Gilgal—what a picturesque name for the turning point in the history of the nation of Israel!
Joshua 5 begins: “when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted” (v 1). At this point, after all the evidence the Lord had given of His power to annihilate the gods of Egypt, He has now removed this natural barrier—the river Jordan in flood. The Amorites and Canaanites know for sure that they are fighting against the true God. Did the Lord capitalize on this situation by immediately attacking? No, there was more important work to be done! At the Israelite base camp, the Lord instructed Joshua that it was time for a mass surgery because “all the people born in the wilderness…had not been circumcised” (v 5). Remember, this was God’s mark declaring His claim on His people. And do you see what this meant? As the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you” (v 9). The Hebrew gilgal is the word for a wheel, thus “to roll away.” Once the Jordan rolled back, with the people safely on the western side, they were cut off, as it were, no longer associated with Egypt. To commemorate, we read they “kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight” (v 10). It had been forty long years since the Passover had been kept that fateful night in Egypt. The adults now were the children then who had seen the blood on the doorposts. The God who had hovered over them to protect them from the Destroyer had now brought them into the Land. In a similar way, God’s people today should gather often to remember, in the Lord’s Supper, the Lamb of God who bore our sins away.