Joshua 4:19

And the people came up out of Jordan,.... The channel of it, to the shore: on the tenth [day] of the first month; the month Nisan or Abib, which from the time of Israel's coming out of Egypt was

And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.

The first month, to wit, of Nisan, which wanted but five days of forty years from the time of their coming out of Egypt, which was on the fifteenth day of this month; so punctual is God in the performing of his word, whether promised or threatened. And this day was very seasonable for the taking up of the lambs, which were to be used four days after, according to the law, ,6. Gilgal; a place so called hereafter upon a following occasion, . So here it is an anticipation.

Joshua 4:19 And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth [day] of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.Ver. 19. On the tenth day of the first month.]

EVENTS AT GILGAL (Joshua 4:19 to Joshua 5:12, inclusive). (19) On the tenth day of the first month.—Of the forty-first year after they left Egypt. Exactly forty years before, on the tenth day of the first month, (Exodus 12:5), they had been commanded to take them “a lamb for an house,” that they might keep the Passover. The forty years of the Exodus were now complete, and on the self-same day they passed over the last barrier, and entered the Promised Land.

Verse 19. On the tenth day of the first month] As the Israelites left Egypt on the fifteenth day of the first month, A.M. 2513, (see Exodus 14:1-31), and they entered into Canaan the tenth of the first month, A.M. 2553, it is evident that forty years, wanting five days, had elapsed from the time of their exodus from Egypt to their entrance into the promised inheritance. Encamped in Gilgal] That is, in the place that was afterwards called Gilgal, see Joshua 5:9; for here the name is given it by anticipation. In Hebrew, gal signifies to roll; and the doubling of the root, galgal or gilgal, signifies rolling round and round, or rolling off or away, because, in circumcising the children that had been born in the wilderness, Joshua rolled away, rolled off completely, the reproach of the people. From this time Gilgal became a place of considerable eminence in the sacred history. 1. It was the place where the Israelitish camp rested the first night of their entering into that land which had been promised to their fathers from the days of Abraham. 2. It was the place in which Joshua circumcised all the people who had been born in the wilderness, during the forty years of their wandering, after they left Egypt. 3. It was the place in which Joshua had what we might term his fortified camp, and to which he and his army constantly returned after each of their expeditions against the inhabitants of the land. 4. It appears to have been the place where all the women, children, cattle, and goods, &c., were lodged, probably during the whole of the Canaanitish war. 5. It was the place where they celebrated the first passover they kept in the promised land. 6. It was the place where Saul, the first king of Israel, was proclaimed. 7. There the manna ceased to fall. And, 8. There the ark was fixed till, after the conquest of the country, it was removed to Shiloh. Gilgal was about ten furlongs from Jericho, and fifty from Jordan: Jericho being on the west, and Jordan on the east, Gilgal being between both. See Josephus, De Bello, &c., lib. v., c. 4, and Calmet on this place. Calmet supposes there was neither city nor town here before the arrival of the Israelites.

19–24. Erection of the Monument at Gilgal 19. the tenth day of the first month] Notice the exactness of the narrative. The first month is elsewhere called Abib, i.e. “the month of green ears” (Exodus 13:4; Exodus 23:15; Deuteronomy 16:1), and subsequently “Nisan” (Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 3:7). encamped] The site was doubtless fortified by Joshua “as a frontier fortress, such as the Greeks under the name of epitichisma, and the Romans under the name of colonia, always planted as their advanced posts in a hostile country, such as at Kufa the Arab conquerors founded before the building of Bagdad, and at Fostal before the building of Cairo.” Stanley’s Lectures, p. 233. in Gilgal] situated apparently on a hillock or rising ground in the Arboth-Jericho, or, as it is rendered in our Version, “the plains of Jericho,” the more level district of the “Ghôr” which lay between the town and the river. We find Gilgal mentioned again, (a) in the time of Saul (1 Samuel 7:16; 1 Samuel 10:8), and (b) some sixty years later in the history of David’s return to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 19:15). The name is here mentioned by anticipation, Joshua 5:9.

Gilgal, mentioned here by anticipation (compare Joshua 5:9), the modern Jiljulieh (Conder), was on rising ground (compare Joshua 5:3), and, according to Josephus, nearly five miles from the river,

19. The tenth day of the first month — In Joshua 5:10, we learn that the passover, the anniversary of the Exodus, occurred on the fourteenth of the same month, so that there were forty years, wanting