67.
Gilgal was the first camp Israel made after crossing the Jordan river. Jordan is a type of death and resurrection. Circumcision a type of the putting off of the flesh and its old nature. It was on the tenth day of the month Abib, which was the first month of the Levitical year. They were about to enter a new land and a new life. What more significant time could the Lord have chosen for them in their new beginnings but the Passover time. The feast of Passover, which they kept that fourteenth day of that first month. Josh. 5:10 Symbolically they went through death and resurrection and severance from the old nature. All in preparation for their new life in the promised land. In the process of salvation the new testament Christian follows the same pattern. A further evidence of the start of a new life was in the fact that the manna ceased to descend on the day after the day of Passover. Josh. 5:12 There were some very positive events which occurred at Gilgal.
Gilgal became a place of extreme idol worship. The Lord warned Judah to stay away from Gilgal and not to visit the city. Hos. 4:15 The center, the very heart of wickedness was located at Gilgal. So great were their trespasses that the Lord was moved to speak of His hatred of those who partook of their vile and wicked deeds. He promised that He would drive them from His house. Hos. 9:15-16 Gilgal had become the city of wickedness because of the idolatry of the people. They were so proud in their worship that they had become desolate and vain in their religion. Their altars were equal to the stacks of stones gathered by each farmer and stacked in the field. Their offerings were numerically great. Gilgal was covered with altars and places of vain sacrifices. Hos. 12:11 The Lord had a controversy with Gilgal and it became a city destined for punishment. Amos spoke of the hand of the Lord being against them and the subsequent events which had and would transpire. Amos 4:4-12.
So exasperating had the Israelites become that the Lord was led to declare that He would love them no more. Their iniquity had extinguished any feeling of compassion that He may have had for them. They had reached the ultimacy of sin and rejection of the true and living God. Their leaders were in constant revolt against the will of the Lord. Hos. 10:15 Ephraim, even to the roots had dried up. The promise of the Lord also included the death of those who were born of Ephraim. The Lord so loathed them because of their spiritual rebellion and false worship that Hosea said that the Lord would cast them away. They were to disappear and no longer exist as a nation. Therefore the would become wanderers, nomads, driven away from the presence of the Lord and scattered among the nations of the world. Hos. 9:17.