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Scripture Text (NRSV)

 

Joshua 5:9-12

 

5:9 The LORD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

5:10 While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.

5:11 On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.

5:12 The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

 

Comments:

 

After forty years wandering in the wilderness, the people of Israel cross the Jordan and enter the land promised to them. Their entry into the land, their homecoming, is marked by the end of one kind of provision by God, manna, and the beginning of another, the produce of Canaan. We are not told what their relationship is to the Canaanites. What we know about modern situation with refugees and colonialism may give us ways to reflect on this story.


By celebrating the Passover and eating the produce of the promised land instead of the miraculous manna that had sustained them in the desert, the Israelites symbolically bring their forty years of wilderness wandering to an end at Gilgal.


The opening line is all about removing the Israelite's disgrace. It seems to me that a lot of this is involved with the shame/honor society they lived in. Can anyone out there explain this?

Mark in WI


From "The Dictionary of Bible and Religion" page 391.

Gilgal - The name of a number of towns and cities menioned in the OT, especially during the early Hebrew conquest under Joshua. THe name probably means "circle of stones," referring to religious monuments similar to the Druid Stonehenge. Each town so named most likely had such a stone circle.

There was Gilgal to the southeast of Jericho by the Jordan. Here twelve symbolic stones were set up to symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel. Jushua made camp at this place upon reaching the west bank of the Jordan River (Joshua 4:1-9, 20, 5:10). Later, at Gilgal the kingship of Saul was confirmed by the people (1 Sam 11:15). Still later, because he ran afoul of Samuel, Saul lost the throne at the same place. Hosea, AMos , and Micah all denounced currupt religious practices at Gilgal, although it was originally a shrine to Yahweh (Hos. 4:15, 9:15, 12:11, Amos 4:4, 5:5, Mic. 6:5).

Mark in WI


"Today": the surrounding context were about how all other nations were paralyzed when they heard the Israelite walk through Jordan as on dry land. With that, all of Israel went through circumcision to renew their covenant with God. "Gigal" was Hebrew for "roll".

There will be a day the long and tedious, monotonic manna will be over, when the token promise will be realized. God's providence of care move from the miraculous into the ordinary.

But in order to arrive, they must keep on going faithfully in the covenant.

How is this text fit into this week with other passages? The younger son keep pressing on until he arrived home? The older brother keep on faithfully working until he got the heart of the father? We keep on being an ambassador for Christ? We keep on confessing our sin until we are hidden in the grace and love of God?

Coho, Midway City.