This [is] my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
10. shall be circumcised ] The rite of circumcision, which is here given as the symbol of the covenant with Abraham and his seed, was no new institution. In Abraham’s time it was already a well-known practice. It is adopted as the sign of the covenant, and consecrated to be the abiding pledge and witness of the relationship between the God who revealed Himself to Abraham and the people of which Abraham was the founder.
Circumcision is found to have been practised among the peoples of Africa at a very early time. In Egypt records of the practice are said to go back to an age many centuries previous to the time of Abraham. From Egypt it is said to have been transmitted into Phoenicia and Syria (see Herodotus, ii. 114). From the present account it is clear that the Israelites believed the institution to have had its origin in the patriarchal era. We learn from Jer 9:25-26 that it was practised by Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites, as well as by Egyptians and Israelites.
The custom is prevalent in very different parts of the world. For instance, it is found in S. Africa and in Madagascar.
It very possibly has some connexion with the cuttings and tattooings by which the savage avowed his relationship to the Deity of his tribe, and hoped to secure his favour by wearing his sign. Hence it took rank with the distinctive badges of a tribe or people.
Recent investigation has not tended to support the theory that circumcision has any connexion with primitive child sacrifice; nor, again, that it took its origin from hygienic motives. Apparently, it represents the dedication of the manhood of the people to God. In the history of Israel, it has survived as the symbol of the people belonging to Jehovah through His special election. Its significance in Israel is something quite distinct from that in other circumcised peoples. This corporeal sacrament remained to the Israelite, when every other tie of religion or race had been severed.
For its renewal ( a) in the time of Moses, ( b) in the time of Joshua, see Exo 4:25; Jos 5:2. In both of these passages the use of a stone, or flint, instrument possibly represents the survival of the rite from an age of remotest antiquity, before the introduction of metal.
For circumcision as an honourable badge, the absence of which would be regarded as a reproach in Egypt, see Jos 5:7-9. The alleged omission of the Philistines to practise this rite (Jdg 14:3; 1Sa 31:4; 2Sa 1:20) may possibly be due to their foreign origin.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 10. Every man – child – shall be circumcised.] Those who wish to invalidate the evidence of the Divine origin of the Mosaic law, roundly assert that the Israelites received the rite of circumcision from the Egyptians. Their apostle in this business is Herodotus, who, lib. ii., p. 116, Edit. Steph. 1592, says: “The Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians, are the only nations in the world who have used circumcision , from the remotest period; and the Phoenicians and Syrians who inhabit Palestine acknowledge they received this from the Egyptians.” Herodotus cannot mean Jews by Phoenicians and Syrians; if he does he is incorrect, for no Jew ever did or ever could acknowledge this, with the history of Abraham in his hand. If Herodotus had written before the days of Abraham, or at least before the sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt, and informed us that circumcision had been practised among them , from the beginning, there would then exist a possibility that the Israelites while sojourning among them had learned and adopted this rite. But when we know that Herodotus flourished only 484 years before the Christian era, and that Jacob and his family sojourned in Egypt more than 1800 years before Christ, and that all the descendants of Abraham most conscientiously observed circumcision, and do so to this day, then the presumption is that the Egyptians received it from the Israelites, but that it was impossible the latter could have received it from the former, as they had practised it so long before their ancestors had sojourned in Egypt.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Circumcision is here called the covenant by a usual metonomy, because it is the condition, sign, and seal of the covenant, the pledge of Gods promise and mans duty. And upon the same grounds the cup, i.e. the wine, is called the new testament in Christs blood, Luk 22:20; or, which is all one, Christs blood in the new testament, Mat 26:28.
It is evident that women as well as men were comprehended in this covenant, from Gen 34:14; Exo 12:3,4; Joe 2:15,16. Yet circumcision is given only to the males, partly, because it could not, at least not conveniently, be administered to females; partly, because man is the principal cause of the propagation of children, and consequently of the propagation of that original corruption which cleaves to them; partly, to signify that all persons begotten by man should be polluted by sin, though not all conceived by a woman, as Christ was; and partly, because man is the head of the woman, and of the family, upon whom all their concerns are devolved, and from whom the distinction of families and people comes.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. Every man child among you shallbe circumcisedThis was the sign in the Old Testament Church asbaptism is in the New, and hence the covenant is called “covenantof circumcision” (Act 7:8;Rom 4:11). The terms of thecovenant were these: on the one hand Abraham and his seed were toobserve the right of circumcision; and on the other, God promised, inthe event of such observance, to give them Canaan for a perpetualpossession, to be a God to him and his posterity, and that in him andhis seed all nations should be blessed.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
This [is] my covenant,…. The token of it, for the promise itself was given before, which is more properly the covenant; circumcision is so called in an improper sense, being only the sign of it:
which ye shall keep between me and you, and thy seed after thee; which was to be observed by Abraham, and the males in his house then with him, as Ishmael, and those that were born in his house, or bought with his money, and by his posterity in succeeding ages, and it is what follows:
every man child among you shall be circumcised; this was the first institution of circumcision, and it was an institution of God, and not of man. Indeed Herodotus says m, that
“the Colchi, Egyptians, and Ethiopians only of all men circumcised from the beginning; and the Phoenicians and Syrians, which are in Palestine, learnt it of the Egyptians, as they themselves confess.”
So Diodorus Siculus n speaks of circumcision as an Egyptian rite, and says there are some who make the nation of the Colchi, and of the Jews, to come from the Egyptians: hence he observes, that with these nations there is an ancient tradition to circumcise their newborn infants, which rite was derived from the Egyptians: but as the original of the Jewish nation is mistaken, so likewise the original this rite. And they may as well be thought to be mistaken in the one as in the other. Those in Palestine that were circumcised were the Jews only, as Josephus o observes; but they did not learn this rite from the Egyptians, nor do they ever confess it, but on the contrary suggest, that the Egyptians learnt it from them in the times of Joseph; for their principal lexicographer says p, the Egyptians were circumcised in the times of Joseph, and when Joseph died they drew over the foreskin of the flesh. The Colchi indeed, who were a colony of the Egyptians, might learn it from them; and so the Ethiopians, who were their neighbours likewise, and agreed with them in many things. Artapanus q, an Heathen writer, says, indeed, that the Ethiopians, though enemies, had such a regard for Moses, that they learned from him the rite of circumcision; and not only they, but all the priests, that is, in Egypt; and indeed the Egyptian priests only, and not the people, were circumcised. It is not very difficult to account for it, how other nations besides the Jews should receive circumcision, which was first enjoined Abraham and his seed; the Ishmaelites had it from Ishmael the son of Abraham; from them the old Arabs; from the Arabs, the Saracens; and from the Saracens, the Turks to this day: other Arabian nations, as the Midianites, and others, had it from the sons of Abraham by Keturah; and perhaps the Egyptians and Ethiopians from them, if the former had it not from the Israelites; and the Edomites had it from Edom or Esau, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham; so that all originally had it from Abraham, and he by a divine command. It is not so much to be wondered at, that Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, men either imposed upon by the Egyptian priests, as the former, or wrote in favour of that nation, as the latter, and wholly ignorant of divine revelation, should assert what they have done; but that Christian writers, who have the advantage of divine revelation, and have read the history of the Bible, such as Marsham, Spencer, and Le Clerc, should incline to the same sentiment, is amazing; and especially when our blessed Lord has expressly said in Joh 7:22, that circumcision is “of the fathers”, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, first given to them, and practised by them. Even Theodotus s, an Heathen writer, agrees with this sacred testimony of Moses, when speaking of the circumcision of Shechem, in the times of Jacob, he traces this rite to its original, and observes, that when Abraham was brought out of his own country, he was ordered “from heaven” to circumcise every man in his house. It may indeed seem strange how it should obtain in the islands of the West Indies, as in Jucatana, Sancta Crux, and others, where the Spaniards found in the beginning of the sixteenth century those isles inhabited by idolaters, who were circumcised t.
m Euterpe sive, l. 2. c. 104. n Bibliothec. l. 4. p. 24. & l. 3. p. 165. o Contr Apion. l. 1. c. 22. p Raal Aruch in Rad. fol. 91. 1. q Apud Euseb. Evangel Praepar. l. 9. c. 27. p. 433. s Apud Euseb. ut supra, (Evangel Praepar. l. 9.) c. 22. p. 428. t Vid. P. Martyr. Decad. 3. lib. 10. & de Insul. Ind. Occident.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
10. Every man-child among you shall be circumcised Although God promised alike to males and females, what he afterwards sanctioned by circumcision, he nevertheless consecrated, in one sex, the whole people to himself. For whereas, by this symbol, the promise which was given, indiscriminately, to males and females, is confirmed, and it is certain that females as well as males had need of confirmation, it is hence evident, that the symbol was ordained for the sake of both sexes. Nor is it of any force in opposition to this reasoning to say that each individual is commanded to communicate in the sacraments, if he would derive any benefit from them, on the ground that no profit is received by those who neglect their use. For the covenant of God was graven on the bodies of the males, with this condition annexed, that the females also should as their associates be partakers of the same sign.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) Shall be circumcised.It is stated by Herodotus (Book ii. 104) that the Egyptians were circumcised, and that the Syrians in Palestine confessed that they learned this practice from the Egyptians. Origen, however, seems to limit circumcision to the priesthood (Epist. ad Rom., ii. 13); and the statement of Herodotus is not only very loose, but his date is too far posterior to the time of Abram for us to be able to place implicit confidence in it. If we turn to the evidence of Egyptian monuments and of the mummies, we find proof of the rite having become general in Egypt only in quite recent times. The discussion is, however, merely of archaeological importance; for circumcision was just as appropriate a sign of the covenant if borrowed from institutions already existing as if then used for the first time. It is, moreover, an acknowledged fact that the Bible is always true to the local colouring. Chaldan influence is predominant in those early portions of Genesis which we owe to Abram, a citizen of Ur of the Chaldees; his life and surroundings subsequently are those of an Arab sheik; while Egyptian influence is strongly marked in the latter part of Genesis, and in the history of the Exodus from that country. In this fact we have a sufficient answer to the theories which would bring down the composition of the Pentateuch to a late period: for the author would certainly have written in accordance with the facts and ideas of his own times. If, however, Abram had seen circumcision in Egypt, when the famine drove him thither, and had learned the significance of the rite, and that the idea of it was connected with moral purity, there was in this even a reason why God should choose it as the outward sign of the sacrament which He was now bestowing upon the patriarch.
The fitness of circumcision to be a sign of entering into a covenant, and especially into one to which children were to be admitted, consisted in its being a representation of a new birth by the putting off of the old man, and the dedication of the new man unto holiness. The flesh was cast away that the spirit might grow strong; and the change of name in Abram and Sarai was typical of this change of condition. They had been born again, and so must again be named. And though women could not indeed be admitted directly into the covenant, yet they shared in its privileges by virtue of their consanguinity to the men, who were as sponsors for them; and thus Sarai changes her name equally with her husband.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. This is my covenant, which ye shall keep That is, this is the sign or seal of the covenant which it will be your place to observe . Hence Stephen said: “He gave him the covenant of circumcision . ” Act 7:8.
Every man child among you shall be circumcised Here was a positive commandment, as direct and uncompromising as the absolute prohibition of the fruit of the tree of knowledge . Gen 2:17.
Obedience must now supplement faith. “Circumcision was confined to the male sex. This was neither owing to the physical nor to the ethical state of woman, but to the dependent position which she occupied in antiquity. Circumcision implies as much the humiliation as the exaltation of man, expressing as it did both his natural incapacity for being a member of the covenant, and his special divine calling in that direction. The absence of circumcision does not convey that these lessons and privileges applied not to woman also, but that she was dependent, and that her position in the natural and covenant life was not without the husband, but in and with him, not in her capacity as woman, but as wife and mother.” Kurtz.
Gen 17:10 This [is] my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
Ver. 10. Every man-child among you. ] Infants were circumcised to signify that we had better be flayed, and have our skin quite stripped off, than to have it as a skin-bottle hanging in the smoke of filthy desires, and blown full of unclean motions with the breath of Satan. That wretched renegade that betrayed Rhodes was well served. For his promised wife and portion were presented: but the Turk told him that he would not have a Christian to be his son-in-law, but he must be a Mussulman, that is, a believing Turk, within and without. And therefore he caused his baptized skin, as he called it, to be flayed off, and him to be cast in a bed, strewed with salt, that he might get a new skin, and so he should be his son-in-law. But the wicked wretch ended his life with shame and torment. a
a Spec. Bel. Sac. , p. 157.
Every: Gen 17:11, Gen 34:15, Exo 4:25, Exo 12:48, Deu 10:16, Deu 30:6, Jos 5:2, Jos 5:4, Jer 4:4, Jer 9:25, Jer 9:26, Act 7:8, Rom 2:28, Rom 2:29, Rom 3:1, Rom 3:25, Rom 3:28, Rom 3:30, Rom 4:9-11, 1Co 7:18, 1Co 7:19, Gal 3:28, Gal 5:3-6, Gal 6:12, Eph 2:11, Phi 3:3, Col 2:11, Col 2:12
Reciprocal: Gen 17:23 – circumcised Gen 21:4 – General Psa 103:18 – To such Mar 10:14 – Suffer Luk 1:13 – thy prayer Joh 7:22 – circumcision Act 3:25 – the covenant Act 15:1 – after Rom 4:10 – not in circumcision Rom 4:11 – the sign Rom 9:4 – covenants
Gen 17:10. The token of the covenant is circumcision, for the sake of which, the covenant is itself called the covenant of circumcision, Act 7:8. It is here said to be the covenant which Abraham and his seed must keep, as a copy or counterpart. It is called a sign and seal, (Rom 4:11,) for it was, 1st, A confirmation to Abraham and his seed of those promises which were Gods part of the covenant, assuring them that, in due time, Canaan should be theirs: and the continuance of this ordinance, after Canaan was theirs, intimates that that promise looked further, to another Canaan. 2d, An obligation upon Abraham and his seed to that duty which was their part of the covenant, not only to the duty of accepting the covenant, and putting away the corruption of the flesh, which were primarily signified by circumcision, but in general to the observation of all Gods commands. They who will have God to be to them a God, must consent to be to him a people.
17:10 {c} This [is] my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
(c) Circumcision is called the covenant, because it signifies the covenant and has the promise of grace joined to it: a phrase that is common to all ordinances.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes