoshua, “Take your shoe off your foot, because the place where you are standing is set-apart.” So Y’hoshua did so.
His mentor Moshe had a similar experience at the burning bush (Ex. 3:5)—except that in his case, it was both shoes he needed to remove. Something is different here. Was he only wearing one sandal? Why would he not take both off? The key is in Ruth 4:7. It says that in earlier times, the customary way to confirm an exchange was to remove and give the other party one of one’s sandals. This man came to make an offer: “I am from another army. I am not on your side, but I want you on my side. Let your army fight not just for you or for their families or even for all Israel, but for YHWH.” This place was not like the wilderness where he could fight his own petty battles or go to war when he wanted to; this is truly a dangerous place. He is now on YHWH’s territory, and like Y’hoshua, this man wants to know why he is here. Any army that comes here is either YHWH’s army or a dead army. Y’hoshua had already said by his actions that he would join forces with this captain, so he essentially told Y’hoshua to “prove it” with this sign before he took another step on this Land. And he did confirm it, but it never says he got his shoe back! As with Cinderella, the shoe is kept by the other party to be able to verify later that the agreement “still fits”. If he walked back to the camp with only one of his 40-year-old sandals that did not wear out, he would have to pay close attention to where he stepped; he would have appeared to be limping like Yaaqov after his walk was forever changed by a similar encounter. (Gen. 32)
Commentary on
Y'hoshua 5
This Land
is Different
