Chapter 8: The Covenant of Circumcision
Q1 - After all His previous interactions with Abram, why do you think God identified Himself before speaking to him in Genesis 17:1? What name did He use? What was the significance and purpose of what He told Abram to do? Read what Jeremiah 9:25–26 had to say about people who were circumcised in the flesh but not the heart. (Learn more about the practice and meaning of circumcision at biblestudytools.com/dictionary/circumcision.)
A1 - So far as is recorded in the scriptures, God has not spoken with Abram since He made a covenant with him in Genesis 15 and defined the boundaries of the land which He was giving to him and his descendants (see Genesis 15:18–21). That occurred before the birth of Ishmael, who is now 13 years old.
Here in Genesis 17:1 when God appears to Abram, He seems to be getting his attention while also announcing His presence. This time, for the first time recorded in scriptures, God proclaims Himself to be El Shaddai, or God Almighty. Certainly, it will take a Mighty God in order to fulfill the additional promises God makes this time, both to Abram and to Sarai. God then proceeds to change their names in order to better reflect what He intends to accomplish through them—to make them both fruitful such that from their descendants will come—not just one nation—but multiple nations, and also royalty. Then He repeats His promise that the land of Canaan will belong to him and his descendants, that it will be an everlasting possession.
God declared that male circumcision would henceforth be the sign of one’s acceptance of this covenant God made with Abram (who will now be called Abraham). The covenant of circumcision would apply to every male eight days and older, whether they were born in Abraham’s household or someone he had acquired. Any uncircumcised male was to be ostracized or cut off from his people.
Centuries later, when God instituted the celebration of Passover, He declared that the males must be circumcised in order to participate. He also declared that outsiders who wished to participate in Passover could do so, provided they became circumcised as well. The same laws that applied to the native born would then apply to them. (See Exodus 12 for the establishment of Passover. Circumcision as a condition for the partaking of Passover is discussed in 12:43–49.)
Circumcision served as a sign to help the people remember who they were and what God had chosen them to be. It became part of their identity. It also served to unify the outsiders who chose to be circumcised with God’s people, showing they were now one of them.
However, as the prophet Jeremiah would point out many centuries later, true circumcision involves much more than the cutting away of the flesh. It involves the attitude of one’s heart as well:
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart” (Jeremiah 9:25–26, NIV).
New Testament Christians are not required to be circumcised today. Jesus, in living a life without sin and offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice, once and for all time, fulfilled all the requirements of the Law as no one else had ever been able to do. When He arose from the dead He ushered in the New Covenant under which we live today. In essence, He nailed the old legal system of the Law to the cross. As the Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 2:13b–14 (N(V): “He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”
Earlier in Colossians 2:8 (NIV), Paul talked about the practice of circumcision and issued this warning to Christians: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”
Christians enjoy a deep, spiritual relationship with Christ, a relationship from the heart, one that encompasses a person’s total being rather than just an outward sign of the cutting away of the flesh. Paul went on to explain it this way:
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. (Colossians 2:9–13a, NIV)
When Christians go down into the water of baptism, they symbolically die to their old sinful selves. Rather than cut away a part of the flesh, they are in essence cutting away sin from their lives. Then, when they come up out of their watery grave, they arise to a new life in Christ Jesus. Paul explained it this way to the Romans:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:3–11, ESV)
How unfathomable is the love of God, that He would allow us this privilege! When we symbolically participate in Jesus’s death through baptism, we are set free from sin. And, just as He arose from the grave never to die again, so we rise to eternal life with Him. Yes, our physical body will one day expire, but we now live a spiritual life in Christ Jesus which will never die.
Q2 - The lifespans of Abram’s forefathers had been decreasing, as God had declared they would in Genesis 6. At age 99, more than half of Abram’s life was over (he lived to be 175—see Genesis 25:7). Even though Sarai was ten years younger, it was unreasonable to think she could bear a child at her age (she lived to be 127—see Genesis 23:1). Why would God wait so long before He enabled Abram and Sarai to have a child?
A2 - God can make the seemingly impossible become possible. By having Abram and Sarai wait so long to have a child—far beyond their years of natural childbearing—God made clear that it was He who had made this event possible. There could be no doubt that He, God Almighty, had enabled Isaac’s birth.
By delaying the birth of their son for so long, God also allowed Abram and Sarai to not only initially show their great faith in Him, but to keep on showing it and living it out day by day. Abram and Sarai knew that their bodies were past the age of childbearing, and with each passing year they knew the possibility became less and less that Sarai could conceive. Of course, Sarai finally decided to take matters into her own hands and gave Hagar to Abram to have a child by her. Even still, God would not be rushed, and He made clear Ishmael was not the child He had promised for so long to Abram and Sarai.
Q3 - Abraham was concerned for Ishmael, yet God declared Isaac would be the child of promise. How did God bless Ishmael? (See Genesis 25:12–18 and 1 Chronicles 1:28–31.) Read carefully what God promised Abram in Genesis 12:2 and compare it to what He promised in Genesis 17:4 after Ishmael was born. His promise went from a singular nation to many nations. Did He do this to accommodate Ishmael and the additional six sons Abram would later father by Keturah? Or was God simply being more specific concerning what He had originally promised him from the start?
A3 - When Hagar ran into the wilderness to escape the mistreatment of Sarai, the Angel of the Lord found her and told her to return to her mistress. Then He promised Hagar, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count” (Genesis 16:10, NIV). Later, when God established His covenant of circumcision with Abram and Abram expressed his concern for Ishmael, God promised him, “And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation” (Genesis 17:20, NIV).
As the genealogy of Ishmael bears out, God indeed kept His promises. In Genesis 25:12–18, the names of Ishmael’s twelve sons are listed. They are called "twelve tribal rulers” or “twelve princes,” depending on the translation. Either designation indicates these men were important leaders. These verses also indicate they probably had many descendants of their own, and the area they occupied is named in verse 18. In addition to the great nation his people grew into, Ishmael was also blessed with a long life. Verse 17 tells us he died at age 137.
In Genesis 12:2 (NIV), God promised Abram, “I will make you into a great nation.” Twenty-four years later, after Abram had fathered Ishmael, God told him, “You will be the father of many nations” (Genesis 17:4, NIV). The scriptures do not tell us whether God altered His promise from a singular nation to many nations in order to include Ishmael and the six sons Abram had by Keturah or not. It could be that Abram had grown in his faith such that God expanded upon His promise. God also told Abram that his descendants would include kings—important and influential leaders of those nations. Of course, that came about as well, from both Ishmael’s descendants and from Isaac’s.
We don’t know much about Abram’s other six sons by Keturah. Genesis 25:5–6 (NIV) states, “Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.” The direction indicates that he sent then toward the Mesopotamian area where he originally came from. However, this sending away must not have included Ishmael. For one thing, the area where Ishmael and his descendants lived had already been established (see Genesis 25:18). For another, we know that Ishmael was still around when Abraham died, because Genesis 25:9 tells us that together Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham in the cave of Machpelah where Sarah had been buried.