Approximately 55–60% of males in the USA are physically circumcised, 25-30% worldwide. Most in Africa and Moslem nations are. Few are in Europe, China, Russia, India, South America. My two sons were circumcised as a health precaution when they were one week old. They have no recollection of it. Anesthetics reduce discomfort. Yet hearing my little sons’ pitiful screams in the adjoining room was hard to bear! It can be painful when something is cut out – physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
Circumcision is the procedure to remove the male foreskin from the penis. That quick surgery can protect against urinary tract infections and STDs, decrease the risk of HIV and even some cancers.
Among the reasons people practice circumcision are: to aid hygiene/health (boys may not clean their foreskin well), to mark the transition to manhood, to afflict enemies, as a religious or status symbol.
Wikipedia: History of Circumcision “The origin of circumcision is not known with certainty. It likely has roots among ethnic groups in sub-equatorial Africa, Egypt [2300 BC], and Arabia. Heródotus, writing in the 5th century BCE, lists Egyptians being the oldest people practicing circumcision, then Colchians [Black Sea area], Ethiopians, Phoenicians, and Syrians. He wrote disparagingly that ‘the Egyptians practice circumcision [at puberty] for the sake of cleanliness’. Josephus seems to suggest that the Edomites were uncircumcised until being forcefully converted to Judaism by John Hyṙcanus [120 BC]. Ancient Greeks considered circumcision a mutilation. Europeans, with the exception of Jews, didn’t practice circumcision.” (I’m uncircumcised and not Jewish.)
Eve Feinstein Bathing in the Hebrew Bible “In biblical Israel, where water was scarce, bathing was often a momentous event, fraught with religious significance.” Circumcision aided personal hygiene.
Of the peoples who’ve practiced circumcision, of note are the Jewish people. Jews today don’t promote the religious circumcising of gentiles. However, in antiquity Jews were more a próselytízing people.
Although circumcision aids cleanliness, there’s no evidence man was created circumcised! Creation was good without circumcision (Ge.1:31)! No scripture states that Noah or Enoch or anyone else before the Flood was circumcised. Dr. Ralph F. Wilson The Covenant of Circumcision With Abraham “The earliest evidence we have for circumcision is from a number of bronze statuettes found at Tell Judéideh in northern Syria, dating to about 2800 BC. Circumcision was rather common in Abraham’s world.”
Biblical circumcision is for the lineage of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob (A-I-J), primarily living in the Holy Land (of Canáan). Physical circumcision involves a male reproductive organ.
First, let’s look at the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 15. v.1-7 the Lord promised Abrám that he will come to have numerous descendants (v.5) and they will possess the Land of Canaan (v.7). Ge.15:6 LXX “Abram believed God.” That is a key text; the apostle Paul will tie it to circumcision in Romans 4.
Biblical circumcision begins in Genesis 17, where God confirms His covenant with Abram. Ge.17:1-2 “I Am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless, and I will establish My covenant with you.”
It is conditional. Dr. Ralph Wilson op. cit. “To reaffirm the covenant, He introduces a performance requirement, a definite ethical emphasis. God expects Abraham to live a righteous life.” Ronald W. Pierce Covenant Conditionality and a Future for Israel “The Abrahamic Covenant is seen to have emphasized a response on the part of the patriarch from the initial encounter in Harrán [Ge.12:1-3] to the climactic events on Mt Moriah [Ge.22:1-18]. An element of conditionality is sometimes explicitly stated, at other times implied, but always understood.” And Abram was faithful & obedient to God. Ge.26:5 “Abraham obeyed Me, My charge, My commandments, My statues, and My laws.”
Ge.17:4-6 the gentile/non-Jew Abram’s name is changed to Abraham, as his line will reproduce many nations of descendants. Kings will come forth from A-I-J. v.7-13 the physical sign of the Lord’s conditional covenantal Land promise is physical circumcision! v.14 any uncircumcised descendant in the Land would be cut off by God (other than via circumcision)!
Ge.17:15-27 Abraham’s household, with his son Ishmaél, living in the Land, becomes circumcised. v.18-21 but the Land promise isn’t through Ishmael; not his lineage. It will follow to Abraham’s son Isaac, 21:3-4…then to Isaac’s son Jacob/Israel, 28:13-15 (but not to Isaac’s son Esau, Jacob’s twin).
Physical circumcision didn’t apply to females. (Wives shared in the status of their husbands.) De.21:16-17 inheritance in God’s Holy Land went to the circumcised sons, not to (uncircumcised) daughters. Daughters were usually allowed to inherit only if her father has no son, and even then she usually must marry a man belonging to the Israelite tribe of her father (ref Nu.27:8-10, 36:8-9).
Abrahamic Covenant promises: #1 Abraham (and grandson Jacob, Ge.35:11-12) to be the father of many nations; #2 the Land of Canaan (Ge.17:8-9); #3 the earth to be blessed through the Seed (Christ, according to Paul, Ge.22:18 & Ga.3:16) of the A (Ge.12:3), I (Ge.26:4), J (Ge.28:14) line.
Again Ge.17:21, this covenant is for the A-I-J line of descent. ref Ex.2:24, Ps.105:8-11. The covenant, with its sign of circumcision, doesn’t apply to descendants living elsewhere of: Ishmael, Abraham’s servants and other sons (except Isaac), Esau. Though circumcised…Ishmael, Abraham’s other sons by his wife Keturáh, and Esau all moved elsewhere (Ge.25:6, 17-18, 36:8-9). If their descendants living elsewhere choose to be circumcised traditionally or for whatever reason, they’re still not included in the Land promise. Ac.7:7-8 reiterates this “covenant of circumcision” was for the A-I-J line.
Ge.21:4 Abraham circumcised Isaac. When? Green’s Literal Translation “A son of 8 days.” LXX “On the 8th day.” Inclusive counting is used. On the 8th day of life, an infant is actually one week/7 days old. cf. Jn.20:19, 26 “After eight days”; the margin reads “A week later”. Evidence For The Bible “The 8th is the optimum day for circumcision because of the highest presence of the clotting factor vitamin K.”
Ge.34:15-16 verifies that Jacob’s sons were circumcised (the 12 sons/tribes are of the A-I-J line).
Elsewhere 8th day circumcision wasn’t universal. Ex.4:24-26 later Moses, the leader of Jacob’s seed to re-enter the Land, must obey their covenant God…his son Gershóm becomes circumcised before entry.
Le.12:3 physical circumcision on the 8th day was understandably a very important rite to Jews too…that is, descendants of Judah, Benjamin, Levi (3 of Jacob’s sons). Jn.7:22-23 circumcision being treated with such importance perhaps was due in part to Moses’ experience of Ex.4:24.
Jsh.5:3, 6-10 physical circumcision and the Passover are linked in the Land of Canaan; here at Gilgál where the central sanctuary was then. They must be circumcised. Jsh.21:43 the Israelites took possession of the Land, as God had promised their patriarchs.
Ex.12:43-49 uncircumcised sojourners/tosháb (Strongs h8453, Hebrew) in the Land weren’t allowed to eat the Passover. v.48 “No uncircumcised man may eat of it.” But circumcised aliens/proselytes/ger h1616 could eat it in Canaan/Israel. e.g. If any descendant of Ishmael or Esau coming back into the Land is circumcised, he too may eat the Passover. De.16:5-6 Israel was forbidden from killing the Passover in any towns other than at the sole sanctuary location where God’s Name was (cf. 2Sm.6:2)!
Physical circumcision of the foreskin was a type of symbolic spiritual circumcision. De.10:15-16 exhorts that the heart be circumcised figuratively, to enable Israel to keep God’s Law of Moses. Ex.6:30 circumcised lips too. Je.6:10 ears too. But it was impossible for Israelites to (figuratively) circumcise their own hearts. De.30:6 is Moses’ prophecy of a future non-physical heart circumcision which God would do…to the hearts of both men and women! Je.9:25-26 the Lord to punish peoples outwardly (physically) circumcised but inwardly uncircumcised. In the New Testament (NT), inward circumcision of the heart is a key concept. (see the topic “Two Covenants – Heart of the Matter”.)
Fast forwarding…1Sm.18:25 Philistines were uncircumcised gentiles/non-Israelites, circa 1050 BC.
But the 12 tribes of Israel…they disobeyed God (unlike righteous Abraham, Ge.26:5). So God expelled them from the Land, in 721 BC and 586 BC. De.30:1-10 Moses had said the Lord would bring them back and bless them…if…they obeyed Him (v.10). Again, retaining the Land promise was conditional.
Est.8:17 LXX/Septúagint in the 400s BC, many Persians became Jewish converts out of fear. Samaritans living in the Land area of old northern Israel also were a physically circumcised people. In the NT….
Lk.1:59, 2:21 both John the Baptizer and Jesus were circumcised on the 8th day. Both were Jews descended from Jacob and born in the Holy Land. (Jewish boys were named at their circumcision.)
However…the scriptures don’t say that gentiles dwelling in their own nations are to be circumcised (made proselytes) by Israelites/Jews outside the Land! The Israelites were instructed in De.12:32, don’t add to or lessen God’s written commands! (It is understood that Rome reduced rights in the Land that circumcised residents held earlier as God’s theocracy, and enforced empirical laws.)
Mt.23:15 Jesus castigated the Jewish scribes & Pharisees for their man-made tradition of physically circumcising non-descendants of Jacob/Israel outside the Land. Jews were adding to God’s written Law! Jewish Hasmónean leaders had forcibly circumcised Iduméans (Edomites descended from Esau) in 125 BC and Ituríans (an Arabian or Araméan people) in Galilee in 103 BC!
What about the physical circumcision of Christian gentiles, grafted into ‘spiritual Israel’ (Ro.11:24)? This was a huge issue in the early church! Again, physical circumcision was required for physical descendants of A-I-J, as it related to the Land promise.
Ga.5:6 the (Jewish) apostle Paul said physical circumcision was essentially meaningless in Galatia, where there was no land promised or central sanctuary (for Passover). 1Co.7:18-19 physical circumcision was of no consequence in Corinth. Non-Holy Land territory is ‘circumcision neutral’.
God’s Land promise didn’t pertain to gentile lands. The gentile/non-Israelite adults in the early church outside the Land weren’t required to be circumcised or keep Passover at the Jerusalem temple/central sanctuary (soon to be destroyed).
Ac.15:1-10 the Jewish Christian apostles at the Jerusalem council of 50 AD ruled gentile converts to Jesus needn’t become physically circumcised to be saved. It isn’t necessary to first convert to Judaism! The Holy Spirit said circumcision was an unnecessary bondage for the church at large.
Adults in gentile lands could attend church without having to undergo any mandatory physical circumcision! The Jewish apostles in the NT didn’t abrogate God’s written laws! But many of His requirements involved rituals which were to be done only in the Land or at the temple.
Christians needn’t try to live by rituals applicable solely to the temple environment, or by the outward circumcision sign of the Land promise to A-I-J. Ro.2:28-29 (Je.9:25) the heart is what matters…not the ceremonial work of physical circumcision.
Ro.4:2-3 Paul quotes the initial key verse of Ge.15:6. “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” (cf. Ge.26:5.) Ro.4:9 the “circumcised” were Jews, the “uncircumcised” were gentiles (probably including by that time the so-called ‘lost tribes’ of Israel elsewhere). v.10-12 the gentile Abram’s physical circumcision signified his prior faith while he was still uncircumcised! Physical circumcision had been the covenantal sign and the type of spiritual circumcision.
Paul taught that the practice wasn’t necessary even for Jews/Israelites who lived outside the Land! Ac.21:21 “You are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children.” The Abrahamic Covenant sign pertained to the Land, not elsewhere.
{Sidelight: Ac.16:1-4 Timothy didn’t have a Jewish father, but had a Jewish mother and he knew their customs. Timothy too had faith while uncircumcised, as did Abram. After Timothy was circumcised, disbelieving Jews in synagogues customarily would allow him to mingle with them (ref Ac.10:28). Thereby he could better evangelize the truth, that Jesus is Lord. Ga.2:3-5 but the gentile Titus wasn’t sent to evangelize Jews and didn’t become circumcised…Christian liberty was at stake here!}
Ga.5:11-12 Paul caustically says circumcision compellers in gentile lands should…mutilate themselves! v.1-2 the Jews oral law requirement of physical circumcision elsewhere was a bondage of no Christian benefit in Galatia. (Though 8th day circumcision can still have health/hygiene benefits.)
Foreskin removal remains a personal/family choice. Wikipedia op.cit. “By the 2nd century [AD], the only circumcising groups in the Roman Empire were Jews, Samaritans, Jewish Christians, Egyptian priests, and Nabatean Arabs. The Catholic Church condemned the observance of circumcision as a moral sin and ordered against its practice at the Council of Florence in 1442 [What!?]. The tradition of circumcision is said to have been practiced within the British Royal Family. The practice is customary [today] among Coptic, Ethiopian, and Eritréan Orthodox Churches, and some other African churches.”
Ga.6:13-15 those with circumcised hearts are figuratively a new creation. Col.2:11 fulfills De.30:6. It’s not a physical circumcision. Col.3:11 it’s no longer an antagonism of gentiles vs Jews, with racial implications. Now the two believing sectors are progressing toward unity, in the love of Christ!
And that unified man is a global creation, becoming so in all nations! The conditions required to maintain the Land promise to A-I-J were broken by the ancient Israelites/Jews. ref Le.26:14, 38-43. Ezk.33:27-29 God sent them into captivity and the Land became desolate. Even though God did allow them to return later (538–400s BC), Jesus said their house would again become desolate, Mt.23:38.
Solomon had at one time sat on the throne of the kingdom of YHVH over Israel (1Ch.28:5). Mt.21:43 but Jesus said the kingdom would be taken from those Jewish leaders in the Land, and given to another “nation” bearing fruit. Ro.10:19 Israel would be made jealous by this seemingly foolish nation. 1Pe.1:1, 2:9 Peter wrote to believers who comprise that holy “nation”…the “Christians”, 1Pe.4:16!
Since the covenant of physical circumcision applied to the Land of Canaan, what about the Land today? Now, even some Jews say that circumcision is unnecessary. (cf. Paul’s teaching, Ac.21:21.) Furthermore, after 3,500 years of intermarriage & proselytizing, today it’s difficult to ascertain who’s truly (biologically) of the A-I-J line!
When the Land allotments were originally assigned to the tribes of Israel, much of the West Bank area inheritance went to Ephráim, not to Judah or Benjamin (who, with Levites, became the Jews). And in the NE, the area of the Golan Heights within Israel went to the tribe of Manasseh (and a fringe area to Naphtalí and perhaps Dan), not to Judah or Benjamin. This is Bible history and geography from the book of Joshua (ref Jsh.15–19); it isn’t anti-Semitism. see the topic “Israelites Identification“.
So it seems the explosive state of affairs in the Middle East & modern Israel is complicated by brothers possibly (unknowingly) expropriating for themselves some inheritances anciently belonging to other brothers! (In the USA, the #1 cause of sibling estrangement is estate issues!) Yet if the descendants of other Israelite tribes who intermarried with Jews over the centuries have returned to the Land in modern times, then they in Israel today perhaps do represent the A-I-J line. Again, eventually the Land will be inhabited by a “holy nation” of Christians (with Jewish Christians)…a spiritually grafted-in Israel!
Ezk.36:26-27 is a prophecy of spiritual Israel with circumcised hearts able to obey God’s written moral precepts. A circumcised or new or exchanged heart…all are interchangeable terms for a heart which now desires the things of God and is willing to obey the Lord (unlike most of ancient Israel & Judah).
The pain of physical circumcision (especially for Abraham at age 99!) was a type of the pain of self-denial involved in heart circumcision. A circumcised heart/ears/lips will obey/listen for/speak the principles of the written word of God and inner promptings of the Holy Spirit. (Ac.7:51 Stephen said those opposing Jewish leaders had uncircumcised hearts & ears.)
Christians put to death, remove, or cut out their own agendas and those things in our lives which aren’t God’s will for us. Snip! Females do too. The mental pain involving the human will may be worse than physical pain. God softens it by bringing us to surrender. The Lord may cause us to (gradually) experience burnout or reduced interest in our selfish pursuits which aren’t of God’s choosing. Sanctification/holiness/consecration is a process. A tearing out, if you will, may involve submitting to some turmoil.
We’re bought with a price (1Co.6:20)…Jesus’ precious blood! We’re God’s possession. He owns us 24/7! He changes/circumcises hearts. God is good…so as we submit to God’s will in our lives, we can believe all things will work together for our eternal good (Ro.8:28)!
Bible Topic Exposition 