Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
kings of the Amorites, and in the miraculous division of the waters of Jordan, that He
was able to remove all the obstacles that might lie in the way of the fulfilment of His
promises, and give them the promised land for their inheritance, as He had sworn to
their fathers.
Verse 8. When the rite of circumcision had been performed upon them all, the people
remained quietly in the camp till those who were circumcised had recovered. "They
abode in their places," i.e., sat still as they were, without attempting anything.
chaayaah (OT:2421), to revive (Gen 45:27; Job. Josh 14:14), or recover (2 Kings
1:2; 8:8, etc.). The circumcision of the people could not be performed earlier than the
day after the crossing of the Jordan, i.e., according to Josh 4:19, not earlier than the
11th day of the first month. Now, as the passover was to be kept, and actually was
kept, on the 14th (v. 10), the two accounts are said to be irreconcilable, and the
account of the circumcision has been set down as a later and unhistorical legend. But
the objections made to the historical credibility of this account-viz., that the suffering
consequent upon circumcision made a person ill for several days, and according to
Gen 34:25 was worst on the third day, so that the people could not have kept the
passover on that day, and also that the people could not possibly have been all
circumcised on one day-are founded upon false assumptions.
In the latter, for example, the number of persons to be circumcised is estimated, most
absurdly, at a million; whereas, according to the general laws of population, the
whole of the male population of Israel, which contained only 601,730 of twenty years
of age and upwards, besides 23,000 Levites of a month old and upwards, when the
census was taken a short time before in the steppes of Moab, could not amount to
more than a million in all, and of these between 280,000 and 330,000 were thirtyeight
years old, and therefore, having been born before the sentence was pronounced
upon the nation at Kadesh, and for the most part before the exodus from Egypt, had
been already circumcised, so that there were only 670,000, or at the most 720,000, to
be circumcised now. Consequently the proportion between the circumcised and
uncircumcised was one to three or three and a half; and the operation could therefore
be completed without any difficulty in the course of a single day. As regards the
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