Entering the Promised Land

Joshua 5:1-15.

There are some interesting things that happened to the Israelites after they crossed the Jordan River and before they conquered the city of Jericho.

Here are my thoughts.

When God parted the river of Jordan and closed it behind them there was no going back… even if they wanted to. There was just one path forward and that was the direction they were headed. One of the first things that God commanded them to do was to circumcise all the males who had not been circumcised over the past 40 years. After this minor surgical procedure God announces “today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you”.

Let me suggest that the “reproach of Egypt” refers to the Israelites rejection of God when they didn’t believe they could conquer the Promised Land 40 years previously. They had rejected God. Therefore that whole generation of Israelites who had been circumcised in Egypt had to die and a new crop of Israelites who were not born in Egypt but were born in the wilderness had to be raised up. When this new generation was raised up, they were circumcised, not in the wilderness, but on the soil of their promised homeland.

Circumcision was necessary because it was God’s mark on them that validated his promise to Abraham that he would give them a land. They were circumcised because he was about to fulfill that promise. Then the Israelites celebrated the Passover. Let me also suggest that this Passover feast had not been celebrated over the past 40 years. So on the proverbial eve of conquering the first city-state of Jericho he was reminding them of what He had done to the Egyptians and the unstated but fully understood message was that he was about to do the same to the Canaanites. The Israelites could not have been celebrating the Passover because they had no unleavened bread… they had been eating manna. The next day God quits sending the manna.

And thus begins the conquest of Canaan. The transitory phase where God sustained the Israelites for 40 years in the wilderness was over. A new generation of Israelites freshly circumcised, celebrating God’s Passover memorial and fully energized to accomplish God’s promise to Abraham stood on the brink of destiny.