The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho.
"God had said in his wrath that they should wander forty years in the wilderness, and at last he brought them into Canaan five days before the forty years were ended, to show how little pleasure God takes in punishing, how swift he is to show mercy. God ordered it so that they should enter Canaan four days before the annual solemnity of the passover, and on the very day when the preparation for it was to begin (Exod. xii. 3), because he would have them then to be reminded of their deliverance out of Egypt." [Note: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 216.] 