About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 5 and 6 Previous Section - Chapters 3 and 4
Circumcision At Gilgal (ch. 5:1 - 12)
Verse 1 shows how other nations view Israel
when Israel
is walking and living before their God as they should.
Both the Ammorite kings and the Canaanite kings feared Israel
because of the miracle of the Jordan River drying up so Israel
could cross over.
The "sea coast" mentioned in verse 1 would be the
coast along the In verses 2 and 3 the Lord tells Joshua "to make flint
knives" so Israeli men could be circumcised "again".
Notice the word again. It's
not that these men have already been circumcised, because they hadn't.
Those men who crossed the Notice also that the knives were made from flint stone.
I would imagine being circumcised by such a knife would not be
all that pleasant.
Verses 4 through 8 say what I've just said.
Only the men who left Verse 8 states that because of the Israeli men being
circumcised, the Israelis camped at the spot where they were circumcised
for three days, enough time for the men to heal.
This would have been a good time for Israel's enemies to attack them, but the Lord had better things in mind for Verse 9 states that the day in which the Israeli men were
circumcised was important. That
day God rolled away the reproach of Egypt. The word
"reproach" when used as a noun means "an act of rebuke
and disproval". The
simple fact is thatIsrael, actually before they became a nation, went into In verse 10 through 12 we see that The
Fall Of
In verse 13, as Joshua approaches Jericho, he sees a man with his sword drawn.
Joshua asks him if he was for The man with the sword answers by saying
"neither", that is, at least in the NIV.
Other translations use the words "no", or,
"nay", or something similar.
I tend to see the NIV's translation as a bit misleading.
The word "neither" suggests that this man is not for It might even be that the man with the sword thought that
Joshua viewed him as an ordinary man when his answers proves otherwise.
The man proceeds to tell Joshua that he is the "commander of
the Lord's army". This
makes him no mere man. There
are two possibilities to whom this man is.
He is either an angel of the Lord, or else He is pre-incarnate
Jesus. I believe this is one
of a number of times in the Old Testament where Jesus appears to people.
In response, Joshua falls face first to the ground and asks
what message "his Lord" has for him.
Falling face down on the ground is an act of worship.
Those who believe this man is Jesus and not an angel suggest that
if this man was an angel, he would tell Joshua not to worship him
because angels are not to be worshipped.
There was something in the voice of this man, and in His
presence, that told Joshua, this was no angel. The man answers Joshua in verse 15, but not with a direct
answer to Joshua's question. The
man told Joshua to take off his shoes for the ground in which he stood
was now holy. Angels don't
make the ground holy. Jesus
does. This is the same type
of thing that happened to Moses at the burning bush, and most scholars
say that Jesus was at the burning bush with Moses, as He is here with
Joshua. When ground becomes holy by the immediate presence
of the Lord, any man made object, like shoes or sandals
contaminate the ground. Such
holy ground as seen here didn't happened much in the Bible, and it still
doesn't happen much today. Many
preachers claim holy ground, but God seldom comes to humanity as He did
here with Joshua. I
believe there is a difference between God's immediate presence visiting
us and the presence of the Holy Spirit visiting us.
In chapter 6, verse 1, we note that Jericho
was "tightly shut up. No
one entered the city, and no one left the city.
Concerning Jericho
scholars say that it's wall was actually two walls in one.
That is, two 15 foot wide walls joined together. Note in verse 2 the Lord says that He has delivered In verses 3 to 5 the Lord finally gets around to answer
Joshua's question concerning what message he should receive from the
Lord. The Lord told Joshua
that he and his army should march around Can you imagine what the army, what watchmen on the wall,
thought during these seven days. They
must have thought this was pretty strange.
Apparently many liberal Bible scholars think it strange too since
they don't believe in the miracle that took place on the seventh day. Concerning the ram's horn, or, trumpet, as some
translations put it. There
are a couple Hebrew words translated as "trumpet", one more
common than the other. This
is the less common word used here. It's
actually translated in places into English as "jubilee".
That's pretty descriptive of what's happening here. There are a couple of things to note here about the
instructions the Lord gave Joshua. One
is that the Lord told Joshua that the priests must go with the soldiers
as part of the Israeli army. This
is in direct opposition to the Law of Moses.
Also, marching around From verse 6 to the end of the chapter we see Joshua and Israel
doing as the Lord told them. The seven trumpets, the shout of In verse 18 we see the instructions to save Rahab and her
family. Many prophecy
teachers believe that Another specific instruction is given in verses 18 and 19.
Israel
could not take a spoil from the city, other than silver, gold, bronze,
and iron. If any thing else
was taken, that would contaminate Israel
and the Lord would judge them for it. Note that verse 25 says that Rahab lived amongst In verse 26 Joshua put a curse on anyone who tried to
rebuild the city of Jericho, one of the oldest cites, if not the oldest city, in human history has
been rebuilt 27 times. One
interesting note is that in 659 A.D. it was destroyed because of an
earthquake. This was during the rule of the second of four consecutive
Muslim leaders.
There are seven nations in the
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