Project 119: Joshua 5

 |  Project 119  |  Tim Sanderlin

Here, we have followed the Israelites through the wilderness and they now eagerly await the Lord to lead them into the Promised Land. They have waited for 40-plus years to see this land flowing with “milk and honey,” and have recently discovered it is inhabited by human-giants. They are uneasy and their faith, per usual, is starting to diminish.

In this passage, the ones prior, and the ones to come for the rest of the Bible, we see that God’s chosen people have been set free, yet they revert to living in shackles. When the great Exodus of Egypt happens, the Israelites are all-too-quick to ask to go back. They want bondage. Why do God’s children keep going back to this idea even after The Lord declares freedom over them? We know that we run from Him, in large part, because of shame. In the garden, Adam and Eve gained knowledge of their nakedness, were ashamed, and hid. Shame sends us into hiding, faithlessness, and testing the Lord our God.

The Israelites, although freed from the slavery of the Egyptians, still were cloaked in shame from the detrimental years in captivity. We see in the first handful of verses in Joshua 5 a new generation of young men that have come of age, are circumcised, and are ready to lead. Although this renewal of promise occurs, the Israelites still need the Lord to speak something over them. The Lord must say something to His children before they can be liberated from this looming shame.

The Lord spoke, and light came into existence. God breathed and we were formed. In 1 John 3, it says that God said we are His children, “and so we are.” When God says something to His children, it carries the same weight as it did when He said to the waves, “Be still.” In Joshua 5:9, God professes that the Israelites are free from shame of their former lives. We are a new creation. The past does not keep us chained. There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain.

Lord, we pray in thankfulness that You have set us free. Bless us and keep us from returning to the sin that so easily entangles. Lord, we pray that we would know the truth of our identity in Jesusthat when You say that You count us as children, when You say that we are friends of Christ, and when You say “it is finished,” we would believe it.

Joshua 5 (ESV):

As soon as all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel.

2 At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.” 3 So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. 4 And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt. 5 Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. 6 For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord; the Lordswore to them that he would not let them see the land that the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.7 So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. For they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.

8 When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. 9 And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.

10 While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. 11 And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. 12 And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” 15 And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.