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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Joshua 5:10 - 5:10
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The Passover at Gilgal. - When the whole nation had been received again into covenant with the Lord by circumcision, they kept the passover, which had no doubt been suspended from the time that they left Sinai (Num 9:1.), on the 14th of the month (Nisan), in the evening (according to the law in Exo 12:6, Exo 12:18; Lev 23:5; Num 28:16; Deu 16:6). The next day, i.e., on the 16th, or the day after the first feast-day, they ate unleavened loaves and parched corn (“roasted grains,” see at Lev 2:14) of the produce of the land (עָבוּר,
(Note: Rendered “old corn” in the Eng. version.)
which only occurs in Jos 5:11 and Jos 5:12, is synonymous with תְּבוּאָה
(Note: Rendered fruit in our version.)
in Jos 5:12), i.e., corn that had grown in the land of Canaan, as the manna entirely ceased from this day forwards. “The morrow after the passover” is used in Num 33:3 for the 15th Nisan; but here it must be understood as signifying the 16th, as the produce of the land, of which they ate not only on that day, but, according to Jos 5:12, throughout that year, cannot mean the corn of the previous year, but the produce of this same year, i.e., the new corn, and they were not allowed to eat any of that till it had been sanctified to the Lord by the presentation of the wave sheaf on the second day of the passover (Lev 23:11). According to Lev 23:11, the presentation was to take place on the day after the Sabbath, i.e., the first day of the feast of Mazzoth, which was kept as a Sabbath, or the 16th of Nisan, as the seven days' feast of Mazzoth commenced on the 15th (Lev 23:6; Num 28:17). “On the morrow after the passover” is the same as “on the morrow after the Sabbath” in Lev 23:11, the term passover being used here not in its original and more restricted sense, in which it applies exclusively to the observance of the paschal meal, which took place on the evening of the 14th, and is expressly distinguished from the seven days' feast of Mazzoth (Exo 12:23, Exo 12:27; Lev 23:5; Num 28:16), but in the broader sense, which we have already met with in Deu 16:2, in which the name was gradually extended to the whole of the seven days' feast. The writer assumed that the facts themselves were already well known from the Mosaic law, and therefore did not think it necessary to give any fuller explanation. Moreover, the words, “they did eat of the fruit of the land,” etc., are not to be understood as signifying that they began to eat unleavened bread for the first time on the 16th Nisan (they had already eaten is as an accompaniment to the paschal lamb); but unleavened bread of the produce of the land, the green corn of that year, was what they ate for the first time on that day. Especial prominence is given to this by the words, “in the self-same day,” because not only did the eating of the new corn commence on that day, but from that day forward “the children of Israel had manna no more.” This statement is evidently related to Exo 16:35, and must be understood, according to that passage, as merely signifying, that on that day the gift of the manna entirely ceased (see Pentateuch, pp. 366ff.).