The cause — that, the Jordan being crossed, the Israelites were immediately circumcised — [namely] that alone great [cause] may seem sufficient, that the Lord so commanded (v. 2). But, first, this command [is] rather a renewal of the old precept given [in] Gen. 17, or a recall into memory—
(col. 508 — right column; printed “515”)
—[a recall into memory] was [it]. For now the cause ceased on account of which, in the earlier years in the desert, they had been excused from that ceremony. Secondly: the cloud was away — the admonisher and mistress of unhoped-for and least-expected departure; [there] was a land in which the foot [was] to be fixed; [there] was a camp, [which was] going to be in that place [for] so long, until [it] should [now] seem [good] to their leader Joshua. That old law of circumcision, therefore, began again to bind the Israelites. The time of year also admonished [them], that the Passover be celebrated; and [it] ought to be celebrated and eaten by no one except the circumcised (Exod. 12 v. 44 & 48). Thirdly: after so long a pilgrimage, when rest, and the possession promised of old by God, now began to be given, [it] was most just that from the Israelites themselves should begin also [the observance of] its law, [its] rites and all [its] ceremonies — insofar as [it] could be [done] — to be observed, as is prescribed (Deut. 12 v. 8, 9, 10, 11). But the chief and beginning of all those [ceremonies] is circumcision itself. Hence St. Paul (Gal. 5 v. 3): “I testify again to every man that circumcises himself, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.” In this land of promise, therefore — the pilgrimage now wholly finished, the Jordan crossed, the camp fixed and fortified, and monuments of stone of such great things established and most firmly agreed [set up] — circumcision, deservedly, becomes the auspice, and the foundation is, as it were, laid, of the divine worship thereafter to be kindled, perpetuated, and propagated there. Fourthly: for conciliating divine grace and help more and more, what could be more apt than that the first, most difficult, and most troublesome ceremony of religion of all should, after so great an interval, be recalled, and be begun at the very first time; and be imprinted on the bodies of all who hitherto had never experienced it, and be most deeply cut in? What sign could then be raised — against the superstitions, impurities, and gods of the Canaanites — more terrible and more efficacious? Fifthly: this command of God also kindled the minds of the Israelites, that they might most firmly trust [that] they would be victors over the enemies, and tamers and possessors of the whole land — when they saw themselves, of [God’s] own accord, roused up to reclaim from God himself the sign of [his] benevolence and adoption toward Abraham himself and his whole posterity. Finally: [it] did not befit [that] a region, in which all sanctity and religion ought to flourish, should — even for some few days — be polluted and defiled, by those who ought to be [its] first, as it were, sowers and cultivators, through the foreskin. For if the Lord was unwilling [that] Moses, the Master of piety, descend into Egypt with one of [his] sons uncircumcised, how would he gladly see [that] the first authors of establishing and propagating his worship in this land tarried [there] longer [as] uncircumcised? But of that [it] has been said in [my commentary on] Exodus. And indeed, for this cause, the Seventy here called the circumcision, [to signify it] in a manner, περικάθαρσιν [perikatharsin, “a purging-around”], or the [act of] circumcising itself περικαθαίρειν [perikathairein] — that is, as in St. Augustine (q. 6) [it] is translated, “to purge-around.” But this same question Masius proposes otherwise, thus (fol. 86): “But indeed a difficult question can be raised in this place: Why did not the Israelites rather determine to celebrate this ceremony of circumcision in the plains of Moab; or [why did] God [not] command that they celebrate [it] there; or, the two most powerful Kings [Sihon and Og] being conquered—
(col. 509 — left column; printed “516”)
—[they had not yet] gained sufficiently convenient leisure and security — especially since [it] seemed to accord and agree more with religion and the holy covenant, that they should not set foot into the sacred land [as] a possession, unless first circumcised. Then, when — from the causes which I have adduced — he [Masius] had set down the first, he subjoins three others (although the second of the same touches the third of mine), in these words: “But as concerns God’s counsel — which no edge of the human mind can attain by sufficiently sure conjecture, much less ever explain: he had appointed beforehand 40 years, in which the sons should bear the penalty of the defection of the parents in the wilderness, so that the years might correspond to the number of days in which the impious spies had roamed through Canaan [Num. 14:34]. And by ‘wilderness’ [he] called, as it seems, whatever places lay between Egypt and Canaan — [places] in which, as [it were] on a foreign soil, they had to live. So long, therefore, as that fault of defection was not yet expiated, the circumcision ought not to be celebrated — [it] which was a certain reconciliation of divine grace. Besides this, [it] was consonant that — since the circumcision was now, as it were, to be instituted anew — this be done in Canaan, a land dedicated to all sacred ceremonies, in which also the first circumcision had been divinely instituted and celebrated. Moreover, thus the foreshadowing better agreed with the fulfillment, [in] that Joshua in Canaan — not Moses in the plains of Moab — should perform that second circumcision. For the true Joshua, who was JESUS CHRIST, when he had been made commander and leader, began to initiate his people by a circumcision not made by hand [Col. 2:11], within Canaan.” With the first alone of those causes Abulensis is content (q. 60). St. Jerome, toward the end of bk. 1 of [his] Commentary on Galatians (ch. 3): “That the people is written [as] circumcised by JESUS, [as their] second leader, signifies both that circumcision ceased in the desert — which in Egypt was reasonably exercised — and that by the Lord JESUS CHRIST believers are to be cleansed by a spiritual circumcision.”