Joshua 5
About JoshuaWritten by AI
Joshua tells how Israel, led by Moses' successor, crossed the Jordan, entered Canaan and settled the land promised to Abraham. The book does not name its author. Jewish tradition credits Joshua with most of it, while many scholars think it was shaped later. Christians also differ on when the conquest happened.
The book moves in three parts: entering and taking the land (chapters 1 to 12), dividing it among the tribes (chapters 13 to 21), and Joshua's farewell calls to stay faithful (chapters 22 to 24). Near the middle stands its summary: “Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to the house of Israel had failed.”
The warfare is hard to read, and faithful Christians understand it in different ways. Watch for God fighting for Israel, for outsiders like Rahab and the Gibeonites who are spared, and for the quiet warnings that the work was left unfinished.
Before you read Joshua 5Written by AI
Before any battle, God tells Israel to stop. The men born in the wilderness are circumcised, Israel keeps Passover, and the manna stops as they eat the produce of the land. Then Joshua meets a man with a drawn sword, the commander of the LORD's army, and is told to take off his sandals.
The Circumcision and Passover at Gilgal
Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and their spirits failed for fear of the Israelites.
At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel once again.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.
Now this is why Joshua circumcised them: All those who came out of Egypt—all the men of war—had died on the journey in the wilderness after they had left Egypt. Though all who had come out were circumcised, none of those born in the wilderness on the journey from Egypt had been circumcised.
For the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness forty years, until all the nation’s men of war who had come out of Egypt had died, since they did not obey the LORD. So the LORD vowed never to let them see the land He had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. And He raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. Until this time they were still uncircumcised, since they had not been circumcised along the way.
And after all the nation had been circumcised, they stayed there in the camp until they were healed.
Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So that place has been called Gilgal to this day.
On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while the Israelites were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they kept the Passover. The day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate unleavened bread and roasted grain from the produce of the land.
And the day after they had eaten from the produce of the land, the manna ceased. There was no more manna for the Israelites, so that year they began to eat the crops of the land of Canaan.
The Commander of the LORD’s Army
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua approached Him and asked, “Are You for us or for our enemies?”
“Neither,” He replied. “I have now come as Commander of the LORD’s army.”
Then Joshua fell facedown in reverence and asked Him, “What does my Lord have to say to His servant?”
The Commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.”
And Joshua did so.