Before entering the promised land, the Lord told Joshua to reinstitute a sign of covenant put in place years before with Abraham (Genesis 17:7-14). What was the sign? Circumcision of all adult males.

When the kings of the pagan nations heard about the miracle at the Jordan their hearts melted with fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites. How do you think they reacted to the news of this mass act of cutting and discarding body parts? Who were these people coming at them?

No dissent is recorded. 40 years of watching fathers and uncles die for refusing to obey the Lord strengthened resolve. These wilderness-hardened men followed through as the Lord required, not phased by a few days of discomfort.

The ultimate prize lay before them—a land flowing with milk and honey.

Sometimes the Lord places distasteful choices before you and me. Nothing requiring the severing of a body part, but choices that require severing none the less. Where do I spend my time and what do I allow in my mind? Media choices swim before me. Is that show, as popular as it may be, really leading me toward the land of milk and honey? Perhaps it needs cut out and discarded.

The place where Joshua performed these procedures landed a gruesome name, Gibeath Haaraloth—hill of foreskins. As bad as that sounded, the name reminded the nation of their covenant with the Lord, and the value found following Him in holiness.

I think that as you and I also follow the Lord for years and years, we’ll look back upon our own hill of discarded things, items that once dragged us down and held us back from places of milk and honey. It helps to remember that with each cut, each act of leaving behind, comes a promise of something much, much better.

Joshua 5 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Matt Artz