Joshuachapter 5
15 verses · Joshua, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · History
And 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.
Introduction
Joshua, by tradition, History, Joshua Overview.
This chapter is a pause in the camp between the crossing and the first battle. It was written for a people who needed to know that the covenant came before the conquest. Four separate things happen in the camp, and each looks back to something begun under Moses. Listen for what the wilderness years had left undone, and for the change in what the people eat. Notice the name the place receives and the reason given for it. The chapter closes with Joshua alone, meeting someone he did not expect.
Context
- Who
- An army that had just been made unable to fight
- What
- The renewal of circumcision at Gilgal, the first Passover in the land, the end of the manna, and Joshua's meeting with the commander of the LORD's army.
- Where
- Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, in enemy country within sight of the walled city.
- When
- The days after the crossing, around the Passover kept on the fourteenth day of the first month.
- Why
- To show the new generation restored to the covenant before it fought, and to show Joshua who was in command.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to the whole camp and closes with a man Joshua meets alone. It carries four separate acts, the circumcision at Gilgal, the passover kept in the land, the ceasing of the manna and the man with the drawn sword.
Show the rest of the historical context, 6 more paragraphs
The covenant sign had lapsed for the whole of the wilderness, which verse 5 states plainly. Nobody explains why it stopped, and the chapter gives the fact without a reason.
A first hearer knew what that left them. Genesis 34:25 records what happened the last time men were caught in that condition, and here an entire army abides in the camp till it is whole, a few miles from a barred city.
The knives are of flint, which was the old instrument kept for the rite after metal was common. Keil and Delitzsch treat the material as deliberate rather than as a lack of tools.
Circumcision is what made the passover lawful, since Exodus 12:48 bars the uncircumcised from eating it. This is the third passover Scripture records after the night it was instituted, following Numbers 9:5 at Sinai, and the first kept inside the land.
The meal is made from the country itself, unleavened cakes and parched grain. Parched grain was new barley roasted on a fire, the first food a harvest gives before it is threshed and milled, so the date and the dish agree.
Exodus 16:35 had said the manna would run until they came to a land inhabited. Forty years of bread that nobody sowed close in half a sentence, the day after the substitute arrives.
Significance
God names the day himself, saying that he has rolled away the reproach of Egypt, and the place keeps the name Gilgal from the rolling. The generation that carried the covenant sign had died in the desert, and the generation that lacked it was the one taking the land.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The last scene told them who was in command. Joshua asks the stranger whose side he is on and gets an answer that refuses the question, and the instruction he receives before Jericho is to take off his shoes.
Those words are Exodus 3:5 said again to a second man, and the reason given is the same. What made the ground holy at the bush was who was standing on it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Four separate acts stand in this short chapter, and the classical commentary is heaviest on the first. Rashi is quoted from the Metsudah Publications Book of Joshua of 1997, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He renders the knives of the second verse as sharp knives, following the Targum, and gathers two other places where the same root means a cutting edge (Rashi on Joshua 5:2:1). The phrase about a second time he answers from the tractate Yevamot at 71b. A whole assembly was circumcised on the night Israel left Egypt. Through the forty years in the wilderness the north wind was withheld, so no day was fit for the rite and it lapsed. Rashi adds a second answer from the Sages, that the second time means the uncovering at circumcision, which was never commanded to Abraham (Rashi on Joshua 5:2:2).
The rite is read as the condition of the inheritance. Rashi supplies the speech he holds Joshua made before the knife. The question he puts in Joshua's mouth is whether they expect to inherit the land while they are still uncircumcised (Rashi on Joshua 5:4:1). The argument behind it is the covenant with Abraham. Keeping the covenant and receiving the land of sojourning stand together in the same promise. The generation that came out of Egypt had died and had all been circumcised, so the men circumcised here are the ones born on the way (Rashi on Joshua 5:4:2, 5:5:1 and 5:7:1). The place name of the third verse is read from the event, the heap of foreskins that gave the hill its name (Rashi on Joshua 5:3:1). The camp then held still. "They remained in their places and they did not besiege the city" until the wounds healed (Rashi on Joshua 5:8:1 and 5:8:2).
The reproach of Egypt is given a specific content, and Rashi names the commentator he takes it from. The Egyptians had said that a star called Raah, a sign of blood, stood over Israel, and read the deaths in the wilderness as its work. Moses answered the same taunt in the wilderness. What the Egyptians saw, on this reading, was the blood of circumcision. The taunt ended when the blood appeared again at Gilgal. Rashi closes the note by naming his source, R. Moshe HaDarshan (Rashi on Joshua 5:9:1). He also glosses the verb itself as rolling something off, with a line of the Psalms and the stone at the well of Genesis for the pattern (Rashi on Joshua 5:9:2).
The Passover and the manna are read against the calendar. The day after the Passover is the day of the waving of the omer. The omer had to be offered before any of the new grain could be eaten (Rashi on Joshua 5:11:1). Rashi then works a difficulty in the arithmetic of the forty years of manna and concludes that the cakes brought out of Egypt already carried its taste. On the ceasing of the manna he gives a parable. A child eats barley bread because he has no wheat bread, and Israel ate the grain of the land for the same reason, since the manna had been the better food (Rashi on Joshua 5:12:1).
The man with the drawn sword is where the Jewish and the Christian readings part, and the card says so at the point of contact. Rashi takes the visitor to be an angel and names him. The host is Israel, and the officer is Michael, on the strength of the phrase in Daniel that calls Michael the officer of the people (Rashi on Joshua 5:15:1). In the note before it he gives the angel's errand as help, because no man could take Jericho or bring down the wall. He adds that the same angel came in the days of Moses and was refused (Rashi on Joshua 5:14:1). Much of Christian teaching has read the figure instead as the Lord himself appearing before the incarnation. The holders of that reading and of the created-angel reading stand with their works in this repository, at src/components/book/dossier-content/joshua.ts. Rashi also draws a rule of law out of the thirteenth verse, that the outskirts of a city count as the city, since Joshua could hardly have been inside Jericho (Rashi on Joshua 5:13:1). The corpus carries seven further notes on this chapter without an English text. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Joshua 5:1:1, 5:3:1 and 5:7:1, at Metzudat David on Joshua 5:5:1, 5:6:1 and 5:10:1, and at Malbim on Joshua 5:6:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse, the melting of the kings' hearts, it holds Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 7:5:5, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 7:4 and Zevakhim 14:4, and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Zevachim 14:1.
The circumcision draws the largest run in the chapter. On the second verse the corpus holds Bamidbar Rabbah 11:3 and 17:1 and Bereshit Rabbah 21:9. On the third it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 14:12, Bereshit Rabbah 46:2 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Lech Lecha 29. On the fourth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 12:8, Bereshit Rabbah 46:9 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 82:1. On the fifth it holds Aggadat Bereshit 17:1, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Lech Lecha 35 and Ein Yaakov, Keritot 2:1. On the sixth, the forty years, it holds Taanit 15a:10.
The rolling away of the reproach carries three locators. On the ninth verse the corpus holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 30:22:3, Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 15:7 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 392:6.
The Passover and the manna are worked mainly in the Jerusalem Talmud. On the tenth verse the corpus holds Jerusalem Talmud Challah 2:1:5 and Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 8:8:9, with an entry from the Introductions to Tanaitic Literature on the tractate Pesachim, at 48. On the eleventh it holds Kiddushin 37b:14, Jerusalem Talmud Challah 2:1:6 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 16:35:2. On the twelfth, the manna ceasing, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 1:2, Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 7:2:2 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 16:32.
The man with the drawn sword draws the last run. On the thirteenth verse the corpus holds Aggadat Bereshit 32:1, Bamidbar Rabbah 10:5 and Bereshit Rabbah 97:3. On the fourteenth it holds Megillah 3b:1, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 6:7 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 6:8. On the fifteenth, the order to take off the sandal, it holds Megillah 3a:19 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 3:5:2 and 3:5:3, which carry the same order given at the burning bush. Two further locators are filed under this chapter at verse anchors past its fifteen verses, a passage of Otzar Midrashim from Midrash Minayin at 1:24 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 15:1. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Joshua 5:1:1 to 5:15:1, the Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997, reported CC-BY; Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot, Yevamot 71b on the withheld north wind and the lapsed circumcision, as Rashi reports it at Rashi on Joshua 5:2:2; R. Moshe HaDarshan, the reading of the reproach of Egypt as the taunt of the star Raah, as Rashi names and reports it at Rashi on Joshua 5:9:1; Radak, Radak on Joshua 5:1:1, 5:3:1 and 5:7:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Joshua 5:5:1, 5:6:1 and 5:10:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Joshua 5:6:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/joshua/5.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/components/book/dossier-content/joshua.ts, the contested point on the commander of the LORD's army with the holders of each reading.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Flint knives and the reproach of Egypt rolled away
The kings hear what happened at the water and lose heart before a sword is drawn. Rahab had reported this fear in chapter 2, so a Canaanite told the reader first. The Hebrew puts the crossing in the first person, which the older editions mark, and commentators take it as the writer placing himself among those who crossed.
Joshua 5:1
“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.”
Joshua 5:2-7
The covenant sign had lapsed through the wilderness, and verse 5 says so plainly without giving a reason. The generation that carried the sign died in the desert, and the one that lacked it is taking the land. So the first act inside the country is to put the mark of Genesis 17 back on the people.
Joshua 5:2
“Make thee sharp knives - חרבות צרים charboth tsurim, knives of rock, stone, or flint. Before the use of iron was common, all the nations of the earth had their edge-tools made of stones, flints, etc. In the lately discovered islands this is found to be a common case. Our ancestors in these countries made their arrow and spear-heads of flint: these I have often seen turned up by the plough.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:2
“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 Ex 12:48; Nu 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)reformed
Gibeath-haaraloth means the hill of the foreskins, and Barnes takes the name from the foreskins buried there. Joshua gave the order and many hands did the work. Wesley explains the need for so many hands by the date, since the passover was only four days away.
Joshua 5:3
“The hill of the foreskins - i. e. the hill where the foreskins, the emblem of all worldly and carnal affections, were buried. (Compare Col 2:11-13; Col 3:1-6.)”
Barnes works out who still bore the sign. Anyone under twenty at the rejection at Kadesh would have been circumcised in Egypt, and he reckons more than a quarter of a million of those men, now thirty-eight and older, were still alive. Wesley limits the all of this verse to the men of war condemned in Numbers 14.
Joshua 5:4
“The circumcision was given to Abraham before the law, after the blessings and after the promise, as a sign to set him and those born of him and those of his household apart from the Gentiles in whose midst he was living. And this is obvious, because, when Israel spent forty years alone by themselves in the desert without mixing with any other nation, all those who were born in the desert were not circumcised. However, when Joshua brought them across the Jordan, they were circumcised and a second law of circumcision was made.”
John Damascene · written before 749 · ORTHODOX FAITH 4.25patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:4
“Out of Egypt - This is to be restrained to such as were then above twenty years old, and such as were guilty of that rebellion, Num. xiv, 1-25, as it is expressed below, ver. 6.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Barnes and Clarke both qualify the none. Boys born in the first year out of Egypt would have been circumcised before the passover at Sinai in Numbers 9:1-5, since Exodus 12:48 required it. The lapse belongs to the years of wandering after that.
Joshua 5:5
“Rather, it was a continued token of God's displeasure against them, for their unbelief and murmuring: a token that they should never have the benefit of that promise, whereof circumcision was the seal.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Verse 6 ties the lapse to the sentence at Kadesh. Henry reads the missing sign as a mark of God's displeasure for as long as that sentence ran, while Gill holds that constant travel was the true reason. Henry admits that Numbers 14 gives no express order stopping the rite.
Joshua 5:6
“The people - The Hebrew word commonly signifies the Gentiles; so he calls them, to note that they were unworthy the name of Israelites. Shew them - That is, not give them so much as a sight of it, which he granted to Moses, much less the possession.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Gill notes that some of these sons were close to forty. Wesley gives the reason for acting now: the sign sealed the covenant under which the land was given, and the laws of Exodus 12:25, Leviticus 23:10 and Numbers 15:2 took effect once Israel entered it.
Joshua 5:7
“To ratify the covenant between God and them, whereof circumcision was a sign and seal, to assure them that God would now make good his covenant, in giving them this land; and to oblige them to perform all the duties to which that covenant bound them, as soon as they came into Canaan, Exod. xii, 25 Lev. xxiii, 10 Num. xv, 2.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joshua 5:8-9
They abide in the camp till they are whole, which leaves an entire army unable to fight, a few miles from a walled city, in enemy country. Genesis 34:25 records what happened the last time men were caught in that condition. Then God names the day, this day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you, and the place is called Gilgal from the rolling.
Joshua 5:8
“They abode - in the camp, till they were whole - This required several days; see the notes on Gen 34:24, Gen 34:25. Sir J. Chardin informs us that when adults were circumcised they were obliged to keep their beds for about three weeks, or at least during that time they are not able to walk about but with great difficulty. The account he had from several renegadoes, who had received circumcision among the Mohammedans.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:8
“But it has been calculated that the proportion between those already circumcised (under twenty when the doom was pronounced) and those to be circumcised, was one to four, and consequently the whole ceremony could easily have been performed in a day.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Commentators differ over the reproach of Egypt. Barnes takes it as the Egyptians' taunt that Israel's God could not bring them into the land, the charge Moses feared at Exodus 32:12 and Numbers 14:13-16. Clarke takes it as the uncircumcised state itself, which in his reading made Israel like the Egyptians.
Joshua 5:9
“Gilgal--No trace either of the name or site is now to be found; but it was about two miles from Jericho [JOSEPHUS], and well suited for an encampment by the advantages of shade and water. It was the first place pronounced "holy" in the Holy Land (Jos 5:15).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Joshua 5:9
All persons, even if they come from the law, even if they have learned through Moses, still have the reproach of Egypt in them, the reproach of sins. Who will be like Paul even according to the observance of the law? Just hear him saying, "According to the righteousness based upon the law, I lived without blame." Nevertheless, he himself publicly announces and says, "For we were even ourselves at some time foolish, unbelieving, wandering, enslaved to desires and various forms of pleasure, in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another."
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 5.6patristic
Joshua 5:9
“The reproach of Egypt - i. e. “reproach proceeding from Egypt.” The expression probably refers to taunts actually uttered by the Egyptians against Israel, because of their long wanderings in the desert and failures to acquire a settlement in Canaan (compare Exo 32:12; Num 14:13-16; Deu 9:28; Deu 32:27). These reproaches were now to end, for they had actually entered Canaan, and the restoration of the covenant was a pledge from God to accomplish what was begun for them.”
Passover kept, and the manna ceases
Joshua 5:10-11
This is the third Passover Scripture records after the first, following Numbers 9:5 at Sinai, and the first kept inside the land. The date is the evening of the fourteenth, as Exodus 12:6 set it, and the circumcision before it made it lawful, since Exodus 12:48 bars the uncircumcised. They eat “unleavened bread and roasted grain from the produce of the land”, so the meal comes from the land itself.
Joshua 5:10
“Kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month - If the ceremony of circumcision was performed on the eleventh day of the month, as many think; and if the sore was at the worst on the thirteenth, and the passover was celebrated on the fourteenth, the people being then quite recovered; it must have been rather a miraculous than a natural healing. We have already seen from the account of Sir J.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:10
“The passover - Which was their third passover: the first was in Egypt, Exod. xii, 11-24, the second at Mount Sinai, Num. ix, 1-5, the third here; for in their wilderness travels, these and all other sacrifices were neglected, Amos v, 25.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Barnes takes the day after the Passover here as the sixteenth, though Numbers 33:3 uses the phrase of the fifteenth. Clarke notes that Leviticus 23:9-14 barred eating from the new harvest until the first sheaf was waved, and supposes Israel waved a sheaf of barley before this meal. Barley was the only grain then ripe.
Joshua 5:11
“Parched corn - Of that year's corn. which was most proper for that use. Self-same day - Having an eager desire to enjoy the fruits of the land. And this corn came very seasonably; for after the passover, they were to keep the feast of unleavened bread, which they could not do, when they had nothing but manna to live upon.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:11
“Old corn of the land - Rather “produce of the land,” the new grain just coming in at the time of the Passover. (So in Jos 5:12.) On the morrow after the passover - These words denote in Num 33:3 the 15th Nisan, but must here apparently mean the 16th.”
the manna ceased: Exodus 16:35 said the manna would run until they came to a land inhabited, and this verse is where it stops. It stops the day after they eat the produce of Canaan, so the supply ends when the substitute arrives rather than before it. Forty years of bread that nobody sowed close without a word of ceremony, in half a sentence.
Joshua 5:12
“Indeed at that time, when the people went out of the land of Egypt, "they carried dough in their clothes." And when the dough had run out and they had no bread, God rained manna on them. But when they came to the holy land and "took the fruit of the province of the palms, the manna ceased for them," and then they began to eat of the fruit of the land.In this manner, three kinds of food in general are described.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 6.1patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:12
“The manna ceased - Which God now withheld, to shew that Manna was not an ordinary production of nature, but an extraordinary and special gift of God to supply their necessity. And because God would not be prodigal of his favours, by working miracles where ordinary means were sufficient. The morrow - That is, on the seventeenth day.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The prince of Jehovah's host, sword drawn
Joshua 5:13-14
Joshua asks whose side the stranger is on and hears “Neither”, a refusal of the question, and then falls facedown in reverence without being stopped. Many older writers read a Christophany from the accepted worship and the holy ground of verse 15, and others read a created angel. Revelation 22:8-9, where an angel twice refuses worship, is the strongest text for the second reading.
Joshua 5:13
“And so you must beware and exercise great care in order to discern with knowledge the kinds of visions, just as Joshua the son of Nun, when he saw a vision and knew there was temptation in it, immediately asked the one who appeared to him and said, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" So, then, the soul progresses when it comes to the place where it begins to distinguish between visions; and it is proved to be spiritual if it knows how to discern them all.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON NUMBERS 27.11patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Joshua 5:13
“A man - See Gen 12:7, note; Gen 18:2, note. The appearance was that of God manifested in the Person of His Word. Hence, the command of Jos 5:15. That the appearance was not in a vision merely is clear from the fact that Joshua “went unto Him” and addressed Him.”
Joshua 5:13
“In Jericho, that is, in the territory adjoining to it; whither he went to view those parts, and discern the fittest places for his attempt upon Jericho.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Barnes reads the LORD's army as the angels of heaven, as at 1 Kings 22:19, and notes that Israel's own army is never given that title, though Exodus 12:41 speaks of the Lord's hosts leaving Egypt. Joshua's question puts him under orders at once. Henry reads it as a soldier asking his captain for his command.
Joshua 5:14
“What is it that Jesus [Joshua] teaches us through this? That, doubtless, which the apostle says: "Do not believe every spirit, but test if it is from God." Therefore, Jesus [Joshua] recognized not only something from God but that which is God; for certainly he would not have worshiped unless he had recognized God. For who else is chief of the army of the powers of God except our Lord Jesus Christ?”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 6.2patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:14
“By his acceptance of adoration here, which a created angel durst not admit of, Rev. xxii, 8, 9. Because the place was made holy by his presence, ver. 15, which was God's prerogative, Exod. iii, 5. Because he is called the Lord, Hebrew.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The words are Exodus 3:5 said again to a second man, and the reason given is the same, that the ground is holy. What made the ground holy at the bush was who was standing on it, and nothing else has changed here. Joshua gets no battle plan in this chapter, and the instruction he receives before Jericho is to take off his shoes.
Joshua 5:15
“Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, etc. - These were the same words which the angel, on Mount Sinai, spoke to Moses; (see Exo 3:5-8); and from this it seems likely that it was the same person that appeared in both places: in the first, to encourage Moses to deliver the oppressed Israelites, and bring them to the promised land; in the second, to encourage Joshua in his arduous labor in expelling the ancient inhabitants, and establishing the people in the inheritance promised to their fathers.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joshua 5:15
Now, grasp the mystical meaning of Holy Writ. As long as we are walking through the wilderness, it is necessary that we wear sandals to cover and protect our feet, but when we shall have entered the Land of Promise, we shall hear with Jesus [Joshua], the son of Nave [Nun]: "Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place upon which you are standing is holy."
Jerome · written before 420 · HOMILY ON THE EXODUS 91patristic
How this psalm is built
The form: A short chapter of four separate acts at one camp, with no battle in it, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Four acts and no battle | The chapter sets down the circumcision at verses 2 to 9 and the passover at verses 10 and 11. It sets down the ceasing of the manna at verse 12 and the man with the drawn sword at verses 13 to 15. Each is given in a few verses and none is explained. Joshua receives no battle plan anywhere in the chapter. The instruction he gets before Jericho is to take off his shoes.Matthew Henry and Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 5:13-14. | Joshua 5:2, Joshua 5:10, Joshua 5:12, Joshua 5:13 |
| Rolled away, and the place called Rolling | God names the day himself at verse 9, saying that he has rolled away the reproach of Egypt. The place takes its name from the rolling. Gilgal had already been named at 4:19, before the chapter explains where the name came from. The site's published exposition of verses 8 and 9 marks the order, that the camp is named first and the reason given afterwards.Matthew Henry and John Gill, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 5:8-9. | Joshua 4:19, Joshua 5:9 |
| Loose thy shoe, said twice in Scripture | The words at verse 15 are Exodus 3:5 said again to a second man, and the reason given is the same, that the ground is holy. What made the ground holy at the bush was who was standing on it, and nothing else has changed here. The site's published exposition of verse 15 sets the two scenes side by side. Moses was sent from his ground to bring a people out, and Joshua is met on his to bring them in.John Gill and Matthew Henry, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 5:15. | Joshua 5:15 |
The debated concept: who is the man with the drawn sword
10 more paragraphs on the patterns
The site's published dossier carries this as one of the book's contested points, with holders on both sides and no verdict.
The first position holds that this is the Lord himself appearing before the incarnation. It is held by Justin Martyr in Dialogue with Trypho, about AD 160, by Matthew Henry in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and by Keil and Delitzsch in their Joshua volume of 1863. Its ground is inside the scene. Joshua falls on his face and worships and is not stopped, and the ground is declared holy in the words of Exodus 3:5.
The second position holds that this is a created angel. Its ground is that the word rendered captain carries the sense it has at Daniel 10:13, where angelic chiefs are called princes. The strongest text on this side is Revelation 22:8 and 22:9, where an angel refuses worship twice. The site's published exposition of verses 13 and 14 states that it belongs in the same breath as the first position.
The answer Joshua gets is itself part of the argument. He asks whose side the stranger is on and is told neither, which refuses the question rather than choosing between its halves.
The New Testament's use
The site's published dossier carries the commander of the LORD's army among its entries on Christ in this book, anchored at Joshua 5:14. The New Testament does not quote the scene, so the reading stands on the holders named above.
The chapter's other reach is through its name. Joshua is Yehoshua, the name that comes into Greek as Iesous, and Hebrews 4:8 uses that Greek form to argue that the rest Joshua gave was not the last word. The site's published dossier carries the entry with its anchor at Acts 7:45.
The historical value
The chapter fixes a calendar that matches the Torah exactly. The passover falls on the fourteenth at evening, as Exodus 12:6 set it. The entry had fallen on the tenth, which is the day Exodus 12:3 set for taking up the lamb. The meal is unleavened cakes and parched grain, which is new barley roasted before it is threshed, so the date and the dish agree.
The site's published dossier records one manuscript detail that touches this chapter. The Greek of Joshua carries extra material at the end of chapter 24, including a note that the flint knives of the Gilgal circumcision were buried with Joshua. Emanuel Tov reads the shorter Greek of the book as reflecting an earlier Hebrew edition rather than a translator's abridgement, in Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, third edition, 2012.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament, 1876 to 1887, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 5:10-11; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 5:2-7 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 5:2-7.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.