Joshua 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.

This is the cause why Joshua did circumcise. The omission to circumcise the children born in the wilderness might have been owing to the incessant movements of the people; but it is most generally thought that the nation, being regarded as for a time disowned by God, was forbidden to take the sign of the covenant, to neglect which in other circumstances would have been visited with the severest penalties. The true cause was a temporary suspension of the covenant with the unbelieving race, who, being rejected of the Lord, and excommunicated, were thrust back into the standing-ground of the unclean (Josephus, 'Antiquities,' b. 5:, ch.

i., sec. 4), and doomed to perish in the wilderness, and whose children had to bear the iniquity of their fathers (Numbers 14:33), though, as the latter were to be brought into the promised land, the covenant would be renewed with them. 'When Joshua led them across the Jordan-that is, when God was about to establish the covenant-it was discovered that the former had all died, while the latter only remained alive. The covenant, therefore, was really established with those who were uncircumcised, but had obeyed the voice of the Lord: it had been refused to those who, although circumcised yet were a stiff-necked generation. At the same time, on these persons who thus received an earnest of the covenant, because they hearkened to Yahweh, the sign was affixed, to denote that they were introduced to the covenant' ('Israel after the Flesh,' pp. 16, 25; Havernick's 'Introduction,' p. 157).