Commentaria in Josue
Chapter 5
The Hebrews are circumcised at Galgal. Soon, verse 10, they celebrate the Phase; the manna ceases, when they ate the fruits of the land. Finally, verse 13, an armed Angel appearing to Josue encourages him, and commands him to loose his shoes, because he stood on holy ground.
1. Now when all the kings of the Amorrhites, who dwelt beyond the Jordan westward, and all the kings of Chanaan, who possessed the places near the great sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the children of Israel, till they passed over, their heart failed them, and there remained no spirit in them, fearing the coming in of the children of Israel. 2. At that time the Lord said to Josue: Make thee knives of stone, and circumcise the second time the children of Israel. 3. He did what the Lord had commanded, and he circumcised the children of Israel in the hill of the foreskins. 4. This is the cause of the second circumcision: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, all the men fit for war, died in the desert, during the long circuits of the ways: 5. All these were circumcised. But the people that were born in the desert, 6. During the forty years of the journey through the vast wilderness, were uncircumcised: till they were consumed who had not heard the voice of the Lord, and to whom he had before sworn that he would not shew them the land flowing with milk and honey. 7. The children of these succeeded in their place, and were circumcised by Josue: as they were born in the foreskin, and no one had circumcised them in the way. 8. And after they were all circumcised, they remained in the same place of the camp, till they were healed. 9. And the Lord said to Josue: This day have I taken away the reproach of Egypt from you. And the name of that place was called Galgal, until this present day. 10. And the children of Israel abode in Galgal, and kept the phase on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, in the plains of Jericho: 11. And they ate of the corn of the land on the next day, unleavened bread, and fried meal of the same year. 12. And the manna ceased after they ate of the corn of the land, neither did the children of Israel use that food any more, but they ate of the corn of the present year of the land of Chanaan. 13. And when Josue was in the field of the city of Jericho, he lifted up his eyes, and saw a man standing over against him, holding a drawn sword, and he went to him, and said: Art thou one of ours, or of our adversaries? 14. And he answered: No: but I am prince of the host of the Lord, and now am I come. 15. Josue fell on his face to the ground. And worshipping, said: What saith my lord to his servant? 16. Loose, saith he, thy shoe from off thy feet: for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Josue did as was commanded him.
1. THE KINGS OF THE AMORRHITES, etc., AND THE KINGS OF CHANAAN.—The Septuagint: and the kings of Phœnicia. Under these two peoples all the seven nations dwelling in the promised land are understood by synecdoche, namely the Hevites, Jebusites, Hethites, Pherezites and Gergesites, Deuteronomy vii, 1. Moreover those were called Amorrhites who dwelt toward the Jordan; Chanaanites, those toward the Mediterranean sea, whom the Septuagint here call Phœnicians; elsewhere they are generally called Palestines or Philistines; indeed at times not only the Philistines, such as the men of Gaza, Azotus and Accaron, but also all the Jews and Idumeans are called Phœnicians, as Masius teaches from Dionysius Afer and Strabo, book xvi. Hence the woman who is called a Chanaanite by Matthew, chapter xv, verse 22, is called a Syrophœnician by Mark. And indeed all agree that Tyre and Sidon, which were the metropolises of Phœnicia, belonged of old to Chanaan, or to the land promised by God to the Jews, though the Hebrews, through their sloth, never possessed them. Masius and Arias here, and Pereira on Exodus, page 186, at the end, confirm this finely and at length.
THEIR HEART FAILED THEM, AND THERE REMAINED NO SPIRIT IN THEM.—It is a hyperbole, as if to say: So the Chanaanites and the rest, on account of the crossing of the Jordan by the Hebrews dry-foot, were struck in mind as if life and breath had left them lifeless. The Septuagint: their minds were melted, and they were dismayed, and there was no prudence in them, suggesting fit counsel for resisting the Hebrews.
Moreover, heart is the name for that part of the soul in which fortitude and constancy are placed; spirit, that power of the soul by which we are wise, and see and deliberate what is to be done: for when the heart melts and fails, namely when through fear fortitude totters, the faculty of wisdom must needs be disturbed and fail at the same time.
2. AT THAT TIME THE LORD SAID TO JOSUE: MAKE THEE KNIVES OF STONE, AND CIRCUMCISE THE SECOND TIME THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.—“Of stone,” the Septuagint petrinous; Masius, of flint; the Hebrew is tsurim, which the Chaldee, Cajetan, Arias, Pagninus and Vatablus render sharp; others, sharpened on a whetstone. Better our Vulgate, the Septuagint, St. Augustine, Theodoret, Origen, Rupert, Masius and others render of stone. For the Hebrew tsur generally signifies rock, stone and flint. Hence also tsor (whence Tor and Tyre) was named that powerful city of Phœnicia, because it was built on a rock of the sea, and was therefore impregnable. So also Sephora, the wife of Moses, circumcised her son with a stone knife, Exodus iv. And many think that Christ was circumcised with a stone knife.
You will ask, why did Josue command the Hebrews to be circumcised with a stone knife? I answer: the literal reason, which Theodoret gives, was that in that place there was plenty of rocks, but a scarcity of iron and steel. For the Hebrews were dwelling around Arabia, which from its plenty of rocks is called Petræa, where they sharpen stones like iron, and make from them very sharp knives. So elsewhere also of old iron was rare, and therefore dear and of great price. Hence Lycurgus among the Spartans ordered money to be coined of iron, that by its heaviness and weight he might prevent thefts, as Plutarch testifies in his Life. And Catullus writes that Atys castrated himself with flint:
He rolled off, he says, his own weights with a sharp flint.
Nay, Julian, book vi of the Epigrams, writes that the Greeks of old sharpened their reeds with flint: “The stone,” he says, “which sharpens the blunted edge of the reed.”
The allegorical reason was that these stone knives should be a type and figure of Christ, who is the spiritual rock, and by spiritual circumcision circumcises not the flesh from the foreskin but the mind from vices, and will circumcise the body from diseases and death in the hill of the foreskins, that is, in the resurrection of the dead, says Rupert here, chapter xv; so also Theodoret, Question 1, Origen, Procopius and others.
Moreover St. Augustine, sermon 144 On the Season; St. Bernard, sermon 4 On the Circumcision, and the Master of the Sentences in book iv, treating of circumcision, hold that circumcision ought to have been done with a stone knife, because God here commands this very thing: but this precept was given to Josue alone, not to the others. Hence in Genesis chapter xvii, verse 10, where the institution and precept of circumcision is enacted by God, no mention is made of a stone knife. Wherefore even now the Jews circumcise themselves and theirs with an iron knife, not a stone one. So Abulensis, Hugh of St. Victor, St. Thomas, Lyranus, and expressly St. Justin (who was a Jew, namely a Samaritan) in the Dialogue against Trypho: “That first circumcision of yours,” he says, “was of old done with iron, and is still done, and therefore hardness of heart remains in you; but ours, which is the second, is done by sharp stones; namely by Christ and the Apostles, who circumcise the vices of the heart.”
CIRCUMCISE THE SECOND TIME THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.—Why “the second time”? Are those once circumcised commanded to be circumcised a second time, the foreskin having grown again or been drawn forward (which Symmachus, the interpreter of Holy Scripture, did of old, and others who fled from the Jews to the Samaritans, as I showed on 1 Corinthians vii, 18)? By no means.
First, therefore, Theodoret, Question iii, and Masius think this circumcision is called second in respect to the first, which was made by Abraham, who by God’s command first circumcised himself with his whole family, Genesis xvii. But in respect of Abraham this was not the second but the tenth, nay the hundredth circumcision; for after Abraham for 400 years until Moses all his posterity were circumcised.
Secondly, Vatablus thinks it is called second in respect of the first, which was made by Moses, who circumcised at Sinai the people led out of Egypt. But of this circumcision by Moses neither Scripture, nor Philo, nor Josephus, nor anyone else makes mention.
Thirdly, Rabbi David Kimchi and Cajetan interpret “the second time” as in turn, or by turns, as if to say: Do not circumcise all together, lest all being circumcised languish and be too weak to resist the Chanaanites, but circumcise them in two turns, that while these are being circumcised, the others still uncircumcised may be strong to fight with the Chanaanites. But this is far-fetched and foreign.