And Jehovah said to Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. And the name of the place was called Gilgal to this day.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and held the passover on the fourteenth day of the month, at even, in the plains of Jericho.
Israel has crossed the Jordan. Joshua has circumcised the people at Gilgal. Now they camp in sight of Jericho's walls and keep the Passover — the first feast in the land God promised them. Why open life in the new land by remembering the escape from Egypt? And why does the feast come before any battle?
The date was no coincidence. One writer counts the years back to Egypt and sees God's hand in the timing.
In God's ways there is neither chance nor accident. Exactly forty years before the children of Israel camped at Gilgal they were slaves in Egypt. God had arranged their journeys and the date they entered the promised land. So the first feast kept there was the memorial of their rescue.
One writer separates two things that the single word "Passover" covers.
The passover and "the feast of the passover" are distinct. One is the rescue itself, which took place in Egypt. The other is the memorial of that rescue. There was only one passover, but the feast of the passover came every year. The passover was once for all. The feast of it came as often as the years of freedom. Christ's blood was shed once and forever, and our redemption by His precious blood is complete. But the memorial, the feast of remembrance, goes on.
The order in the chapter matters. Circumcision came first, then the feast. One writer ties that order to real communion.
Before Joshua begins his years of battles, the first thing he does is circumcise Israel. That means putting off the body of the flesh, that is, the reproach of Egypt… Afterwards they kept the passover. There is no further record of it in the wilderness years, when they were uncircumcised. There is real communion with what Christ has been. It can only take place when a man is circumcised, when the evil is taken away, and we judge ourselves. Here, to eat the passover, this must be done at Gilgal.
The feast is the same one they ate in Egypt. But the people keeping it now stand on new ground. One writer draws the contrast, and points to the Lord's Supper.
This Passover in Canaan is the same feast the people had kept in Egypt. Yet how different the two were! There, they knew their guilt. They were rushing to flee, sheltered in the darkness and the judgment by the blood of the Passover lamb. Here, the people have landed safe in Canaan, free from the last traces of the reproach of Egypt. They are a risen people who have been through death. Yet they come back in perfect peace to the starting point, the foundation of all their blessings, to sit around the memorials of a Christ slain for them on the cross. The Passover in Canaan corresponds with what the Lord's Supper is for the Christian.
Some think the basics matter less as a believer grows. This feast says otherwise.
The passover itself is now celebrated in Canaan with solemn joy. It is very precious for us that growth in the knowledge of God gives foundation truths a deeper character in the soul. To remember Christ in the breaking of bread was sweet and strengthening from the first. How much more now, when the revealing of the mystery has woven our oneness with Him and with each other into that showing of His death! I am sure that the man who values the gospel most is the one who knows the mystery of Christ best.
Jericho is still standing, and Israel sits down to eat. That order is read as the secret of the victories that follow.
Before going out to fight, Israel must sit at the table of God. To stand up to the hard work of war, Israel must be fed. That is the secret of real strength. And what is the food? Christ. He is the source of strength, and the people will have no victory unless they have eaten first. What a blessed thing to enter into the conflict with hearts fed by Christ.
- Timed — God set the forty-year route so that the first feast in the land recalled the rescue out of Egypt.
- Once — the rescue happened one time only. The feast that recalls it comes round again and again, because redemption is already complete.
- Cut — circumcision at Gilgal came before the table. Real communion follows the putting off of the flesh and self-judgment.
- Deeper — the same feast, now kept with fuller joy in the land. Growth in knowledge makes foundation truths weigh more, not less.
- Then fight — Israel eats before Jericho falls. Strength for battle comes from feeding on Christ first.