Genesis 17:9-14 And God said to Abraham, You shall keep my covenant therefore, you, and your seed after you in their generations.… Originally circumcision was performed with a stone knife, to prevent inflammation (see note on Exodus 4:25), but at present it is safely done with a steel knife, except on boys who die before the eighth day from their birth, when the ancient custom is followed, as is the case in all instances among the Abyssinian Christians. Sons of Hebrew mothers and heathen fathers were admitted, but not compelled, to circumcision. The operation was generally performed by the father himself, but any Israelite was allowed to act in his stead; heathens alone were excluded. In cases of emergency women even were admitted. But as practice is required to prevent danger, pious persons devoted themselves to that office, which they exercised gratuitously, finding their reward in the consciousness of having introduced the children into the holy covenant. The boy generally received his name on the day of circumcision. And hence we may derive another collateral reason why Abraham's name was changed when that ceremony was commanded to him. There is no historical difficulty in the supposition that circumcision was already introduced in Abraham's time, though it can scarcely be doubted that it received its deeper and internal development only since the diffusion of Mosaism; for it was long generally neglected, and Joshua first carried it out in its full extent (Joshua 5:2-9); but from that period it seems, on the whole, to have been faithfully observed; the epithet "uncircumcised" was deemed the greatest insult and ignominy; and the strictures of the prophets are not directed against its omission, but against "the uncircumcised circumcised people" who observe the external ritual, but are nevertheless "uncircumcised in heart"; and in this sense even circumcised nations seem sometimes to have been simply called "uncircumcised ones," a proof how clearly the internal purity was regarded as the only aim of this rite. Among the Israelites, therefore, circumcision took, in the course of time, deeper root, while it gradually fell into disuse among the Egyptian people — a natural consequence of the fact proved above, that the one regarded it as a matter of religion, the others of expediency. Although it was by no means an exclusive characteristic of the Israelites, since they shared it with many other nations, and though it was not even original among them, its sacredness was, indeed, peculiar almost to them alone; and hence heathen conquerors, as Antiochus Epiphanes and other enemies, often rigorously interdicted it as one of the surest means of weakening among them the faith of their ancestors; but they never succeeded; it was practised in secret till they were again permitted to perform it without restriction. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. |
    |