Context & Key Themes
Israel has crossed the Jordan. Jericho sits directly in front of them, its gates shut, its walls formidable. Every military instinct says: move quickly before the enemy recovers. Instead, God says: stop. Circumcise the men. Keep the Passover. Wait. Chapter 5 is the most counterintuitive chapter in Joshua — a pause at the edge of battle for covenant renewal and sacred ceremony. The land cannot be entered on the run. Before any wall falls, the people must be right before God.
Key Verse
“Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.”
— Joshua 5:9
Summary
When the kings of the Amorites west of the Jordan and the kings of the Canaanites by the sea hear that the Lord dried up the Jordan before Israel, their hearts melt and there is no spirit left in them because of Israel. Jericho is strategically paralyzed. And at this moment, God commands: make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel again.
The generation that came out of Egypt had been circumcised. But all those men had died in the wilderness. The new generation born in the wilderness had not been circumcised. So Joshua circumcises them at Gilgal. The place is named Gilgal because God says: today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. The Hebrew word for rolled away is galal — hence Gilgal. The naming is theological: something that clung to them from their years of slavery and wandering has been removed here.
While the men are recovering, Israel keeps the Passover for the first time in the land, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening. The day after the Passover, they eat the produce of the land — unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna stops. It never comes again. They eat the fruit of the land of Canaan from that day forward.
Joshua then has an encounter near Jericho that is easy to read past but shouldn’t be. A man is standing before him with a drawn sword. Joshua asks: are you for us or for our adversaries? The man answers: neither. I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Joshua falls face down and asks what the commander says to his servant. He is told to remove his sandals, for the place he is standing is holy. He does so.
Reflection
The circumcision before Jericho is one of those moments where God’s priorities and military logic run in opposite directions. Israel’s army has just been made temporarily incapacitated — every fighting man vulnerable, unable to fight, for days. The walls of Jericho are right there. And God says: this first. Covenant identity before conquest. Who you are before what you do.
The cessation of manna is quietly profound. For forty years it appeared every morning without fail. It was the daily sign of God’s provision in the wilderness, given to a people who had nothing and could produce nothing for themselves. Now the land produces. The manna stops not because God is withdrawing provision but because the form of provision has changed. They are no longer wanderers fed supernaturally day by day. They are heirs working ground that yields its fruit. The same God, a different form of faithfulness.
The figure with the drawn sword who answers neither — he is not a neutral party. He is the commander of the Lord’s army, and his presence on holy ground that requires Joshua to remove his sandals echoes the burning bush. Joshua does not bargain with him or question him further. He falls down and listens. The man who would conquer the land must first learn that the war belongs to Someone else, and he is a servant in it, not the general.