Leviticus 12:3

Lev 12:3 And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

Ver. 3. And in the eighth day.] {See Trapp on "Gen 17:13"} {See Trapp on "Gen 17:14"}

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.

THE ORDINANCE OF CIRCUMCISION

Lev_12:3

"And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."

Although the rite of circumcision here receives a new and special sanction, it had been appointed long before by God as the sign of His covenant with Abraham. {Gen_17:10-14} Nor was circumcision, probably, even then a new thing. That the ancient Egyptians practised it is well known; so also did the Arabs and Phoenicians; in fact, the custom has been very extensively observed, not only by nations with whom the Israelites came in contact, but by others who have not had, in historic times, connection with any civilised peoples; as, for example, the Congo negroes, and certain Indian tribes in South America.

The fundamental idea connected with circumcision, by most of the peoples who have practised it, appears to have been physical purification; indeed, the Arabs call it by the name tatur, which has this precise meaning. And it deserves to be noticed that for this idea regarding circumcision there is so much reason in fact, that high medical authorities have attributed to it a real hygienic value, especially in warm climates.

No one need feel any difficulty in supposing that this common conception attached to the rite also in the minds of the Hebrews. Rather all the more fitting it was, if there was a basis in fact for this familiar opinion, that God should thus have taken a ceremony already known to the surrounding peoples, and in itself of a wholesome physical effect, and constituted it for Abraham and his seed a symbol of an analogous spiritual fact; namely, the purification of sin at its fountainhead, the cleansing of the evil nature with which we all are born. It should be plain enough that it makes nothing against this as the true interpretation of the rite, even if that be granted which some have claimed, that it has had, in some instances, a connection with the phallic worship so common in the East, or that it has been regarded by some as a sacrificial ceremony. Only the more noteworthy would it thus appear that the Hebrews should have held strictly to that view of its significance which had a solid basis in physical fact, -a fact, moreover, which made it a peculiarly fitting symbol of the spiritual grace which the Biblical writers connect with it. For that it was so regarded by them will not be disputed. In this very book {Lev_26:41} we read of an "uncircumcised heart"; as also in Deuteronomy, the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and other books of Scripture.

All this, as intimating the signification of circumcision as here enjoined, is further established by the New Testament references. Of these the most formal is perhaps that in Col_2:10-11, where we read that believers in Christ, in virtue of their union with Him in whom the unclean nature has been made clean, are said to be "circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ"; so that Paul elsewhere writes to the Philippians: {Php_3:3} "We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

And that God, in selecting this ancient rite to be the sign of His covenant in the flesh of Abraham and his seed, {Gen_17:13} had regard to the deep spiritual meaning which it could so naturally carry is explicitly declared by the Apostle Paul, {Rom_4:11} who tells us that this sign of circumcision was "a seal of the righteousness of faith," even the righteousness and the faith concerning which, in the previous context, he was arguing; and which are still, for all men, the one, the ground, and the other, the condition, of salvation. It is truly strange that, in the presence of these plain words of the Apostle, any should still cling to the idea that circumcision had reference only to the covenant with Israel as a nation, and not, above all, to this profound spiritual truth which is basic to salvation, whether for the Jew or for the Gentile.

And so, when the Hebrew infant was circumcised, it signified for him and for his parents these spiritual realities. It was an outward sign and seal of the covenant of God with Abraham and with his seed, to be a God to him and to his seed after him; and it signified further that this covenant of God was to be carried out and made effectual only through the putting away of the flesh, the corrupt nature with which we are born, and of all that belongs to it, in order that, thus circumcised with the circumcision of the heart, every child of Abraham might indeed be an Israelite in whom there should be no guile.

And the law commands, in accord with the original command to Abraham, that the circumcision should take place on the eighth day. This is the more noticeable, that among other nations which practised, or still practise, the rite, the time is different. The Egyptians, for example, circumcised their sons between the sixth and tenth years, and the modern Mohammedans between the twelfth and fourteenth year. What is the significance of this eighth day?

In the first place, it is easy to see that we have in this direction a provision of Gods mercy; for if delayed beyond infancy or early childhood, as among many other peoples, the operation is much more serious, and may even involve some danger; while in so early infancy it is comparatively trifling, and attended with no risk.

Further, by the administration of circumcision at the very opening of life, it is suggested that in the Divine ideal the grace which was signified thereby, of the cleansing of nature, was to be bestowed upon the child, not first at a late period of life, but from its very beginning, thus anticipating the earliest awakening of the principle of inborn sin. It was thus signified that before ever the child knew, or could know, the grace that was seeking to save him, he was to be taken into covenant relation with God. So even under the strange form of this ordinance we discover the same mind that was in Him who said concerning infant children: {Luk_18:16} "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." Thus we may well recollect, in passing, that, although the law has passed away in the Levitical form, the mind of the Lawgiver concerning the little children of His people is still the same.

But the question still remains, Why was the eighth day selected, and not rather, for instance, the sixth or the seventh, which would have no less perfectly represented these ideas? The answer is to be found in the symbolic significance of the eighth day. As the old creation was completed in six days, with a following Sabbath of rest, so that six is ever the number of the old creation, as under imperfection and sin; the eighth day, which is the first day of a new week, everywhere in Scripture appears as the number symbolic of the new creation, in which all things shall be restored in the great redemption through the Second Adam. The thought finds its fullest expression in the resurrection of Christ, as the Firstborn from the dead, the Beginning and the Lord of the new creation, who in His resurrection body manifested the first fruits in physical life of the new creation, rising from the dead on the first, or, in other words, the day after the seventh, the eighth day. This gives the key to the use of the number eight in the Mosaic symbolism. Thus in the law of the cleansing of the man or the woman that had an issue, the sacrifices which effectuated their formal deliverance from the curse under which, through the weakness of their old nature, they had suffered, were to be offered on the eighth day; {Lev_15:14; Lev_15:29} the priestly cleansing of the leper from the taint of his living death was also effected on the eighth day; {Lev_14:10} so also the cleansing of the Nazarite who had been defiled by the dead. {Num_6:10} So also the holy convocation which closed the feast of tabernacles or ingathering - the feast which, as we shall see, typically prefigured the great harvest ofwhich Christ was the First fruits-was ordained, in like manner, for the eighth day. {Lev_23:36} With good reason, then, was circumcision ordered for the eighth day, seeing that what it symbolically signified was precisely this: the putting off of the flesh with which we are born through the circumcision of Christ, and therewith the first beginning of a new and purified nature-a change so profound and radical, and in which the Divine efficiency is so immediately concerned, that Paul said of it that if any man was in Christ, in whose circumcision we are circumcised, {Col_2:11} "there is a new creation". {2Co_5:17, margin, R.V}

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

12:3 By the eighth day, a baby’s system has developed to a point where the blood can clot properly, rendering circumcision relatively safe.

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

Verse 3. And in the eighth day] Before this time the child could scarcely be considered as having strength sufficient to bear the operation; after this time it was not necessary to delay it, as the child was not considered to be in covenant with God, and consequently not under the especial protection of the Divine providence and grace, till this rite had been performed. On circumcision See Clarke on Ge 17:10. Circumcision was to every man a constant, evident sign of the covenant into which he had entered with God, and of the moral obligations under which he was thereby laid. It was also a means of purity, and was especially necessary among a people naturally incontinent, and in a climate not peculiarly favourable to chastity. This is a light in which this subject should ever be viewed, and in which we see the reasonableness, propriety, expediency, and moral tendency of the ceremony.

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

(3) And in the eighth day.—When the seven days had passed by during which the mother remained un clean, the boy is to be circumcised, since on the eighth day the first period of her extreme state of impurity ceases, and she no more imparts defilement to whomsoever or to whatsoever she touches. For the rite of circumcision, see Gen_17:10; Gen_17:13.

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

And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Or the foreskin of his flesh, that is, of the man child born according to the law, Gen 17:12 and this seems to furnish out a reason why a male child was not circumcised before the eighth day, and why it was then, because before that its mother was in her separation and uncleanness, and then was freed from it; and so the Targum of Jonathan. The circumcision of a male child on the eighth day was religiously observed, and even was not omitted on account of the sabbath, when the eighth day happened to be on that; see Gill on Joh 7:22, Joh 7:23. It is an observation of Aben Ezra on this place, that the wise men say "in the day", and not in the night, lo, he that is born half an hour before the setting of the sun is circumcised after six days and a half, for the day of the law is not from time to time.

. It is an observation of Aben Ezra on this place, that the wise men say "in the day", and not in the night, lo, he that is born half an hour before the setting of the sun is circumcised after six days and a half, for the day of the law is not from time to time.

Leviticus 12:4

lev 12:4

lev 12:4

lev 12:4And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days,.... That is, so many more, in all forty; for though at the end of seven days she was in some respects free from her uncleanness, yet not altogether, but remained in the blood of her purifying, or in the purifying of her blood, which was more and more purified, and completely at the end of forty days: so with the Persians it is said, a new mother must avoid everything for forty days; when that time is passed, she may wash and be purified (n); and which perhaps Zoroastres, the founder of the Persian religion, at least the reformer of it, being a Jew, as is by some supposed, he might take it from hence:

she shall touch no hallowed thing; as the tithe, the heave offering, the flesh of the peace offerings, as Aben Ezra explains it, if she was a priest's wife:

nor come into the sanctuary; the court of the tabernacle of the congregation, or the court of the temple, as the same writer observes; and so with the Greeks, a pregnant woman might not come into a temple before the fortieth day (o), that is, of her delivery:

until the days of her purifying be fulfilled; until the setting of the sun of the fortieth day; on the morrow of that she was to bring the atonement of her purification, as Jarchi observes; See Gill on Lev 12:6.

(n) Lib. Shad-der, port. 86. apud Hyde Hist. Relig. Vet. Pers. p. 478. (o) Censorinus apud Grotium in loc.

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

On circumcision, see Gen 17:5 note.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Eighth. Nothing but the child’s health could retard the day, (Calmet) unless the parents were under the necessity of taking a journey, as they were in the desert, &c. (Haydock)

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).

Which law is here repeated, because the woman’s uncleanness lasting for seven days, was one, though not the only, reason why the child’s circumcision was put off till the eighth day.

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

3. Foreskin… circumcised — The sign of the covenant (Gen_17:11) in the excision of a portion of the genitals, expresses with painful emphasis the fact that impurity presides over the very fountain of humanity and taints all its issues. Circumcision implies depravity and symbolizes spiritual regeneration, (Deu_30:6; Jer_4:4,) as does water-baptism, which takes its place in the new covenant. Col_2:11-12. While all are born sinful, none are born guilty, because our race is propagated under the dispensation of mercy extending from the first gospel promise (Gen_3:15) to the day of judgment. As every Hebrew male child inherited a right to the sign of the first covenant, so, now that the middle wall is broken down (Eph_2:14, note) and the disabilities of sex are abolished, (Gal_3:28, note,) every infant has a right to the seal of the new covenant, through which he is saved until he wilfully rejects it. Under both covenants God designed that grace should flow down the ages in the family relation.

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

After the expiration of this period, on the eighth day, the boy was to be circumcised (see at Gen 17). She was then to sit, i.e., remain at home, thirty-three days in the blood of purification, without touching anything holy or coming to the sanctuary (she was not to take any part, therefore, in the sacrificial meals, the Passover, etc.), until the days of her purification were full, i.e., had expired.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

On the eighth day shall be circumcised. By this time the ritually unclean menstrual blood from which the embryo was nourished in his mother’s womb has been completely digested and the infant is now pure to enter the holy covenant.

Sforno on the Tanakh — English translation: “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.