Scene of Circumcision in ancient Egypt. Old Kingdom, 6th Dynasty, reign of king Teti, ca. 2345-2333 BC. Tomb of Ankhmahor, Saqqara necropolis. Flickr, kairoinfo4u.
Joshua Circumcises Israel in Response to Egypt’s Scorn
Before circumcision was a mitzvah, it was a cultural marker: Thus Joshua introduces circumcision to Israel at Gilgal (Joshua 5:2-9), Jacob’s sons insist that the Shechemites circumcise before Shechem marries their sister (Genesis 34), and the Israelites scorn the Philistines for being uncircumcised (Judges 14:3).
Published: March 28, 2018
|
Last Updated: September 7, 2026
See similarly, Ed Noort, “The Disgrace of Egypt: Joshua 5:9a and Its Context,” in The Wisdom of Egypt: Jewish, Early Christian, and Gnostic Essays in Honour of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, ed. Anthony Hilhorst and George H. Van Kooten, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 59 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 3-19, without reference to Abarbanel.
Furthermore, according to the verse, this disgrace is only what would have occurred had God annihilated the people in the wilderness. Since God, apparently moved by Moses’ argument and seeking to avoid this humiliation, decides rather to have the people wander the wilderness for forty years, the implication is that the forty-year wandering does not entail a humiliation.
Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Book of Joshua (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1959), 107-108 [Hebrew}.
Erhard Blum, “Beschneidung und Passa in Kanaan: Beobachtungen und Mutmassungen zu Jos 5,” in Freiheit und Recht: Festschrift F. Crusemann (eds., C. Hardmeier et al.; Gutersloh 2003), 307-308.
The Histories, Book 2, ch. 37.
For the Stela of Uha see Emily Teeter, Treasures from the Collection of the Oriental Institute (Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2003), 33-34.
For discussion of these issues see R. M. Jansen and J. J. Jansen, Growing Up in Ancient Egypt (London 1990), 90-98; R. K. Ritner, “Household Religion in Ancient Egypt,” in Household and Family Religion in Antiquity, ed. J. Bodel and S. M. Olyan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 178. More appropriate would have been to refer to uncircumcision as the “disgrace of the Philistines,” since they are the ones who are regularly singled out in the Bible for derision in this matter (Judg 14:3; 15:18; 1 Sam 17:26, 36), though of course, this would not work in context, since the Israelites are not leaving Philistia but Egypt.
The Hexateuch (London 1886), 133.
The Book of Joshua (Cambridge 1918), 33.
Das Buch Josua, (Gottingen 1923), 223.
See, Alexander Rofé, “Joshua son of Nun in the History of Biblical Tradition,” Tarbiẓ 73.3 (2004): 333-364 [350-351], [Hebrew].
In fact, this is one of the reasons that Kaufmann, who also thought of this reading, rejects it (ad loc.):
ואין לומר שיש כאן שריד של ספור שלפיו הנהיג יהושע לראשונה את מנהג המילה בישראל, שהיו ערלים עד אז, והמצרים המולים חשבו להם זאת לחרפה, כי זה סותר לא רק לבר’ י”ז אלא גם לבר’ ל”ד, שהוא סיפור עתיק ביותר.
It cannot be suggested that here we have a remnant of a story in which Joshua is the first to introduce the practice of circumcision in Israel, who had been uncircumcised until them, and that the Egyptians, who were circumcised, considered this to be a disgrace, for this contradicts not only Genesis 17 but also Genesis 34, which is a very ancient text.
Kaufmann’s early dating of Genesis 34 is hardly the consensus among contemporary scholars. (My own view is that the text has been heavily edited, though the circumcision element is likely original; see my, “The Rape of Dinah, Added as a Motive for the Sack of Shechem,” TheTorah.com [2015]). In any event, the existence of multiple explanations for an ancient custom is hardly unusual in biblical literature.
Many pieces of evidence point to this being a redaction, but a full discussion will have to wait for another piece.
The excursus had a further purpose as well, namely to bring this text into accord with the “standard” biblical scheme according to which the Israelites who entered the land of Canaan were largely a new group of people and not the original people who left Egypt. This “standard” conception comes to clear expression in the story of the spies of Num 13-14 and Deut 1:19-46 and the addition of verses 4-7 clearly alludes to this incident.
One possible solution to this problem is to assume that the MT is corrupt here and to go with the LXX reading:
At that time the Lord told Joshua, “Make yourself stone knives from stone cut sharp, and sitting, (ושב) circumcise the sons of Israel.”
This reading makes no mention of “a second time” and instead of “again” (ושוב) it reads “and sit” (ושב; kathisas). The possibility that the LXX version here is superior can be supported by evidence from Egyptian iconography that shows circumcision was performed in a sitting position. Nevertheless, it is at least as likely that the LXX here is not original, but a corrected text which excised the problematic reference to “circumcising again.”
Verse 8a seems to function as a kind of resumptive repetition leading the reader back into the present narrative action of verse 8b. It is also possible to view all of verse 8 as editorial. Verse 9 would then follow immediately after verse 3. The last phrase in v. 9 (in italics) is not reflected in the Septuagint and may well be secondary.
This theological concern to convert instances of human authorization of law or practice into divine authorization can be seen elsewhere in the Bible such as, as I have argued, in the book of Deuteronomy. See my “Moses’ Commandments: The Secret of Nissim of Marseilles,” TheTorah.com (2016).
