Joshua 5:2

Make thee sharp knives Or, as in margin, knives of flint. "Stonen knyues," Wyclif. In Exodus 4:25 we read that Zipporah, the wife of Moses, took a "sharp stone," or "knife of flint," and circumcised her son. Joshua followed the custom of antiquity on this occasion, for they had no other knives with them. Herodotus, 11. 86, mentions "stone knives" as used by the Egyptian embalmers, and with such the priests of Cybele mutilated themselves. A representation of the Egyptian flint knife from the Museum at Berlin is given in Smith's Biblical Dictionary.

and circumcise For forty years in the wilderness the nation had been under judgment, and those born there had not received the covenant mark of circumcision. To renew that rite in their case was the first necessity, that Israel might be restored to its full position as the Covenant-people of God.

the second time All, it is to be remembered, who, having come out from Egypt, were at the time of the sentence at Kadesh under twenty years old (Numbers 14:29), i.e. all at Gilgal, who were 38 years old and upwards, had beencircumcised. The rite, therefore, now applies only to the residue.