Introduction
“Circumcision” rings disconcertingly in the modern Christian ear like a chord struck off key. This is because circumcision carries no theological meaning for many contemporary Christians; it is simply either a hospital procedure for male newborns or an arcane Jewish ritual that the Church rejected in New Testament times. Yet the Old and New Testaments mention circumcision a great deal. Even as a matter that itself is no longer a source of much controversy in the church, circumcision looms large in theology. Therefore, gaining an understanding of circumcision in the Bible—starting in the Old Testament—is vital, for all Christian doctrines must derive from and cohere with authoritative and sufficient Scripture.
The Abrahamic Covenant and the Sign of Circumcision
Ancient peoples other than the Hebrews practiced circumcision. Jeremiah lists these other peoples circumcised “merely in the flesh” as Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites (Jer 10:26). Yet for the Hebrews, circumcision was no mere cultural practice. Instead, circumcision was a core component of the Abrahamic covenant, whose key establishing passages are Genesis 12:1-9, all of Genesis 15, and Genesis 17:1-14.
Briefly, God initiates covenant relationship with Abram in Gen 12:1-3 with commands and promises.1 Abram immediately obeys God’s command to leave his home and to proceed to an as yet unrevealed land. Then in Genesis 15, Abram and God perform a covenant entry rite involving animal sacrifice.2 Finally, God grants circumcision as sign of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 17:10-14.
Studying these Abrahamic covenant passages together with the earlier Noahic covenant passage in Genesis 9:8-17 leads to three observations that prove relevant for theological reflection on covenants and their designated signs. First, biblical covenants may function without signs; God’s command alone is sufficient to establish covenants. After all, Abram is 75 years old in Genesis 12:4 and 99 years old in Genesis 17:1. About 24 years passed with no covenant sign.
Second, covenant signs need not be covenant entry rites. The rainbow is not any kind of ritual, and while circumcision was a ritualistic act, it was a ceremony for a covenant whose entry rite was already enacted years before, in Genesis 15:7-17.
Third, once God grants the covenant sign, its presence is mandatory for the continuance of the covenant. For example, the rainbow’s presence ensures that “all flesh” will never be “cut off” by floodwaters in Genesis 9:11. Then under the Abrahamic covenant, refusing the required covenant sign of circumcision is a covenant breaking act and results in being “cut off” from the covenant people (Genesis 17:14).
Circumcision as Theological Metaphor
Throughout Old Testament times, the bloody physical act of circumcision remains a mandatory act of covenant faithfulness.3 Yet circumcision, the sign of the covenant, also attains a metaphorical meaning involving the lips, ears, and heart. In Exod 5:1-5 Pharaoh rebuffs Moses and Aaron at their first meeting, then in Exod 6:12 and 30 Moses laments that he is “of uncircumcised lips”— unequipped for his calling to speak to Pharaoh.4
As for ears, the LORD proclaims that the Hebrews’ “ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen” in Jer 6:10. Here there is no hint that Hebrews should cut their ears, but only imagery that attests to non-listening ears that are unfit for the covenant people.
As for the heart, Lev 26:41 decries the Hebrews’ “uncircumcised heart” (see Jer 9:26). God commands that the Hebrews circumcise their own hearts in Deut 10:16 (see Jer 4:4), but then Deut 30:6 promises a future when God himself will perform this needed act: “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” The verbal allusion back to the Greatest Commandment in Deut 6:5 is striking. Deuteronomy thus teaches that what God has commanded regarding the heart, he will himself do. God’s “heart surgery” enables his people to obey him.
Deuteronomy’s pattern of commanding heart change and then promising that God will one day do it himself returns in Ezekiel. “Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” is the Lord GOD’s command to the house of Israel in Ezek 18:31. Then Ezek 36:26-27 reads: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Here appears the unprecedented promise that the Holy Spirit would dwell in all members of the covenant, and that his presence would enable obedience to God’s law.5 This covenant is the “new covenant” of Jer 31:31-34, in which the LORD places his law upon the hearts of his people (v. 33).
According to the book of Hebrews, this “new covenant” of Jer 31:31-34 (cited in Heb 8:8-12) is the covenant for which Jesus is the mediator (Heb 9:15, 12:24). Hence when Rom 2:29 reads that “circumcision is a matter of the heart” and that it is “by the Spirit,” the New Testament unveils the Holy Spirit’s fulfillment of the promise in Deut 30:6 for God’s new covenant people. The New Testament counterpart to circumcision of the flesh is the circumcision of the heart, performed by the Spirit, who is the seal of the new covenant (see 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13-14, 4:30).6
1 God gives Abram the new name “Abraham” in Genesis 17:5.
2 This ritual appears again with other covenant parties in Jer 34:18-19. See the potential Ancient Near Eastern parallel incised upon the Sefire Stele: מנעאל יגזר כן זנה עגלא יגזר] י [זאיך ו,]” Just as] this calf is cut in two, so may Matî‘el be cut in two …” Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefîre, BibOr 19 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967), 14–15.
3 Note, for example, that Lev 12:3 codifies in Mosaic Law the requirement from Gen 17:12 that the eighth day after a male infant’s birth is the day of his circumcision.
4 G. Mayer, “ל ַר ָ ʿāral,” pages 11:359–361 in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 17 vols., ed. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, trans. David E. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2018), esp. 11:360.
5 Ezek 11:19-20 is similar, though this passage does not specify that the “new spirit” would be the “Spirit of the LORD” as does Ezek 36:27. The covenant formula in Ezek 11:20 (“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God”) entails that the impartation of the Spirit is specifically a covenant promise. See Rolf Rendtorff, The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1998).
6 Markus Barth, Ephesians 1–3: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 34 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 135–143.
