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Joshua 5

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1 It happened, when all the kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, who were by the sea, heard how that Yahweh had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we had passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.

2 At that time, Yahweh said to Joshua, "Make flint knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time."

3 Joshua made himself flint knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins.

4 This is the reason Joshua circumcised: all the people who came out of Egypt, who were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt.

5 For all the people who came out were circumcised; but all the people who were born in the wilderness by the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

6 For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, even the men of war who came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they didn't listen to the voice of Yahweh. Yahweh swore to them that he wouldn't let them see the land which Yahweh swore to their fathers that he would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

7 Their children, whom he raised up in their place, were circumcised by Joshua; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them on the way.

8 It happened, when they were done circumcising all the nation, that they stayed in their places in the camp until they were healed.

9 Yahweh said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you." Therefore the name of that place was called Gilgal, to this day.

10 The children of Israel encamped in Gilgal. They kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho.

11 They ate unleavened cakes and parched grain of the produce of the land on the next day after the Passover, in the same day.

12 The manna ceased on the next day, after they had eaten of the produce of the land. The children of Israel didn't have manna any more; but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

13 It happened, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood in front of him with his sword drawn in his hand. Joshua went to him, and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?"

14 He said, "No; but I have come now as commander of Yahweh's army." Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshipped, and said to him, "What does my lord say to his servant?"

15 The prince of Yahweh's army said to Joshua, "Take your shoes off of your feet; for the place on which you stand is holy." Joshua did so.

   

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Time

  

Time is an aspect of the physical world, but it is not an aspect of the spiritual world. The same is true of space: There is no space in heaven. This is hard for us to grasp or even visualize, because we live in physical bodies with physical senses that are filled with physical elements existing in time and space. Our minds are schooled and patterned in terms of time and space, and have no reference point to imagine a reality without them. Consider how you think for a second. In your mind you can immediately be in your past or in some speculative future; in your mind you can circle the globe seeing other lands and faraway friends, or even zoom instantly to the most distant stars. Such imaginings are insubstantial, of course, but if we could make them real we would be getting close to what spiritual reality is like. Indeed, the mind is like a spiritual organ, which may be why physicians and philosophers have had such a hard time juxtaposing its functions to those of the brain. What this means in the Bible is that descriptions of time -- hours, days, weeks, months, years and even simply the word "time" itself -- represent spiritual states, and the passing of time represents the change of spiritual states. Again, we can see this a little bit within our minds. If we imagine talking to one friend then talking to another, it feels like going from one place to another, even though we're not moving. The same is true if we picture a moment from childhood and then imagine something in the future; it feels like a movement through time even though it's instantaneous. Changing our state of mind feels like a physical change in space and time. The Bible simply reverses that, with marking points in space and time representing particular states of mind.