What Does Joshua 5:3 Mean in the King James?
And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Deliverance bears a cut here: Joshua, whose name carries “YHWH delivers,” leads the removal of a covering from the flesh.
THE MEANING
The verse shows Israel marked through removal: the foreskins are cut away with flint knives at a place named for the tissue removed. The image stays physical and sharp; Scripture uses this same word for a covering over the heart.
THE ROOT
הָעֲרָלוֹת
haʿărālôt
GROWS FROM
ערל
To be uncircumcised, with the foreskin covering.
“foreskins” in this verse is haʿărālôt. This Hebrew root describes both the foreskin and a person who remains uncircumcised; elsewhere, the same image names a covering over the heart. It holds bodily removal and inward obstruction together.
ALSO GROWS
ʿārēl: Uncircumcised; one still covered by the foreskin.
עָרֵל
The person is described by the covering that remains.
ʿorlah: Foreskin.
עָרְלָה
This is the bodily covering removed in the verse.
ʿorlat lev: Foreskin of the heart.
עָרְלַת לֵב
The same image reaches inward to name what covers the heart in Deuteronomy 10:16.
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
Deliver; bring out from constriction into spaciousness.
“Joshua” in this verse is Yehoshua. Yehoshua carries the name-nature “YHWH delivers.” The name of deliverance stands beside an act of removal: here, a covering is cut away from the flesh.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: Deliver; bring out.
יָשַׁע
This root is carried in Joshua’s name and gives it its nature of deliverance.
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
The noun makes explicit the deliverance held within the root of Joshua’s name.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses circumcision’s removal of flesh as an image for removing a covering over the heart.
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.THE THREAD
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.The same Hebrew word for foreskin, עָרְלָה (ʿorlah), appears in the phrase “foreskin of your heart.” Joshua 5:3 keeps the act bodily and literal; Deuteronomy lets that same image name a covering over the heart.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us