Joshua 5

The reading today covers four main things:

- The enemies of Israel who inhabited the promised land were stricken with fear by the Lord's miracle at the Jordan river

- The new generation of Israelite men were circumcised after crossing into the land, since their parents had not done that to them as children. I was rather surprised at this, as I thought the command given by God was to circumcise sons early in their lives - but perhaps either they had not had the proper tools or facilities to do so in the desert wanderings or they were just disobeying the Lord; or maybe the command just hadn't taken effect yet.

- The Israelites began eating produce from the land again, instead of God's manna; as soon as they did so the manna stopped.

- The "commander of the Lord's army" (verse 14) appeared to Joshua. This must have been an awesome sight, and I suspect that it was Jesus Himself pre-incarnate; why else would the ground Joshua was standing on have been holy (verse 15)? The only other time I recall this happening so far was Moses and the burning bush, which was clearly an instance of God appearing to him. I suppose that is actually another similarity between the early parts of Moses' and Joshua's service.