Joshua 5

Today’s Passage: Joshua 5

Israel has crossed the Jordan on dry ground, and the kings of the land hear of it and lose their nerve. But before a single wall falls, the LORD calls His people to stop. The new generation, born in the wilderness and never circumcised along the way, receives the sign of the covenant, and the LORD says He has rolled away the reproach of Egypt. They keep the Passover on the plains of Jericho, and the very next day the manna ceases, because now they eat the produce of the promised land. Then Joshua, near Jericho, meets a man with a drawn sword who turns out to be the commander of the LORD’s army, and he is told to take off his sandals, for the ground is holy.

As you read, hold this: Before Israel fights for the land, the LORD sets His people apart and shows that He Himself is the true commander of the battle.

Joshua 5:1 (BSB)

¹ 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.

The battle is already tilting before it begins, and not because of Israel’s strength. What melts the hearts of these kings is the report of what the LORD did at the river. His act of drying up the Jordan has done more to defeat the enemy than any army could. Notice that the fear is aimed at the Israelites, but the cause of it is the God who goes before them. The reader is being told, right at the start, whose power is really deciding this war.

Joshua 5:2–9 (BSB)

² At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel once again.” ³ So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. ⁴ 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. ⁵ Though all who had come out were circumcised, none of those born in the wilderness on the journey from Egypt had been circumcised. ⁶ 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. ⁷ 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. ⁸ And after all the nation had been circumcised, they stayed there in the camp until they were healed. ⁹ 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.

Consider the timing. With the enemy afraid and the city near, the LORD has His army lay down its readiness and become, for a season, unable to fight at all. This is the opposite of a military strategy, and that is the point. The land will not be won by clever advantage. It will be won by a people marked as the LORD’s own and trusting Him to keep them.

The generation of unbelief has died in the wilderness, and their sons now receive the sign that binds them to the covenant God made with Abraham. When it is done, the LORD speaks a word of grace over them. The reproach of Egypt, the shame of their slavery and their long years of wandering, He has rolled away (גָּלַל) gālal, pronounced gah-LAL. Strong's H1556, to roll, to roll away. The word means to roll, the way a heavy stone is rolled off and out of the way. The LORD uses it to describe what He has done with the reproach of Egypt: not merely softened it or excused it, but rolled the whole weight of it clean away. And the name Gilgal is built from this same root, so that every time Israel says the name of their first camp, they are hearing the sound of a burden removed. The place where the new generation was set apart is named for grace. . The place takes its name from that word, so that the very ground would keep telling the story of a burden lifted.

Joshua 5:10–12 (BSB)

¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ The day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate unleavened bread and roasted grain from the produce of the land. ¹² 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.

Now the renewed people keep the Passover, the meal that remembers the night the LORD brought them out of Egypt. It is the first Passover in the land, kept on the plains of Jericho within sight of the enemy, and it ties this new generation to the rescue that made them a people in the first place. They eat, for the first time, from the produce of the promised land.

And then something quietly enormous happens. The manna stops. For forty years that bread had appeared every morning, a daily miracle that carried them through a place where nothing grew. Now that they can eat the crops of Canaan, the LORD ends the wilderness provision. Do not read this as the miracle simply running out. It is the LORD who has been feeding them all along, in the desert by manna and now in the land by harvest. The form of the gift changes, but the Giver does not, and His faithfulness reaches from the wilderness right up to the border of the promise.

Joshua 5:13–15 (BSB)

¹³ 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?” ¹⁴ “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?” ¹⁵ 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.

Here the whole chapter comes to its point. Joshua, the general on the eve of his first battle, looks up and finds a warrior already standing there with sword drawn. His question is the natural one for a commander to ask: are You on our side or theirs? And the answer refuses the question entirely. Neither. This one has not come to take a place in Joshua’s ranks. He has come as the commander over the LORD’s own army, and the war belongs to Him.

So Joshua falls on his face. The leader of Israel, who has just been told to be strong and courageous, learns that true courage begins face down before the true Commander (שַׂר) śar, pronounced sar. Strong's H8269, chief, captain, prince, ruler. The word means a chief, a captain, the one who holds command. It is joined here to the army, the tsava, of the LORD, so that the figure names Himself as the captain over heaven’s own host. Joshua had thought he was the commander marching on Jericho. He learns that above his command stands a greater one, and the armies of God are already drawn up for the battle. The conquest is not Joshua’s campaign that God will help. It is the LORD’s campaign, and Joshua is the servant. . And the word he is given is the same word once spoken to Moses at the burning bush: take off your sandals, for the ground is holy (קֹדֶשׁ) qodesh, pronounced KOH-desh. Strong's H6944, holiness, a holy thing, sacred and set apart. The word means set apart, belonging wholly to God, marked off from the common. It is the same holiness that made the ground at the burning bush holy, not because of the dirt itself but because of who was present on it. On the very edge of a war, before the fighting starts, Joshua is taught that the deepest reality of this moment is not strategy but the nearness of a holy God. The battlefield has become sacred ground, because the LORD is standing on it. . Israel does not go up to Jericho behind a strategy or a hero. They go up behind the LORD Himself, and even Joshua must first bow.