Genesis 17:14

(14) Shall be cut off from his people.—Jewish commentators generally consider that this penalty consisted in the offender being left to the direct interposition of God, who would punish him with childlessness and premature death (Talmud: Tract Yebam, 55). Most Christian commentators suppose that the offender was to be put to death by the civil magistrate; but this view is untenable. For a distinction is constantly drawn between the penalty of death, and the being “cut off from among the people,” as, for instance, in Leviticus 20. So, too, the killing of a clean beast anywhere, except at the door of the tabernacle (Lev_17:4), and the eating of blood (Lev_17:9; Lev_17:14), are to be thus dealt with, while blasphemy and murder are to be punished with death (Lev_24:16-17). Now it became very common to kill clean beasts in all parts of the land, and the eating of blood, though regarded with horror (1Sa_14:32-34), apparently had no penalty attached to it. The Jewish commentators seem to err only in being too special, and in defining the method in which God would punish. The punishment really seems to have been that of excommunication or outlawry, to which other penalties might have been attached by custom: but the main point was that one uncircumcised (as subsequently one who violated the principles of the Mosaic law) forfeited his privileges as a member of the Jewish nation, could claim no protection from the elders for life and property, and could not take his place at the gate of the city.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 17:14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

Ver. 14. That soul shall be cut off.] From the commonwealth of Israel; so shall those be from benefit by Christ, that are uncircumcised in heart; as hateful to him as Goliath was to David. Pray, therefore, that God will thrust his holy hand into thy bosom, and pull off that abominable foreskin. He had much ado to forbear Moses, when he met him in the inn; and we know why. {Exo 4:24-25}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17:14 will be cut off: This punishment seems to have several applications. A person could be exiled from society or put to death by the community; most often it warned that a person might die prematurely as God cut him off from the land of the living (see Exod 31:14; Lev 7:20-27; 17:3-4; 20:17-18; 23:28-29; Num 15:30-31; see also Ps 31:22; Ezek 21:4; Rom 9:3; 11:22). Failure to be circumcised was a serious violation (see Exod 4:24-26; cp. Gal 5:2-4).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albeit women were not circumcised, yet were they partakers of God’s promise: for under the mankind all was consecrated, and here is declared, that whosoever contemneth the sign, despiseth also the promise.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 14. The uncircumcised - shall be cut off from his people] By being cut off some have imagined that a sudden temporal death was implied; but the simple meaning seems to be that such should have no right to nor share in the blessings of the covenant, which we have already seen were both of a temporal and spiritual kind; and if so, then eternal death was implied, for it was impossible for a person who had not received the spiritual purification to enter into eternal glory. The spirit of this law extends to all ages, dispensations, and people; he whose heart is not purified from sin cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Reader, on what is thy hope of heaven founded?

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. And the uncircumcised man-child In order that circumcision might be the more attended to, God denounces a severe punishment on any one who should neglect it. And as this shows God’s great care for the salvation of men; so, on the other hand, it rebukes their negligence. For since God thus benignantly offers a pledge of his love, and of eternal life, for what purpose does he add threatening but to rouse the sluggishness of those whose duty it is to run with diligence? Therefore, this denunciation of punishment virtually charges men with foul ingratitude, because they either reject or despise the grace of God. The passage however teaches, that such contempt shall not pass unpunished. And since God threatens punishment only to despisers, we infer that the uncircumcision of children would do them no harm, if they died before the eighth day. For the bare promise of God was effectual to their salvation. He did not so attest this salvation by external signs, as to restrict his own effectual working to those signs. Moses, indeed, sets aside all controversy on this subject, by adducing as a reason, that they would make void the covenant of God: for we know, that the covenant was not violated, when the power of keeping it was taken away. Let us then consider, that the salvation of the race of Abraham was included in that expression, ‘I will be a God to thy seed.’ And although circumcision was added as a confirmation, it nevertheless did not deprive the word of its force and efficacy. But because it is not in the power of man to sever what God has joined together; no one could despise or neglect the sign, without both rejecting the word itself; and depriving himself of the benefit therein offered. And therefore the Lord punished bare neglect with such severity. But if any infants were deprived by death of the tokens of salvation, he spared them, because they had done nothing derogatory to the covenant of God. The same reasoning is at this day in force respecting baptism. Whoever, having neglected baptism, feigns himself to be contented with the bare promise, tramples, as much as in him lies, upon the blood of Christ, or at least does not suffer it to flow for the washing of his own children. Therefore, just punishment follows the contempt of the sign, in the privation of grace; because, by an impious severance of the sign and the word, or rather by a laceration of them, the covenant of God is violated. To consign to destruction those infants, whom a sudden death has not allowed to be presented for baptism, before any neglect of parents could intervene, is a cruelty originating in superstition. But that the promise belongs to such children, is not in the least doubtful. For what can be more absurd than that the symbol, which is added for the sake of confirming the promise, should really enervate its force? Wherefore, the common opinion, by which baptism is supposed to be necessary to salvation, ought to be so moderated, that it should not bind the grace of Gods or the power of the Spirit, to external symbols, and bring against God a charge of falsehood.

He hath broken my covenant For the covenant of God is ratified, when by faith we embrace what he promises. Should any one object, that infants were guiltless of this fault, because they hitherto were destitute of reason: I answer, we ought not to press this divine declaration too closely, as if God held the infants as chargeable with a fault of their own: but we must observe the antithesis, that as God adopts the infant son in the person of his father, so when the father repudiates such a benefit, the infant is said to cut himself off from the Church. For the meaning of the expression is this, ‘He shall be blotted out from the people whom God had chosen to himself’. The explanation of some, that they who remained in uncircumcision would not be Jews, and would have no place in the census of that people, is too frigid. We must go farther, and say, that God, indeed, will not acknowledge those as among his people, who will not bear the mark and token of adoption.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

14. shall be cut off] The penalty of being “cut off” is frequently mentioned in P. It does not appear certain, (1) whether the penalty is to be inflicted by God or by man; (2) whether, if it be the infliction of a judicial punishment by man, it denotes capital punishment, or expulsion from the ranks of the community. The formula has probably been transmitted from a very early period; and the lapse of time led to change in practice. Thus, in Exo_31:13-14, the penalty of death is inflicted by the people: see Num_15:32-36. But, in Lev_17:10; Lev_20:3, the sentence is pronounced by God, “I will cut him off.”

from his people] Lit. “from his peoples,” a phrase used by P, which seems to denote “father’s kin,” and evidently possessed a special technical meaning of clanship. See note on Gen_25:8.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the uncircumcised man child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised,.... Whose circumcision was neglected by his father, or by his mother, or by the civil magistrate, or by himself; for each of these, according to the Jewish canons, were obliged to see this performed;"the commandment lies upon a father to circumcise his son, and upon a master to circumcise his servants born in his house, or bought with money (m):''and it is elsewhere said (n),"if a father does not circumcise his son, the sanhedrim are bound to circumcise him; and if they do not circumcise him, he is obliged when he is grown up to circumcise himself; and if he does not circumcise himself, he is guilty of cutting off,''as it here follows:

that soul shall be cut off from his people; which Jarchi interprets of his being childless, and dying before his time; and which, according to some in Aben Ezra, is, when a man dies before he is fifty two years of age; and some erroneous persons, as the same writer calls them, thought that if a child died, and was not circumcised, it had no part in the world to come. The simplest and plainest meaning of the phrase seems to be, that such should be cut off, and deprived of all civil and religious privileges with the Israelites in the land of Canaan, and be reckoned as Heathens. Concerning this matter, Maimonides (o) thus writes;"a father or a mother that transgress, and circumcise not, make void the affirmative commandment, but are not guilty of cutting off; for no cutting off depends but upon the uncircumcised person himself; and the sanhedrim are commanded to circumcise a son or a servant in its time, that they may not leave an uncircumcised person in Israel, nor among their servants; if the thing is hid from the sanhedrim, and they do not circumcise him, when he is grown up, he is bound to circumcise himself; and every day that passes over him, after he is grown up, and he does not circumcise himself, lo, he maketh the commandment to cease; but he is not guilty of cutting off until he dies, and he is a presumptuous uncircumcised person;''and so, according to him, this must respect his punishment after death in another world:

he hath broken my covenant; made it null and void, neglecting the token of it, circumcision.

(m) Maimon. ut supra, (Hilchot Milah) c. 1. sect. 1. (n) Schulchan Aruch, ib. c. 361. sect. 1. (o) Maimon. Hilchot. Milah, c. 1. sect. 1, 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Circumcised. Septuagint adds, "on the eighth day," with the Samaritan and many Latin copies. (Calmet) --- Destroyed, &c. lose the privileges of the Hebrews, or be put to death, when he grows up and does not supply this defect. St. Augustine reading on the eighth day, concluded that as a child of that age, could not, with reason, be put to death for an offense, in which he could have no share, the destruction here threatened is that of the soul, for transgression, in Adam, the original covenant, and dying in that state unclean, must be excluded from heaven, as people are now who die unbaptized. This difficult passage may, however, be explained as if the threat regarded the negligent parents. "He who shall not circumcise...shall be destroyed." Syriac, or, as the Hebrew may be rendered, "the male that doth not," &c.; in which case, he becomes guilty of a transgression, when he is arrived at the years sufficient to understand his duty, and does not fulfil it. (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And the uncircumcised man-child; or rather, and as for the uncircumcised man-child. So the nominative is put absolutely, as is frequent in the Hebrew tongue.

Whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, or, who shall not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin; for the Hebrew verb may be rendered actively, which seems best here; because the punishment seems more justly to belong to the parent, who was guilty of this neglect; than to the child, who was not capable of this precept, and therefore not guilty of the violation of it. And this may further appear from Exo 4:24,25, where God seeks to kill, not the child, but the father, Moses, for this sin. And the flesh of the child’s foreskin is rightly called the flesh of his, i.e. the parent’s, foreskin, because the child is a part and the possession of his parent. So that this threatening concerns only grown persons, and of them only such as shall wilfully and unnecessarily neglect this duty; for otherwise it was neglected by the Israelites for forty years together in the wilderness, Jos 5:7, without any token of God’s displeasure for it.

That soul shall be cut off from his people. This phrase denotes either,

1. An exclusion from fellowship with God’s people, and from all the promises, privileges, and blessings belonging to them, either in this life or that to come. Or rather,

2. An untimely and violent death, as may be gathered from Exo 31:14, to be inflicted by the magistrate, to whom God committed the execution of this as well as other laws; and in case of his neglect and default, or the secrecy of the fact, by the extraordinary hand of God, who sometimes ascribes this act to himself, as Lev 17:10; 20:6.

He hath broken my covenant, that sacred bond which tied him and me together; and by his neglect and contempt of the condition required on his part, he hath forfeited the blessing promised on my part.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. Shall be cut off from his people — This may mean either excommunication, or, as these words seem to signify in Exo_31:14, the penalty of death. The neglect of such a sign and ordinance would be an open breach of the covenant, and demand a severe penalty.

He hath broken my covenant — To neglect this sign was looked upon as open and defiant disobedience. It was equivalent to a violation of the covenant itself.

Note now the five points of circumcision: 1) It was an outward ceremony of the flesh. 2) It was the token of the covenant. 3) It was to be performed on the eighth day. 4) It was to be applied to all the regular household. 5) It was imperative and inviolable under penalty of death.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people. jExoloqreuqhsetai ejk tou genouv aujthv (LXX), i.e. shall be destroyed from amongst his nation, from among his people (Lev_17:4, Lev_17:10; Num_15:30) from Israel (Exo_12:15; Num_19:13) from the congregation of Israel, (Exo_12:19) by the infliction of death at the hands of the congregation, the civil magistrate, or of God (Abarbanel, Gesenius, Clericus, Michaelis, Rosenm Keil, Wordsworth, Alford); or shall be excommunicated from the Church, and no longer reckoned among the people of God (Augustine, Vatablus, Piscator, Willet, Calvin, Knobel, Murphy, Kalisch, Inglis). That excision from one s people was in certain cases followed by the death penalty (Exo_31:14; Lev_18:29; Num_15:30) does not prove that the capital infliction was an invariable accompaniment of such sentence (vide Exo_12:19; Lev_7:20, Lev_7:21; Num_19:13) Besides, to suppose that such was its meaning here necessitates the restriction of the punishment to adults, whereas with the alternative signification no such restriction requires to be imposed on the statute. The uncircumcised Hebrew, whether child or adult, forfeited his standing in the congregation, i.e. ceased to be a member of the Hebrew Church. He hath broken my covenant.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

וערל זכר AND THE UNCIRCUMCISED MALE — This phrase teaches that circumcision must be at that place where the distinction between male and female is evident (Genesis Rabbah 46:13).

אשר לא ימול HE WHO DOES NOT CIRCUMCISE HIMSELF) as soon as he reaches the age when he is legally liable to punishment, ונכרתה THEN HE SHALL BE CUT OFF — his father, however, who did not have him circumcised is not punished on his account with כרת (excision, “being cut off from his people”), but is merely transgressing an עשה “a positive commandment” (for which the punishment is flagellation).

ונכרתה הנפש THAT SOUL SHALL BE CUT OFF — i. e. he shall depart hence childless and shall suffer an untimely death.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND THE UNCIRCUMCISED MALE. Here Scripture teaches you that this circumcision must be at the location where the distinction between male and female is evident. Thus the words of Rashi. Our Rabbis have likewise mentioned other reasons. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said: “his foreskin, which is known, for it is in the genital organ. But not so are the expressions: uncircumcised in the heart; uncircumcised lips; their ear is uncircumcised. All of these latter are in a construct state. is not used in the construct state (as in Leviticus 12:3) it refers to the genital organ.In my opinion the matter is clearly explained in Scripture. It does not say, “And ye shall circumcise your foreskin,” thus leaving the meaning in doubt, nor does it say, “the foreskin of your flesh,” just as it says the foreskin of your heart, and “the foreskin of your lips.” But instead it says, And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, meaning that you are to cut off the flesh which is your foreskin, namely, your flesh which obstructs, and there is no flesh in the body which obstructs and covers a limb [as is the case with the genital organ], where one can cut the flesh and remain without the foreskin, other than the “flesh that covers the corona,” which the Sages mentioned..) The word “flesh” in the expression, uncircumcised in flesh, is a euphemism for the genital organ, just as in the verses great of flesh, 16:26. and an issue of his flesh.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

וערל זכר, and an uncircumcised male' the verse speaks of a Jew. The commandment as well as the penalty for non-observance applies only to Jews. The members of Avraham's household whom G'd had commanded Avraham to circumcise, do not in turn have to circumcise their own children - even if they obtained their freedom and were no longer member of his household. The only reason a Jewish household must consist of males who have been circumcised is to preserve the uniform nature of such a household. In the event such a slave in a Jewish household does not want to submit to circumcision, his Jewish master must sell him. The owner is given 12 months to persuade such a slave to undergo circumcision. (Yevamot 48)

שלא ימול את בשר ערלתו ונכרתה הנפש ההיא, the penalty for non-performance of this commandment becomes applicable only once the male in question has reached the age of performing mitzvot, i.e. is over the age of 13. His father - usually the one who has been responsible for such neglect - is not subject to the penalty of karet, but is treated as having neglected to perform an ordinary positive commandment.

ימול; the root is נמל, conjugation kal, as in ונמלתם. The penalty is premature death of the guilty party.

הפר; My covenant which I established with Avraham. This covenant applied also to the person who failed to observe this commandment even if he lived a thousand years after Avraham.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.