Gilgal

At least three different places seem to to be called Gilgal in the OT. The most famous and most referred to is the site where Israel first made camp after they had, under the leadership of Joshua, crossed the River Jordan and into the Promised Land. Its location today is uncertain. Here, however, Israel set up twelve stones they had taken out of the river to memorialize their crossing (Jos 4:19-20). Here too the entire nation was circumcized (something the entire generation born during the days of their wandering in the wilderness had not been able to do). On that day, Yahweh reminded them that "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you"; they celebrated the Passover (Jos 5:9) and the provision of manna ceased (5:12).

Gilgal served afterwards as the base from which Joshua prosecuted the conquest of the Promised Land, beginning with Jericho which lay a short way west of it. The frequent repetition of "returning" to Gilgal suggests to Y. Kaufmann that Joshua's war aim was not first to occupy the land but to exterminate the enemies. "Joshua separates the wars entirely from the occupation of the territory. He keeps the people in camp [at Gilgal] for the whole duration of the war. No matter where the army fights, it always returns to the camp . . . He is compelled to prevent the people from occupying its portions until the end of the war, because he cannot be sure that he will be able to muster them for the general war if they are engaged in claiming land" (The Biblical Account of the Conquest of Palestine, 92).

As the wars proceeded, the Gibeonites came to Gilgal and, by false pretense, secured a treaty with Joshua that protected them from destruction. Jos 14:6 suggests also that it was at Gilgal, when much of the land had been subdued, that Joshua divided the land amongst the tribes. Gilgal seemed to have remained an important center in the life of Israel's early days in the land; references to to begin to taper of after the Samuel's time, though it remained an important point for fording the Jordan until later times (David used it on his return from the Transjordan after the revolt by Absalom was put down, 2 Sam 19:15, 40).

By the 8th Cent BC, Gilgal had become a center for idolatrous worship, an object of rebuke among the prophets (see, e.g., Hos 4:15; 9:15; 12:11; Amos 4:4; 5:5). Gilgal ceased to appear again in the annals of Israel's history from that point onwards.

Elijah and Elishah "were ont their way from Gilgal when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Ki 2:1; 4:38). This Gilgal appears to be near Bethel and may, therefore, have been an altogether different site. However, Bethel is not so far away from the the site mentioned above to demand that this was the case.

Two other references to Gilgal almost certainly refer to different sites but of the same name. There is, first, the Gilgal mentioned in Jos 15:7 as demarcating the borders of Judah ("The boundary then went up to Debir from the Valley of Achor and turned north to Gilgal, which faces the Pass of Adummim south of the gorge. It continued along to the waters of En Shemesh and came out at En Rogel"). Then there is the one referenced in Deut 11:30 and serving to demarcate Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (" As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, west of the road, {Or Jordan, westward} towards the setting sun, near the great trees of Moreh, in the territory of those Canaanites living in the Arabah in the vicinity of Gilgal"). This site is probably to be located near Shechem.