What’s Your Excuse?
So their children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them along the way. Joshua 5:7 NASB
They had not circumcised them – Who did (or didn’t) do what to whom? Careful. It’s a bit more complicated than it looks. In this story, Joshua circumcises all the males who were not circumcised during the forty-year wilderness journey. Now the children of Israel have crossed the Jordan. They are about to take possession of the Land, as promised, but to do so they have to be ritually connected to the covenant, and that means the males must be circumcised. So, Joshua does the job. Of course, he must have had help. There are thousands of men who require surgical attention. That implies there were other circumcised men who could assist. The Talmud tells us that the Levites and the righteous people in the community did not stop practicing circumcision during the forty years. If that’s true, then who are these men who now need circumcision? The answer is clear. They are the children of those parents among the throng who used a legal excuse not to circumcise infant males born to them.
Let’s examine the Hebrew text:
כִּי לֹא-מָלוּ אוֹתָם בַּדָּרֶךְ
The word ‘o-tam (highlighted in red) combines ʾēt (the direct object indicator) with hēm meaning “them.” These are the children, but the emphasis isn’t on these male infants. It’s on the fathers who chose not to circumcise these baby boys. Why? If the Levites and the righteous did practice circumcision in the wilderness, why didn’t these people? They justified their action with a legal excuse. Travel meant possible danger to the recently circumcised child, and risk to life was forbidden. Therefore, they chose not to follow the commandment. But this was a legal technicality. Essentially, they didn’t obey the Law because they had a lack of faith in God. In this case, the parents are to blame, not the children. Now God must correct this before they take the Land. Verse 9 makes this clear with a reference to “the shame of Egypt,” perhaps indicating that these same people were not obedient even in Egypt. They were the ones who complained about meat. Perhaps they were the ones who attempted a coup. They are no longer in the assembly, having died during the forty years. But their children remain technically outside the Covenant. God corrects this in one mass surgery.*
The text tells us that the mass who exited Egypt were not of the same mind about God. Some did not really believe. They were still descendants of Abraham, but their actions belied real commitment to YHVH. They physically left Egypt but they were still connected spiritually to Egyptomania. Therefore, they did not trust that God would care for circumcised infants in the wilderness. Perhaps their disbelief ran deeper. They didn’t think God would provide at all—not food, not shelter, not guidance, and certainly not victory over the Land’s current occupants. They had the bloodline without the heart line. But God didn’t punish them for their resistance to physical attachment to the Covenant. He let it slide. Why? Perhaps it was because an eight-day old baby doesn’t make the choice. The parents do—and they are held responsible. They were already sentenced to die in the wilderness. What was the point of an additional life sentence?
The rabbis notice something else in this parental action. When the people came out of Egypt, the men were circumcised, but sometime thereafter males were born who were not circumcised. That means a disruption in the celebration of Passover. This is one of the reasons the rabbis claim that after the first year in the wilderness the Passover was never celebrated again until Israel crossed into the Promised Land.
We have one other point to make about these circumstances. In verse 9, God declares that as a result of this mass circumcision, He has “rolled away the reproach of Egypt.” Two words are important. The first is the verb, gālal. The umbrella of meanings include “commit, remove, trust, run down, seek occasion, wallow, roll, and roll down, away or together.”[1] In general, the term is about rolling some object “on, upon, away, in, against, from, together, unto, or down.”[2] The derivatives include (not surprisingly) “wheel” and “cylinder.” But the derivatives also include “dung” and “idols.” A bit on imaginative extension will make the connection for you. What must certainly come to mind are cases where something is “rolled away,” ask for example, when Jacob rolls away the stone covering the well, and, need I add, a description in Hebrew of another stone being rolled away some millennia later. Are you clever enough to connect these descriptions with the idea of removing a reproach? Ah, that might depend on what ḥerpâ (“reproach”) means.
Basically, the word means “to reproach,” with the specific connotation of casting blame or scorn on someone. . . it is the antithesis of kābēd (honor) and may be understood as disgrace or dishonor.[3]
“Disgrace” is certainly obvious here. Not circumcising their sons was a bit of Egyptomania DNA still resident in the community. God erases the physical evidence of spiritual distrust. The legal excuse no longer applies, and frankly, never will again. The wilderness experience is over. Healing is more than physical recovery. The stone rolled away a thousand years later also removes a shameful disgrace. What is that? Well, what do you think death really says about God’s intention and purpose. And now that’s over too.
Topical Index: not circumcised, excuse, disgrace, ḥerpâ, reproach, roll away, gālal, Joshua 5:7, 9.
* There’s more to this than just failure to circumcise, as we shall see an another investigation.
[1] Kalland, E. S. (1999). 353 גָּלַל. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 162). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Mccomiskey, T. E. (1999). 749 חָרַף. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 325). Chicago: Moody Press.
