Joshua 5:4 explains why Joshua performed a second circumcision on the Israelites before they began fighting for the land of Canaan. The men who had left Egypt had mostly died during forty years of wandering, so the generation now entering Canaan had largely gone uncircumcised, and God wanted that sign of the covenant restored. The verse is narrated by the book’s author to its original readers, the people of Israel gathered at Gilgal on the edge of the promised land.
This is the reason Joshua circumcised them: all the people who came out of Egypt, who were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness along the way, after they came out of Egypt.
Joshua 5:4 (WEB)
What Joshua 5:4 Means
The verse begins with “This is the reason,” which tells you it is a explanation for something that has just happened. The author is looking back at the command in verse 2, where God told Joshua to circumcise the people again, and he is saying the rite was needed because of what had happened in the wilderness. Circumcision was the visible sign of belonging to the covenant God had made with Abraham, so an uncircumcised generation was a community that had not yet been marked as God’s people in the way the law required.
The phrase “all the people who came out of Egypt, who were males, even all the men of war” points to the adult men who had been delivered from Egypt and who had refused to trust God at Kadesh Barnabas. Those men died during the forty years in the desert, as the story goes on to say. The verse does not promise anything to the reader directly. It records a fact about the past and a reason for a ritual, and it leaves the lesson about faithfulness to be drawn from the surrounding narrative.
The Context of Joshua 5:4
The book of Joshua is traditionally attributed to Joshua himself, though most scholars think it was compiled later, perhaps after the events it describes, and then edited into its present form. It was written for an Israelite audience who needed to understand how they had come to possess the land. Just before verse 4, the kings of the Amorites and Canaanites hear how God dried up the Jordan River and their hearts melt in fear. Right after the verse, the text notes that the uncircumcised children were circumcised, and then God says the reproach of Egypt has been rolled away from them.
Reading verse 4 inside this setting changes its tone. The circumcision is not a punishment but a restoration, performed in the middle of a moment of national vulnerability, right when the enemies of Israel are most afraid. The verse explains an act of obedience and preparation that comes before the first battle at Jericho, showing that the people were being readied both spiritually and physically for what lay ahead.
Key Phrases in Joshua 5:4
Deuteronomy 2:14
The days in which we came from Kadesh Barnea, until we had come over the brook Zered, were thirty-eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were consumed from the middle of the camp, as the LORD swore to them.
(WEB)
This verse marks the end of the thirty-eight years of wandering, confirming that the generation of fighting men had died as Joshua 5:4 describes. It helps you see the timeline behind the circumcision and understand that the forty years of desert travel were drawing to a close.
Genesis 17:10
This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.
(WEB)
This is the original command to circumcise, given to Abraham as the sign of God’s covenant. Reading it alongside Joshua 5:4 shows that the act at Gilgal was a renewal of an ancient promise, not a new invention.
A Short Prayer From Joshua 5:4
Lord, you are faithful to every generation, even when the people before us turned away from you. Thank you that you do not forget your promises or abandon those who come after. Help me to learn from the failures recorded in your word and to trust you more fully than my ancestors did. Prepare my heart for what you are asking of me, and give me courage to take the next step of obedience. Keep me close to you as I walk forward into the place you have prepared. Amen.
