Preparing for War - Joshua 5:2-8

At that time the LORD said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelite men again." So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelite men at Gibeath-haaraloth. This is the reason Joshua circumcised [them]: All the people who came out of Egypt who were males—all the men of war—had died in the wilderness along the way after they had come out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out were circumcised, none of the people born in the wilderness along the way were circumcised after they had come out of Egypt. For the Israelites wandered in the wilderness 40 years until all the nation's men of war who came out of Egypt had died off because 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. Joshua raised up their sons in their place; it was these he circumcised. They were still uncircumcised, since they had not been circumcised along the way. After the entire nation had been circumcised, they stayed where they were in the camp until they recovered. Joshua 5:2-8 (HCSB)

To give you some context, Moses has just died and Joshua has taken over leadership of the Israelites. Prior to his death, east of the Jordan river, Moses charged Israel and Joshua to march into the Promised Land and conquer the nations living there. So Joshua and Israel just crossed over to the west Jordan in a miraculous fashion (God separated the waters of the Jordan and they crossed through on dry land--one of four such water-dividing occasions mentioned in the Bible) and now they're in the enemey territory at last and they take their first course of action--circumcising themselves!

Now, I can't really attest to what it feels like to be circumcised (I was a baby when I got the snip-snip), but I have a suspicion that it's painful. Even the Bible attests to that notion:

All the able-bodied men listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and all the able-bodied men were circumcised. On the third day, when they were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords, went into the unsuspecting city, and killed every male. Genesis 34:24,25 (HCSB)

I won't get into the circumstances of this story, but suffice it to say, a whole town was circumcised and three days later two guys were able to come in and slay them all; it goes to show that circumcision can really take the fight out of you for a while. And this is why it amuses me that the first thing the Israel army does when arriving in enemy territory is put themselves into the same position the men of Shechem were in when they were destroyed by two angry brothers.

Of course, the Israel army would have certainly lost their all-important ally, the one and true living God, had they not done this. Therefore, it was a wise decision.

The other aspect of this story I find interesting is that the children of Israel were not circumcised during their sojourn through the wilderness. You'd think with the fervor in which Moses demanded the Israelites to obey the law, that'd he'd make sure Israelites would have circumcised their male children along the way--but I guess not. Although maybe that's not too surprising considering Moses' own track record with circumcision (no offense to Moses, God bless him):

On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the LORD confronted [Moses] and sought to put him to death. So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son's foreskin, and threw it at Moses' feet. Then she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood to me!" So He let him alone. At that time she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood," referring to the circumcision. Exodus 4:24-26 (HCSB)

This happened right after God commissioned Moses to confront Pharoah about the slavery of the Israelites--and He was prepared to kill Moses because he didn't honor the covenant of circumcision. So don't doubt for a moment that God would have allowed Israel to fail in their conquest had not they circumcised themselves.