Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
Egypt" are to be understood as signifying only those men who were twenty years old
and upwards when they came out. Consequently circumcision was suspended as long
as the nation was under the ban of the divine sentence pronounced upon it at Kadesh.
This sentence was exhausted when they crossed the brook Zared and entered the
country of the Amorites (compare Deut 2:14 with Num 21:12-13).
Why, then, was not the circumcision performed during the encampment in the
steppes of Moab either before or after the numbering, since all those who had been
sentenced to die in the wilderness were already dead (Num 26:65)? The different
answers which have been given to this question are some of them wrong, and others
incomplete. For example, the opinion held by some, that the actual reason was that
the forty years had not yet expired, is incorrect (see Deut 2:14). And the uncertainty
how long they would remain in the steppes of Moab cannot be adduced as an
explanation, as there were no circumstances existing that were likely to occasion a
sudden and unexpected departure from Shittim. The reason why Moses did not renew
the circumcision before the end of his own life, is to be sought for in the simple fact
that he would not undertake an act of such importance without an express command
from the Lord, especially as he was himself under sentence to die without entering
the promised land.
But the Lord did not enjoin the renewal of the covenant sign before Israel had been
conducted into the promised land, because He saw fit first of all to incline the hearts
of the people to carry out His commandment through this magnificent proof of His
grace. It is the rule of divine grace first to give and then to ask. As the Lord did not
enjoin circumcision as a covenant duty upon Abraham himself till He had given him
a practical proof of His grace by leading him to Canaan, and by repeated promises of
a numerous posterity, and of the eventual possession of the land; and just as He did
not give the law to the children of Israel at Sinai till He had redeemed them with a
mighty arm from the bondage of Egypt, and borne them on eagles' wings, and
brought them to Himself, and had thereby made them willing to promise gladly to
fulfil all that He should say to them as His covenant nation; so now He did not
require the renewal of circumcision, which involved as the covenant sign the
observance of the whole law, till He had given His people practical proofs, through
the help afforded in the defeat of Sihon and Og, the
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