That place is called by two names. For in the preceding chapter (ch. 4 v. 19), as was noted there (q. 4), and here (v. 9), the place in which the camp [was] now placed and that circumcision made, in the Hebrew text and in Josephus (bk. 5 ch. 1) is called Galgal, and in the Greek and Latin Galgala; sometimes also, in the Seventy, πολγόλ [polgol] (Deut. ch. 11 v. 30), and in Eusebius (in the book On Hebrew Places). But why [it] is [so] called, the cause is also here handed down: because the Lord had taken away — or rolled away — the reproach of Egypt from the Israelites (of what kind that [reproach] is, will be opened below). But Galgal comes from galal, which means “to roll,” or “to roll away,” and “to remove” — as [we saw] above (q. 7) [that] a certain one of the Poets used that same verb in the cutting-off of the shameful parts. So that Galgal is the place—
(col. 519 — left column; printed “526”)
—[the place] of rolling-down, of taking-away, and of removal. But to Lyra, Galgal [is] a wheel, or a circling — “because the little skin,” he says, “which is cut off by circumcision, has a circular figure.” Ridiculously! And the [meaning] which I adduced, and which our Translator embraced — nay, which the text clearly demonstrates — is confirmed by Psalm 118 [119]: “Take away from me reproach and contempt” [Ps 119:22]. For [there] too, in those words, [is] the verb gal. And therefore neither [is] that [etymology] to be praised in Chytraeus — [that] the name of Galgala arose because Joshua, from this camp as [it were] a fixed station, subdued and conquered all the neighboring nations round about, and, as [it were] by circling-around, crushed [them]. But Josephus (in the indicated place): σημαίνει… τὸ ἐλευθέριον ὄνομα [sēmainei… to eleutherion onoma] — “this name signifies,” he says, “him who is free.” Which [interpretation] utterly displeases Abulensis (q. 62) and Masius — so that this [Masius] reckons that it proceeded from the ignorance of Josephus, and of his age, in Hebrew letters. “I know not,” he says, “what came into Josephus’s mind, that he should say Galgal signifies liberty. But [there] are, in that man — otherwise great and most learned — six hundred [such things], from which you may understand how great, in that age, [was] the unfamiliarity and ignorance of the Hebrew tongue.” Thus Masius; with whom also Calvin [says] thus: “That Josephus interprets [it] ‘liberty’ is vain and ridiculous. Whence [it] appears [that he was] no less ignorant of the Hebrew tongue than of legal science.” Yet against these [men] concerning [Josephus’s] ignorance I would not now litigate; but [I] think, nevertheless, [that] Josephus here explained not the proper and immediate notion of this word, but that [notion] which he thought [was] here handed down by the Lord, when [the Lord] said (v. 9): “This day I have taken away the reproach of Egypt from you.” For he [Josephus] reckoned [that] this “reproach” [was] that most bitter servitude and calamity by which — in Egypt, and, in the departure from it, through the vastness of the wilderness — they had been afflicted. Because, therefore, the Lord had taken this away, he had endowed them with most delightful rest and liberty. And so [it] is nearly the same, [whether] the name imposed on this place [be reckoned] from the taking-away of servitude, [or] from liberty. And this too I gather from Theodoret (q. 3), who follows Josephus. And therefore the same Josephus adds: διαβάντες γὰρ τὸν ποταμὸν… [diabantes gar ton potamon…] — that is, “For when they had crossed the river, they knew themselves now free from the misery of the Egyptians, and from that which they had endured in the desert.” And in nearly the same manner, in Pausanias (bk. 2), mention is made of τῆς ἡλικίας ἐλευθερίας [tēs hēlikias eleutherias, “the liberty of [that] age”]. But who imposed this name on this place [it] seems, in the Hebrew and Greek, to be said [to be] the same [one] who also had said to Joshua “I have taken away the reproach” — that is, GOD. Yet [it] could also be understood [to be] he to whom the Lord was speaking — that is, Joshua himself. Nay, [it] can be understood [as] the whole multitude of the Israelites themselves, and their [common] usage. For the Hebrew verb ויקרא [wayyiqra], “and he called,” is often — says Masius — set down without a person to whom [it] attaches. And therefore perhaps our [translator] rendered [it] (v. 9) as [it were] indefinitely: “And the name of that place was called Galgala.” Finally, when the name of this place was set down above (ch. 4 v. 19 & 20), [it] must be known [that this was] done by prolepsis [anticipation]. For since the circumcision was not yet done, neither were those words “I have taken away the reproach” yet pronounced by the Lord — just as the Poet said of his Aeneas (bk. 1):
“[Aeneas,] a fugitive by fate, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores” [Aen. 1.2–3]
(col. 520 — right column; printed “527”)
—which [shores], however, had the name of the Laurentine field, not that which they at last obtained from Lavinia, the daughter of King Latinus (concerning whom [in] bk. 7), whom he [Aeneas] afterward married. But the other name of the same place is [at] v. 3: in Hebrew, gibʿath ha-ʿaraloth [גִּבְעַת הָעֲרָלוֹת]; in the Seventy, βουνὸς τῶν ἀκροβυστιῶν [bounos tōn akrobustiōn] — that is, “the hill of the foreskins,” concerning which, on ערל [ʿarel], Pagninus [speaks]. Basely, through unfamiliarity with the Hebrew tongue, Calepinus was deceived (on Joshua 5 v. 3), who, for “on the hill” [in colle], reads “in the cabbage” [in cole]. Now the reason of this name Rabbi Levi assigns: that a certain hill was raised up from the multitude of the cut-off foreskins. But others say [that] the hill was there already before, but — because the cut-off foreskins were cast into it, or (as Abulensis will have [it]) buried [there] — they prefer [it] to be so called; and that the Chaldaean also indicates. Of that little addition, “unto the present day,” [it] was said in the second Prolegomenon of the book. St. Jerome, in the book On Hebrew Places, when he described Golgola: “It fell,” he says, “into the lot of the tribe of Judah; and to this day [there] is shown a desert place at the second milestone from Jericho, held with wondrous veneration by the mortals of that region.”