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).

Dr. Rabbi David Frankel

Copy of bas relief showing Egyptian circumcision, 2500 BCE.  Wellcome Images – Wikimedia 

After leading the Israelites into the land, Joshua circumcises them at God’s command:

After explaining why the Israelites had been uncircumcised in the first place (vv. 4-7), the narrative continues:

What is this “disgrace of Egypt”?

Disgrace of Wandering (Abarbanel)

Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) connects this disgrace to the story of the scouts in Numbers 13-14:

According to Abarbanel, Israel’s forty-year presence in the wilderness was a national humiliation which finally came to an end with the Israelites’ entrance into the land at Gilgal.^[1]  But this interpretation is problematic for several reasons:

God’s Disgrace – The disgrace referred to in Numbers 14, the “inability of the Lord to bring them into the land,” relates to God, while in Joshua the disgrace is of the people.^[2]

No Connection to Circumcision – More significantly, the narrative context in Joshua would seem to dictate that there is a relationship between the removal of the disgrace and the removal of the foreskin; Numbers does not even mention circumcision or foreskins.

How does the “disgrace of Egypt” relate to the circumcision of the Israelites at Gilgal?

Disgrace of Slavery (Kaufmann)

The great Israeli ideologue and historian, Yehezkel Kaufmann (1889-1963), offered a “Zionist” explanation for why the Israelites did not circumcise their sons in the wilderness in his commentary on Joshua on v. 9:

Kaufmann here invents a vow that has no trace in the Bible and is not implied in this text at all. The fanciful nature of this conjecture is patent.

Disgrace of not Circumcising in the Desert (Blum)

The German Bible scholar Erhard Blum suggests that the disgrace is the very failure of the exodus generation to circumcise their sons in the desert, as they should have.^[4] This sinful failure is part and parcel of the decree that the exodus generation must die in the wilderness.

The implication of all of this is that the exodus from Egypt was not truly achieved with the mere arrival in the land. The failure to circumcise had to be corrected before the exodus could truly be achieved. As with Kaufmann’s suggestion, I find this approach to be artificial; there is no indication in any other biblical text that the Israelites of the wilderness period sinned by failing to circumcise.   

Disgrace of Being Like Egyptians (Radak)

Radak (R. David Kimchi, ca. 1160-1235) suggested that the circumcision of the Israelites at Gilgal removed the disgraceful foreskin that characterizes the Egyptians. He glosses the words חרפת מצרים with the following comment: 

This would have made perfect sense to his readers, but information we now have about ancient Egypt suggest that it is problematic.

Egyptians Circumcised
The ancient Egyptians practiced circumcision. In the words of the 5^th century BCE Greek historian Herodotus, they “practice circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, considering it better to be cleanly than comely.”^[5] Indeed, the ancient Egyptian “Stela of Uha” (circa 2100 BCE) refers to the circumcision of this official in a communal rite together with an additional one hundred and twenty males.^[6]

Even if it circumcision was not considered an absolute requirement for all Egyptians in every period, it is still strange to refer to uncircumcision as a specifically Egyptian trait when so many Egyptians did observe it.^[7]

Disgrace According to the Egyptians
Zephaniah 2:8 suggests that this interpretation involves a mistranslation:

If חרפת מואב refers to the reproach or insults coming from Moab and directed at the Israelites, it seems reasonable to assume that this is true of חרפת מצרים. This phrase should refer to a disgrace attached to Israel and expressed with derision by the Egyptians and not a disgrace attached to Egypt.

Scorned by Egyptians (Keunen)

Thus, the most compelling interpretation is that God’s dramatic declaration to Joshua in verse 9, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt,” implies that the Israelites in Egypt were scorned as uncircumcised by their Egyptian superiors.

This reading was suggested long ago by Abraham Keunen (1828-1891),^[8] followed by George A. Cooke (1865-1939)^[9] and Carl Steuernagel (1869–1958),^[10] and has been recently revived by the Italian-Israeli scholar, Alexander Rofé.^[11] Following this approach, Joshua introduces circumcision into Israel “today,” at Gilgal, for the first time, since they were not circumcised before this. 

Circumcision as Commandment
is Late Priestly

This interpretation, which assumes that Joshua 5:9 introduces circumcision as a rite, is in clear tension with Genesis 17 and similar texts, which speaks of circumcision as a central sign of the covenant with God from the time of Abraham.^[12] Nevertheless, that Genesis 17, part of the Priestly source or stratum of the Torah, is likely very late (exilic? Post-exilic?), as is much of P, and does not necessarily reflect pre-exilic practice.

The Absence of the Mitzvah of Circumcision in Biblical Texts
The Decalogue (Exod 20, Deut 5), the Covenant Collection (Exod 21-23), the Cultic Decalogue (Exod 34), the Holiness Collection (Leviticus 17-26), the book of Numbers, and the Deuteronomic Law Collection (Deut 12-26) never mention the “covenant of circumcision.”

In fact, other than the passing note about the circumcision of Isaac in Gen 21:4 (also Priestly), we do not find mention of any biblical character performing or undergoing this supposedly central rite of the covenant of Abraham. Tziporah’s circumcision of her son in Exod 4:24-26, from the non-Priestly source, is performed to save her husband with the use of the blood, and not to bring the child into the covenant of Abraham. Indeed, the story does not use the word “covenant.”

Circumcision as a Cultural Marker

The non-religious and non-covenantal character of circumcision is reflected in the non-Priestly story of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34, which makes use of the same term “disgrace” (חרפה) as Joshua 5:9:

The basis of the brothers’ request, implicitly approved by Jacob, that the people of Shechem undergo circumcision, is that lack of circumcision in a man is considered a disgrace among the Israelites. The text makes no mention of YHWH, Abraham, or covenant. The Shechemites are not asked to recognize Israel’s God, only to, quite literally, remove an ethnic barrier dividing the groups.

Similarly, the derisive reference to the Philistines in a number of relatively early, non-Priestly passages (Judg 14:3; 15:18; 1 Sam 17:26, 36), as being “uncircumcised” (ערלים) make no sense if circumcision was thought of as the unique sign of the covenant between God and Israel. After all, the Philistines weren’t Israelites. Why should any Israelite expect them to be circumcised?!

In short, in pre-Priestly texts that discuss circumcision, it is not a mitzvah from YHWH but a cultural marker. Now that they are on their own land, Joshua introduces circumcision to the Israelites as a sign that they should no longer feel “disgraced” in the eyes of the Egyptians. Instead, like the Egyptians, they too are now circumcised. In this tradition, Joshua—not Abraham—is the father of Israelite circumcision.

The Wilderness Excuse

The verses that precede Josh 5:9, however, argue again this interpretation.  They explain why the Israelites had not been circumcised till then (vv. 4-7), insisting that the Israelites who left Egypt were circumcised, and that it was only the next generation, born on the way, that are circumcised by Joshua:

This interpretation is part of an excursus (vv. 4-7[8]) which constitutes a late “correction” of the original text.^[13] The redactor cleaned up the problematic claim about the Israelites being uncircumcised until that point by insisting that the Israelites who left Egypt were circumcised and Joshua was only reinstating an earlier practice here.^[14] 

Joshua’s Idea – Not YHWH’s

A close look at verse 9 supports the assumption that circumcision is understood here as a cultural practice rather than a command from God:

There are two oddities here:

YHWH Naming the Place –This kind of “place-name etiology” is almost always pronounced by a human character or by the anonymous narrator of the story, not by God.

YHWH Addressing the People – In the verse, YHWH is ostensibly addressing Joshua when, in fact, the words are directed at the people of Israel.

Both these problems can be solved if we assume that the words “YHWH to” were added to the verse (see italics in the quote above), and that, in the original verse, Joshua was speaking. This seems much more natural since it is Joshua who circumcises the people and removes the “disgrace of Egypt” from them. Following this reading, Joshua rather than God named the site Gilgal.

God’s Command to Circumcise

Just as putting the “disgrace of Egypt” speech in God’s mouth is artificial, so too is putting the command to circumcise in God’s mouth. And in fact, a closer look at the opening verse, where God makes this command, shows that it too is redactional:

According to this verse, Joshua circumcises the Israelites at YHWH’s command, doing so “again… a second time.” This implies that the Israelites were circumcised in the past and flies in the face of the simple reading of v. 9 in which this is the first time Israelites became circumcised.^[15]

The phrase “at that time YHWH said” (בעת ההיא אמר ה’) is clearly Deuteronomistic. Note how it closely parallels the style of Deut 10:1, in which Moses says: “at that time, YHWH said to me” (בעת ההיא אמר ה’ אלי). The phrase “at that time” (בעת ההיא) itself is used repeatedly in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic literature (Deut 1:9, 16, 18; 2:34; 3:4, 8, 12, 18, 21, 23; 4:14; 5:5; 9:20; 10:1, 8. Cf. Josh 6:26; 11:10, 21; etc.).

Moreover, the idea that the circumcision was part of God’s command—and certainly the references in the MT to this being a second circumcision—fits with the later biblical concept that circumcision is a feature of the Israelite religion, and not merely an ethnic marker. Thus, I would argue that the entire verse is a redactional insertion, together with vv. 5:4-8a and the added words in v. 9.

Joshua’s Idea

Once we remove the supplements and redactions, we are left with a brief account:

God’s lack of involvement here is supported by the formulation ויעש לו יהושע חרבות צורים, “and Joshua made for himself flint knives,” which implies that the circumcision of the Israelites was Joshua’s initiative.

Adding God into the Picture
The editor converted Joshua’s decision to conduct a mass circumcision of the Israelite men at Gilgal into a divine command to offer it religious significance. The circumcision is performed in compliance with the divine will and is not done merely to appear less “primitive” by the standards of Egyptian culture.

This editorial adjustment removes the troublesome presentation of Joshua as a leader who initiates ceremonial activity on his own, human authority. Joshua does not invent and institute ritual acts, a task that belongs strictly to God.^[17] But in the original conception of this brief story, circumcision was not a ritual or a mitzvah but a cultural marker, instituted by Joshua so that the Israelites could now be circumcised like the Egyptians, and no more feel the sting of disgrace.

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Dr. Rabbi David Frankel did his doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the direction of Prof. Moshe Weinfeld. His publications include The Murmuring Stories of the Priestly School (VTSupp. 89) and The Land of Canaan and the Destiny of Israel (Eisenbrauns). He teaches Hebrew Bible to M.A. and Rabbinical students at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where he lives with his wife and five children.

[1] 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 (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 59), 3-19, without reference to Abarbanel.

[2] 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.

[3] Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Book of Joshua (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1959), 107-108 [Hebrew}.

[4] 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.

[5] The Histories, Book 2, ch. 37.

[6] 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.

[7] 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, (eds., 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.

[8] The Hexateuch (London 1886), 133.

[9] The Book of Joshua (Cambridge 1918), 33.

[10] Das Buch Josua, (Gottingen 1923), 223.

[11] See, Alexander Rofé, “Joshua son of Nun in the History of Biblical Tradition,” Tarbiẓ 73.3 (2004): 333-364 [350-351], [Hebrew].

[12] In fact, this is one of the reasons that Kaufmann, who also thought of this reading, rejects it(ad loc.):

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 Proto-Story of Shechem and Jacob’s Daughter,” TheTorah.com [2015]). In any event, the existence of multiple explanations for an ancient custom is hardly unusual in biblical literature.

[13] Many pieces of evidence point to this being a redaction, but a full discussion will have to wait for another piece.

[14] 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.

[15] 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.”  

[16] 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.

[17] 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).