Joshua 5:5

Green's Literal Translation

For all the people who had come out were circumcised. And all the people who were born in the wilderness, in the way, as they came out from Egypt, had not been circumcised.

Parallel Translations

Legacy Standard Bible
For all the people who came out were circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness along the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
For all the people who came out were circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness along the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For all the people that came out, were circumcised: but al the people that were borne in the wildernes by the way after they came out of Egypt were not circumcised.

Revised Standard Version
Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people that were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

World English Bible
For all the people who came out were circumcised; but all the people who were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, they had not circumcised.

King James Version (1611)
Now all the people that came out, were circumcised, but all the people that were borne in the wildernesse by the way, as they came foorth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised.

King James Version
Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
for all the people that came forth, were circumcysed. But all the people that were borne in ye wyldernesse by the waye (after they departed out of Egipte) were not circumcysed:

American Standard Version
For all the people that came out were circumcised; but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, they had not circumcised.

Bible in Basic English
All the people who came out had undergone circumcision; but all the people whose birth had taken place in the waste land on their journey from Egypt had not.

Update Bible Version
For all the people that came out were circumcised; but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, they had not circumcised.

Webster's Bible Translation
Now all the people that came out were circumcised; but all the people [that were] born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth from Egypt, [them] they had not circumcised.

New English Translation
Now all the men who left were circumcised, but all the sons born on the journey through the desert after they left Egypt were uncircumcised.

New King James Version
For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness, on the way as they came out of Egypt, had not been circumcised.

Complete Jewish Bible
For although all the people who left Egypt had been circumcised, all those who had been born in the desert on the way as they went on from Egypt had not been circumcised;

Darby Translation
For all the people that came out were circumcised; but all the people that were born in the wilderness on the way, after they came out of Egypt, [them] had they not circumcised.

Geneva Bible (1587)
For all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were borne in the wildernes by the way after they came out of Egypt, were not circumcised.

George Lamsa Translation
Because all the people who came out had been circumcised; but all the people that were born in the wilderness during the journey after they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

Amplified Bible
All the males who came out were circumcised, but all the males who were born in the wilderness on the way as they left Egypt had not been circumcised.

Hebrew Names Version
For all the people who came out were circumcised; but all the people who were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Mitzrayim, they had not circumcised.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
For all the people that came out were circumcised; but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, had not been circumcised.

New Living Translation
Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus, during the years in the wilderness, had been circumcised.

New Life Bible
All the people who came out went through this religious act. But all the people who were born in the desert on the way from Egypt had not gone through this religious act.

New Revised Standard
Although all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people born on the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
all these Joshua circumcised; for forty and two years Israel wondered in the wilderness of Mabdaris—

English Revised Version
For all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, they had not circumcised.

Berean Standard Bible
Though all who had come out were circumcised, none of those born in the wilderness on the journey from Egypt had been circumcised.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For, though all the people who came forth had been circumcised, yet, all the people who were born in the desert by the way, after they came forth out of Egypt, had they not circumcised.

Lexham English Bible
For all the people who left were circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness on the journey after they left from Egypt were not circumcised.

English Standard Version
Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

New American Standard Bible
For all the people who came out were circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness along the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

New Century Version
The men who had come out of Egypt had been circumcised, but none of those who were born in the desert on the trip from Egypt had been circumcised.

Christian Standard Bible®
Though all the people who came out were circumcised, none of the people born in the wilderness along the way were circumcised after they had come out of Egypt.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
whiche alle weren circumsidid. Sotheli the puple that was borun in deseert bi fourti yeer, in the weie of broddeste wildirnesse, was vncircumsidid til thei weren waastid, that herden not the `vois of the Lord, and to whiche he swoor bifore, that he schulde schewe to hem the lond flowynge with mylk and hony.

Young's Literal Translation
for all the people who are coming out were circumcised, and all the people who [are] born in the wilderness, in the way, in their coming out from Egypt, they have not circumcised;

Contextual Overview

¹ And it happened, when all the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan, toward the sea, and all the kings of the Canaanites which were by the sea, heard how Jehovah dried up the waters of theJordan before the sons of Israel, until theycrossed over, their heart was melted. And there was not any more spirit in them before the sons of Israel. ² At that time Jehovah said to Joshua, Make for yourself flint knives, and again circumcise the sons of Israel, the second time. ³ And Joshua made flint knives for himself, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. ⁴ And this is the reason Joshua circumcised: All the people who had come out of Egypt, who were males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness, in the way, as they came out of Egypt. ⁵ For all the people who had come out were circumcised. And all the people who were born in the wilderness, in the way, as they came out from Egypt, had not been circumcised. ⁶ For the sons of Israel had walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who had come out of Egypt were consumed, those who did not listen to the voice of Jehovah, to whom Jehovah had sworn to them not toshow them the land which Jehovah swore to their fathers, to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey; these were consumed. ⁷ And He raised their sons up in their place. Joshua circumcised them, for they had been uncircumcised; for they had not been circumcised in the way. ⁸ And it happened, when all the nation had finished being circumcised, they remained in their places in the camp until they revived. ⁹ And Jehovah said to Joshua, Today I have rolled the reproach of Egypt off of you. And he called the name of that place Gilgal to this day.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

they had not: Deuteronomy 12:8, Deuteronomy 12:9, Hosea 6:6, Hosea 6:7, Matthew 12:7, Romans 2:26, 1 Corinthians 7:19, Galatians 5:6, Galatians 6:15

Cross-References

Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until your return to the ground. For you have been taken out of it; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Genesis 5:7
And after he fathered Enos, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

Genesis 5:8
And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years And he died.

Genesis 5:10
After he fathered Cainan, Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

Genesis 5:11
And all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years. And he died.

Genesis 5:12
And Cainan lived seventy years and fathered Mahalaleel.

Genesis 5:14
And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years. And he died.

Genesis 5:21
And Enoch lived sixty five years and fathered Methuselah.

Genesis 5:22
And Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he fathered Methuselah. And he fathered sons and daughters.

Genesis 5:32
And Noah was five hundred years old. And Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Now all the people that came out were circumcised,.... All that came out of Egypt, and males, were circumcised, whether under or above twenty years of age; for though it is possible all were circumcised before they came out of Egypt, which favours the opinion of Dr. Lightfoot, that they might be circumcised during the three nights' darkness of the Egyptians, when they could take no advantage of it, as Levi and Simeon did of the Shechemites; and which seems more probable than that it should be on the night they came out of Egypt, when many must have been unfit for travelling, and seems preferable to that of their being circumcised at Mount Sinai, which was a year after their coming out of Egypt:

but all the people [that were] born in the wilderness by the way, as they came forth out of Egypt, [them] they had not circumcised; the reasons of which neglect; :-. The phrase, "by the way", seems to point at the true reason of it, at least to countenance the reason there given, which was on account of their journey; that is, their stay at any place being uncertain and precarious; so the Jews say z, because of the affliction or trouble of journeying, the Israelites did not circumcise their children. This is to be understood of all males only born in the wilderness, they only being the subjects of circumcision.

z Pirke Eliezer, ut supra. (c. 29.)

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Of the whole nation those only were already circumcised at the time of the passage of the Jordan who had been under twenty years of age at the time of the complaining and consequent rejection at Kadesh (compare the marginal reference). These would have been circumcised before they left Egypt, and there would still survive of them more than a quarter of a million of thirty-eight years old and upward.

The statements of these verses are of a general kind. The “forty years” of Joshua 5:6 is a round number, and the statement in the latter part of Joshua 5:5 cannot be strictly accurate. For there must have been male children born in the wilderness during the first year after the Exodus, and these must have been circumcised before the celebration of the Passover at Sinai in the first month of the second year (compare Numbers 9:1-5, and Exodus 12:48). The statements of the verses are, however, sufficiently close to the facts for the purpose in hand; namely, to render a reason for the general circumcising which is here recorded.

The reason why circumcision was omitted in the wilderness, was that the sentence of Numbers 14:28 ff placed the whole nation for the time under a ban; and that the discontinuance of circumcision, and the consequent omission of the Passover, was a consequence and a token of that ban. The rejection was not, indeed, total, for the children of the complainers were to enter into the rest; nor final, for when the children had borne the punishment of the fathers’ sins for the appointed years, and the complainers were dead, then it was to be removed, as now by Joshua. But for the time the covenant was abrogated, though God’s purpose to restore it was from the first made known, and confirmed by the visible marks of His favor which He still vouchsafed to bestow during the wandering. The years of rejection were indeed exhausted before the death of Moses (compare Deuteronomy 2:14): but God would not call upon the people to renew their engagement to Him until He had first given them glorious proof of His will and power to fulfill His engagements to them. So He gave them the first fruits of the promised inheritance - the kingdoms of Sihon and Og; and through a miracle planted their feet on the very soil that still remained to be conquered; and then recalled them to His covenant. It is to be noted, too, that they were just about to go to war against foes mightier than themselves. Their only hope of success lay in the help of God. At such a crisis the need of full communion with God would be felt indeed; and the blessing and strength of it are accordingly granted.

The revival of the two great ordinances - circumcision and the Passover - after so long an intermission could not but awaken the zeal and invigorate the faith and fortitude of the people. Both as seals and as means of grace and God’s good purpose toward them then, the general circumcision of the people, followed up by the solemn celebration of the Passover - the one formally restoring the covenant and reconciling them nationally to God, the other ratifying and confirming all that circumcision intended - were at this juncture most opportune.