The Book of Joshua – Part 5: Circumcision and Moses’s Laws Becoming Personified – Joshua 5:1-15

[Study Aired March 18, 2023]

The reproductive members of all male beasts of the field are protected by an outer sheath that keeps them moist and free from damage for composed employment for their female counterparts. It is not so for the human male member. The Lord certainly required his pudenda to be hidden with protective clothing and from involuntary inconvenience.

God designed physical masculinity to represent His spiritual headship. 

God’s stunning detail of every part of creation is for the man, who represents Christ. To fulfill the Lord’s plan, the man had to have the capacity to reproduce. The physiology of the primary instruments of his reproduction was specifically designed to distinguish his authority and beautifully complement the mystery of his female’s spiritual ascension.

Mar 4:11  And he said unto them, Unto you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all things are done in parables: (Rom 11; 16:25; 1Cor 2:7; Eph 3:4)

God, who is spirit, is neither male nor female, neither  was the Word before He became Jesus. Yet, at creation, he made practically all organic things to be either male or female.

Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 

Speaking of the resurrection:

Mar 12:25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are as the angels in Heaven.

Masculinity and femininity are first recognised by their outward appearance but gender is assured by their genitalia. 

God gloriously highlighted His supreme headship by creating a replica of His perfect image, naming Him His Son. Having come from His creator, the Son is subordinate to His Creator, without genitalia denoting His Sonship.

1Co 11:3 But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

By the Lord’s design from the outset, mankind, represented by Adam and Eve, partially abdicated man’s headship through Eve’s unwitting rulership over Adam. They effectively stated that they didn’t want their Lord to be their head and that the man and the woman would co-rule their life together, yet with a greater bias towards Eve’s influence on everything, particularly over Adam.

Rom 1:25  For they [all of mankind] changed the truth of God into a lie, and they worshiped and served the created thing more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 
Rom 1:26  For this cause, God gave them up to dishonorable affections. For even their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature.

The phenomenal way women have changed their natural use that nature dictates is patently obvious in her being against the headship of men, particularly her husband. Everywhere in nature, except for arthropods (spiders), and a few other anomalies, the male rules females. Christ deliberately created that order as “ensamples” for mostly His Elect to juxtapose the natural against the spiritual. It is only by Satan’s influence on mankind that our females tenaciously resist the order of headship, and our males limply acquiesce.

Male headship is verified by every male being fully functional as a male and for the nation of Israel, ratified in the covenant by circumcision. A man’s damaged pudenda symbolically feminises him. He is excluded from the assembly if:

Deu 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. 

Everyone is familiar with the physiology of circumcision. We shall see that the Lord will deeply etch His covenant with Israel a second time since Moses through circumcision.

Initially, there is no better way in Israel than circumcision. It highlights that headship by physically reminding every male several times a day of his God-given headship, pointing to his authority in his family and church governance under Christ.

The New Generation Circumcised

Jos 5:1 And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
Jos 5:2 At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. 
Jos 5:3 And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. 
Jos 5:4 And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt.
Jos 5:5 Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised. 
Jos 5:6 For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey. 
Jos 5:7 And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way. 
Jos 5:8 And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. 
Jos 5:9 And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day. 

First Passover in Canaan

Jos 5:10 And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho. 
Jos 5:11 And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day. 
Jos 5:12 And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. 

The Commander of the Lord’s Army

Jos 5:13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?
Jos 5:14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 
Jos 5:15 And the captain of the LORD’S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. 

The Study’s Body:

Jos 5:1 And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel. 

In these apparent end times of the maturing of the Bride of Christ, she is essentially well-versed in her awareness of her enemies within, not that she is self-satisfied with her diligence in routing her land of the Amorites and Canaanites. She knows those Amorites and Canaanites are like blackberry roots, briars that, even after a good fire, sucker up afresh. Especially since the Amorites in the West of their Promised Land, clear across to the Canaanites on the Mediterranean Sea, represent a saturation of filth against the word of God. 

Her inward Amorites and the origin of their abbreviated name means H559 – to proudly and loudly boast of one’s (self) righteousness. It reminds her of her once being the two-fold child of hell.

Mat 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. 

Her inward Canaanites and the origin of their abbreviated name for her, spiritually, denote them as H3667 – merchants and traders in the word of God. 

Those two landholding enemies combined highlight the overwhelming magnitude of her formally corrupt mind that needs to be humbled daily.

She is fully aware that she is a symbolic close relative of Ham and his progeny, whose name means H3665 – to be humbled, subdued, brought down, and into subjection ~ and that is a massive lesson her sister in the Promised Land is about to physically learn. Her power, she will learn, is in her Lord’s strength to kill the enemies within with the Lord’s physical sword. No wonder her enemy’s hearts melted!

In the meantime, some of her thirteen-year-old heart no doubt melted for what was to happen as they, too, learned to understand authority through headship.

Jos 5:2 At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. 
Jos 5:3 And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. 

The sharp knives for the Bride spiritually represent her Lord’s word that cuts off the flesh of the covering from the seat of her Shulamite-like arousal, exposing his kisses and wine of truth. 

For the Israelites, this is the second witness to circumcision that they could only see as enforcement of recognition for their covenant relationship with their Lord. For the Bride of Christ’s hindsight reflections, she is ecstatic for the revelation that the old flesh of her sisters from Mt Sinai is a symbolic “hill of foreskins”. Her Lord’s glory is revealed in the New Covenant, not excised with hands by a sharp stone but a spiritually sharp sword of His word. She unashamedly doesn’t half-step into devoting herself to his love.

Son 1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. 
Son 1:3 Because of the savour of thy good ointments [understanding His word] thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. 
Son 1:4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

Jos 5:4 And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt.

The Bride of Christ is the “men of war” who are leaving behind her hill of foreskins of her enemies within, lying dead in her wilderness of sin by her daily refinement of putting on her Lord’s clean white linen. Joshua and the priests, who represent the Bride who came out of Egypt, were all circumcised, yet, the ones born along the way were not circumcised, and the Commandments of Moses needed to be ratified in the symbol of circumcision. 

Jos 5:5  Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised.

The second witness of the Israelites’ circumcision represents the then-coming Lord’s spiritual circumcision of our hearts. It is one of many instances of the elder serving the younger. The ‘young’ Israelites were not yet circumcised. Those who died in the wilderness were circumcised and broke their covenant with the Lord. The younger males of thirteen years and above, who were understandably not valiant to self-circumcise, were circumcised by more professional hands. For young and old alike, the “token” of bloody circumcision must have been indelibly etched in their minds as it was in Zipporah’s mind upon circumcising her son. However, as with childbirth and the Covenant, the remembrance soon disappears. (Exo 4:19-26; Gen 17:21-27)

The wonders the Lord is about to do to Israel and on Israel’s behalf will be bloody as they effectively circumcise all the heathen from their land by death. Again, it depicts the elder serving the younger. Just as the firstborn of Egypt died, those younger Israelites born free of Egypt began life afresh in the Covenant agreed in their flesh.

Exo 4:25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. 
Exo 4:26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision. 

Gen 17:24 And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 
Gen 17:25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 

Today, the Elect of God are bloody before Christ, their husband. They are circumcised spiritually, not by their hands, but by their spiritual Zipporah, the Church, as they live by the sharp circumcision of Christ’s word.

Almost daily, etched in our hearts are these glorious spiritually bloody verses,

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. 

Jos 5:6  For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey. 

Gen 17:11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. 

Psa 44:3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy [the Lord’s] right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.

Gen 17:14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. 

For any in the Body of Christ who refuse to be spiritually circumcised, he, like those physically circumcised who died in the wilderness, has denied the Lord’s covenant ‘betwixt’ Christ and him. They have effectively said that they will eat their own bread and drink their own water by their own sword and strength, as their forefathers in the wilderness strove to do for forty years. We do it whenever we fail to ask the Lord for his strength to resist the Devil. (James 4:6-10)

Jos 5:7 And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way. 
Jos 5:8 And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. 

It is the Bride of Christ who is raised up in their stead whom Christ has spiritually circumcised. If we identify as that young woman, we begin with uncircumcised hearts since we are born in the wilderness and are now circumcised. We abide in the Body of Christ until we are healed and made whole in Him, particularly in the First Resurrection.

Jos 5:9 And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal [meaning, a wheel rolling] unto this day. 

Our Lord has wheeled away our disgrace for trying to save ourselves by our former gods from Egypt. Upon the beginning of the first Passover in Canaan, that figurative wheel within wheels of the Lord’s word conveyed today by the Lord’s Elect cannot be stopped until all is fulfilled through the one event coming to all of mankind. That wheeled roller-coaster ride of one event began with Abraham’s circumcision and is about to get more bloody and violent in Israel. Thankfully, by being given to look back spiritually on Israel, we will be the first to finish that “one event” (Ecc 9:1-6). We learn to welcome dying gracefully by the power and might of our Lord as we are being made whole by our spiritual circumcision.

Col 2:6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 
Col 2:7 rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. 
Col 2:8 Beware lest anyone rob you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.
Col 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 
Col 2:10 And you are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power,
Col 2:11 in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, 
Col 2:12 buried with Him in baptism [having our sins burned out by his fiery word], in whom also you were raised through the faith of the working of God, raising Him from the dead. 
Col 2:13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 
Col 2:14 blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. 
Col 2:15 Having stripped rulers and authorities, He made a show of them publicly, triumphing over them in it. 

The Lord’s word is merciless against our old man, yet, he knows our frailty as we tremble for what happened to our old man ground by the wheels of sin in Israel. As such, we learn discretion by becoming his word as he is the word ~ as he is, so are we by his word, wheels within wheels.

In the one-thousand year reign by Christ and His Christs, they will rule the “fitches” of humanity with a rod of iron. That will not be a time of judgment, and not a soul will have his heart changed to be aroused by His word. Change will begin when the smoking flax bursts into flame, beginning with Gog and Magog surrounding the camp of the Saints and death and resurrection, sending them over to the beginning of their fiery end, spiritually circumcised in the Lake of Fire. 

Isa 28:26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. 
Isa 28:27  For the fitches [black cummin] are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. 
Isa 28:28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. 
Isa 28:29 This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. 

Mat 12:20 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.

For now, Israel will unwittingly continue the legacy of their forefathers and contemptuously attempt in frustration to fulfil all of the handwritten ordinances and fail. Our gracious Lord is painfully aware of our frailty and has made known to his Elect an assured end when we pursue him with our entire heat.

Jer 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 
Jer 29:12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 
Jer 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 
Jer 29:14 And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive. 

The wheels of the plan of God are beginning to turn much faster, with the very first Passover being kept in Cannan. This was a young, newly circumcised Israel eating the remnants of their forefathers, grizzling and groanings represented by the “old corn” (wheat) made into unleavened cakes and new beginnings.

Jos 5:10 And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho. 
Jos 5:11 And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day. 
Jos 5:12 And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. 

The Lord was gradually teaching Israel to trust in him. The six-day miracle of manna was now gone and replaced by the incredible natural richness of Cannan. We fed on the old corn of Babylonian Christianity aroused by her, the Great Whore, the mother of harlots, for six days (= six thousand years) on milk and honey.

The pictorial spirituality for us is that Christ is our manna, our bread from heaven, whose words we keep; he is the strong meat nourishing our circumcised hearts before inheriting Him, our promised land. 

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode [G3438: mone, dwelling place, residence] with him.

The root of this word is G3306, and it is similar to ‘meno’:

G3306
μένω
menō
men’-o

A primary verb; to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy): – abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry (for), X thine own.

The word appears 118 times and is always translated in some form of ‘abide’. If Christ and His Father ‘abide within us’, then this will be given to us, within and without.

Our Babylonian Christian brothers and sisters initially fed us, as does Israel in the wilderness. They ploughed in the heat of the day as the elder served the much later, younger heir.

Isa 61:5 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.

Israel, under Joshua, and for our benefit and spiritual mimicking, was beginning the painful process of growing up into full-grown perdition (utter destruction).

Jos 5:13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 

The man Joshua is certainly one bold warrior to march up to a no doubt powerful-looking opponent holding his sword drawn. It is precisely how we challenge our enemies within; with the intrinsic fiery sword of our Lord’s word.

Is the thing we are about to do for the Lord or against him?

Num 14:8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. 
Num 14:9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.

Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations [primarily within], baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

In spiritual terms, it means baptising our heresies with fire and circumcising our old man of our lustful flesh.

Mat 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. 

Jos 5:14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 

Of course, the host’s captain for us is Christ, who has come into our hearts as we enthusiastically hear what He has to say.

Jos 5:15 And the captain of the LORD’S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. 

Israel is about to commence their first Passover in the Promised Land. Our walk in the flesh, in shoes made by us from animal hide, represents our sweaty walk of workmanship. The Lord’s command for Joshua to remove his shoes unknowingly to him will be amplified by the new symbols of washing one another’s feet on the night of Passover before Christ’s death and Christ himself becoming the holy land.

The long and torturous saga of evil flesh and its God-given spiritual correlations are still in their infancy upon crossing the Jordan. The ‘holy land’ on which Moses stood, and now Joshua, along with circumcision, stone memorials, war, harlotry, evil passions and mankind’s sexuality, all temporarily point to their spiritual counterparts. Their highly variable physical applications titillate our lusts, yet, much to the distant future unwitting consternation of all but Christ’s Bride, none but her are ever given to entirely overcome the flesh. Even the most outstanding physical marriages, along with their physical desires, will be dust in the Kingdom since there is neither male nor female in Christ and the Father.

Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 
Gal 3:24 So that the law is become our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 
Gal 3:25 But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor. 
Gal 3:26 For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ.
Gal 3:28 There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. 
Gal 3:29  And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise. 

The Israelites’ feet stepping into the physical holy land heralds the coming of over three thousand years of feet running to mischief and uncircumcised hearts firmly establishing the Great Whore. 

The Bride of Christ is the priests of Abraham’s seed, and her circumcision of the flesh and every other symbol that points to its spiritual counterpart is fast disappearing. Her circumcised heart is what makes her Husband and she blissfully one spirit.

For the Bride of Christ, her Husband is her inheritance, and he is the promised holy land in which she stands with beautiful feet. 

Son 7:1 How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. 

He makes her shoes for his glory and is beautifully represented by the Shulamite, whose name means “the perfect, or the peaceful”. Her shoes, he made, are worn in his presence since together, they are the holy ground on which they stand.

Next week, Lord willing, “The Fall of Jericho”.