I suppose we ought to spend just a little bit of time thinking how terrifying this crossing of the Jordan must have been for the Amorite and Canaanite kings. They had been afraid beforehand, of course, because here was this vast host out there across the Jordan. But as these kings looked at the nation of Israel, perhaps Israel seemed somewhat removed from them. After all, the Israelites were on the other side of the Jordan, and the river was at flood stage. No doubt Israel intended to invade, but they would have to wait until the waters had receded. But until that happened, there was time for these kings to prepare. Yet suddenly, through this great miracle, that whole vast horde of people were crossing the Jordan. If you were one of the kings of the Amorites or the Canaanites, that was a horror story indeed.
It was bad enough to know that these thousands of Jewish invaders were there in the desert on the far side of the Jordan; but then suddenly, the waters were stopped and the masses passed over. At that point these kings knew it would only be a short time before the city of Jericho and all the other cities of the land would be attacked.
Yet in a situation like that, when worldly wisdom would call for an immediate attack upon Jericho, the people were instructed by God to pause, to review their relationship to Him, and to be circumcised and to observe the Passover. The other strange thing about this circumcision is that it weakened the army. We know how that operates because back in Genesis 34, there was a parallel story when Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, was violated by the son of the King of Shechem. Dinah’s brothers were irate at this treatment of their sister, but they pretended to cooperate with the people in that city, saying that they would allow their sister to marry the son of the king. They also said they would marry among the people of the land if only the Shechemites would submit to circumcision, because the sons of Jacob said, “It’s part of our religion. It’s not permissible for us to marry among uncircumcised people.”
So the men agreed to this, and then we’re told that while they were in pain from the operation, three days later, Simeon and Levi particularly, with their swords in hand, fell upon the men of the city and slaughtered them all. They were weakened and unable to fight back properly.
But now we come back to Joshua, and we see him circumcising his army, incapacitating them for a period of days. From a human point of view, we would say that this was an utterly foolish thing to do. If the soldiers of these kings and also the city of Jericho had only known what was happening they would have left their cities and come upon the Jewish troops and annihilated them. Yet Joshua did it because this was what God had told him to do, and he was determined not to depart from the law of the Lord either to the right hand or to the left.
