Joshua 5 - 8

After crossing the Jordan God commands that all the men be circumcised, as circumcision had not been practiced during the 40+ years since coming out of Egypt. It’s interesting that God commands this after crossing the Jordan, where they are camping outside the walls of Jericho, and now 600,000 men are essentially disabled until they are healed. God will demonstrate through this first encounter with Jericho that He is in complete charge of the care of His people, and the destruction of His enemies. Circumcision was the covenant God made with Abraham, and those descendants who would inherit Canaan land must be identified as his children through that rite.

Joshua meets Jesus, the commander of the Lord’s armies, Who tells him to remove his sandals because he was standing on holy ground. The Lord proceeds to give Joshua the battle plan for the destruction of Jericho, which will be God’s victory alone. Following the Lord’s battle plan, the walls fell down when the people shouted on the last day of circling the walls (except for that part of the wall where Rahab lived), and the city completely wiped out. Rahab and her family were rescued.

God commanded that everything in Jericho be killed, and all plunder belonged to the Lord alone, but Achan took some of the plunder, and Israel was routed in their next attempt to take the small city of Ai. Once the sin of Achan was exposed and purged, Ai was destroyed according to the battle plan given from God, and then the people were allowed to take plunder.

After these initial victories Joshua took all the people to Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, where the laws of God were read aloud, and the people declared the cursings and blessings that would befall Israel for either disobeying, or obeying God’s laws. This fulfilled what Moses had commanded just before he died.