[It] was said above (quaest. 4) why the Israelites were circumcised immediately after the crossing of the Jordan; now the day [is] to be investigated. And, first indeed, [it] must have been done before the 14th day of the same month; because, as will be said below, on that very day at evening they kept the Passover, and they could not keep [it] unless circumcised (Exod. 12). Then, [it] could not be done on the day before the Passover itself, nor on the day-before-that — that is, neither on the 13th nor on the 12th day of the same month. Because the pain of circumcision — and indeed that [pain] which most tortures and weakens on the third [day] — would have fallen upon the Jews’ paschal joy; that is, the third day from the circumcision (Gen. 34). Thirdly: [it] was not done on the 10th day of the same month, because on that [day], as we saw above, they came into that station where they then were [only] after midday — and indeed with the sun now sinking; and they were then occupied in pitching the camp, erecting the tents, and other like [things], [and] also in the setting-up of the 12 stones, of which before.
(col. 518 — right column; printed “525”)
Fourthly: the circumcision, therefore, was done on this eleventh day of the first month. For if [it] was done after the crossing of the Jordan, [and] before the 14th day of the month, yet not on the 10th, 12th, [or] 13th — therefore [on] the 11th. But was the whole [circumcision] completed on that day? Abulensis denies [it] (quaest. 7): “On one day,” he says, “[it] could not be completed, since [there] would be so many thousands of Israelites to be circumcised.” Yet, from the [things] which were said (quaest. 6 & 7), all could be circumcised not only on one and the same day, but in one and the same hour, almost. For how easily, and how swiftly, could one and the same [man] cut three, four, or six men — especially young men and youths and adolescents, who could present and steady themselves for receiving that token? And if each of those who were already circumcised did this, the whole thing was most expeditious, as was made plain in the same place. [It] happened that those who were circumcised not on the same 11th day, but in some part of the 12th day — for example, in the morning hours — would immediately, on the 14th [day] toward midday, be sound and strong; as [it were] precisely, as soon as the last hour of the third day from the circumcision had passed, all pain and infirmity would depart. But if the circumcision was done in all [of them] on the 11th day, [there] was, for all of them, after the third day of the circumcision, a whole night, and almost the whole following 14th day, in which they might refresh themselves for celebrating the Passover, and strengthen their strength [now] languid from that pain, as is said (v. 8). If [there] was any delay on the 11th day, [it] would have been wholly in preparing those stone knives. But neither in this was [there] a great delay, since both [there] was no lack of stones to them, and those knives had to be fitting only for necessary use — not, however, elegant and polished; and [that] they abounded in such knives rather than in iron [ones], Theodoret said above (quaest. 7).
So then [it] was done. When Joshua had risen early in the morning according to custom, and was holily offering prayers to his God, he was commanded by him to circumcise the uncircumcised with stone knives. He straightway promulgated the divine will to all; and most swiftly the knives [were] sought and made; most swiftly, with great feeling of piety and [with] attestation, all [were] circumcised. And then [there is] a half-shekel [coin] with the inscription “The time of circumcision,” as Villalpandus discusses (bk. 2, Apparatus, On weights, disput. 4, ch. 27).