Joshua 5:9

5:9 The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have taken away the disgrace of Egypt from you.” So that place is called Gilgal even to this day.


tn Heb “rolled away.”

sn One might take the disgrace of Egypt as a reference to their uncircumcised condition (see Gen 34:14), but the generation that left Egypt was circumcised (see v. 5). It more likely refers to the disgrace they experienced in Egyptian slavery. When this new generation reached the promised land and renewed their covenantal commitment to the Lord by submitting to the rite of circumcision, the Lord’s deliverance of his people from slavery, which had begun with the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea, reached its climax. See T. C. Butler, Joshua (WBC), 59.

sn The name Gilgal sounds like the Hebrew verb “roll away” (גַּלַל, galal).