While camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. (Joshua 5:10)Upon crossing the Jordan and before the battle for Jericho, the nation of Israel got caught up on some of its obligations to the Lord. Apparently no circumcisions had been performed and no Passovers had been celebrated since Sinai, one year after leaving Egypt.
What I find fascinating is God's word to his people following the males being circumcised at Gilgal: Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. (5:9)
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God wants to set us free from the reproach of our past. That's good news.
One of the things that kind of stood out to me (and I really don't know why) was that God had strictly forbidden anyone to do anything at all on the Sabbath, and yet he had the Israelites walk around Jericho for 7 days in a row (which must have included the Sabbath in there somewhere). I guess it would not have puzzled me so much if we had not just read the laws given (over and over again) so recently.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it interesting that Rahab was mentioned after the walls came tumbling down -- that she lived with the Israelites the rest of her life - and that might be the end of ever hearing about her again, but then surprise! We hear of her again in the New Testament (and maybe again in the old?)!
The thing that stood out to me here was this:
ReplyDelete"The Israelites had moved about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the LORD."
I guess I'd been thinking it was *everyone* who had been living at that time who had died, not just the fighting men. Maybe there were a number of grannies with them that still remembered that day after all, and older men who had only been children at the time.