Circumcision

SPECIAL TOPIC: CIRCUMCISION

Most of the people in the ANE practiced circumcision except possibly the Assyrians, Babylonians, Hivites,
Horites, and the Philistines (see R. K. Harrison, p. 134). However, in other cultures it was a rite of passage into manhood
(as it is in Arab culture today, at 13 years of age; NIDOTTE, vol. 4, pp. 474-476). In the Hebrew system, going back to
the covenant with Abraham in Gen. 17:9-14 (see Roland deVaux, Ancient Israel, vol. 1, pp. 46-48), it was done very early
as a religious symbol, a sign of the Abrahamic covenant. It is described in Lev. 12:3.

Circumcision (BDB 557 II) also became faith imagery. Deuteronomy 30:6, “God will circumcise your heart,”
is a metaphor for an open and accessible hearing of God’s word. The opposite is stated in v. 17. In Deut. 10:16 and
Jer. 4:4; 9:25-26, the Israelite is called upon to perform this spiritual act (cf. Rom. 2:28-29; Col. 2:11-13), yet here God
must do it. This same tension between God’s sovereignty and human action is seen in Ezek. 18:31 vs. 36:26. Here
circumcision is a metaphor for a proper spiritual attitude.