Genesis 17:14

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

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.

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 ,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, , 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 , 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 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.

Genesis 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.

(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 (Leviticus 17:4), and the eating of blood (Leviticus 17:9; Leviticus 17:14), are to be thus dealt with, while blasphemy and murder are to be punished with death (Leviticus 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 (1 Samuel 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.

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?

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 Exodus 31:13-14, the penalty of death is inflicted by the people: see Numbers 15:32-36. But, in Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 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 Genesis 25:8.

14. Shall be cut off from his people — This may mean either excommunication, or, as these words seem to signify in Exodus 31:14, the penalty of death.