Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 17:10

"This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee: every male among you shall be circumcised." — Genesis 17:10 (ASV)

Shall be circumcised. — It is stated by Herodotus (Book ii. 104) that the Egyptians were circumcised, and that the Syrians in Palestine confessed that they learned this practice from the Egyptians. Origen, however, seems to limit circumcision to the priesthood (Epistle to the Romans, section 2.13); and the statement of Herodotus is not only very loose, but his date is too far after the time of Abram for us to be able to place implicit confidence in it.

If we turn to the evidence of Egyptian monuments and mummies, we find proof that the rite became general in Egypt only in quite recent times. The discussion is, however, merely of archaeological importance, because circumcision was just as appropriate a sign of the covenant if borrowed from institutions already existing as if it were then used for the first time. Moreover, it is an acknowledged fact that the Bible is always true to the local color.

Chaldean influence is predominant in those early portions of Genesis that come to us from Abram, a citizen of Ur of the Chaldees. His life and surroundings subsequently are those of an Arab sheikh, while Egyptian influence is strongly marked in the latter part of Genesis and in the history of the Exodus from that country. In this fact, we have a sufficient answer to the theories that would assign the composition of the Pentateuch to a later period, because the author would certainly have written in accordance with the facts and ideas of his own time.

If, however, Abram had seen circumcision in Egypt when the famine drove him there, and had learned the significance of the rite and that its idea was connected with moral purity, this itself was a reason why God would choose it as the outward sign of the sacrament He was now bestowing on the patriarch.

The fitness of circumcision to be a sign of entering into a covenant, especially one to which children were to be admitted, consisted in its representation of a new birth by the putting off of the old man and the dedication of the new man to holiness.

The flesh was cast away so that the spirit might grow strong. The change of name in Abram and Sarai was typical of this change of condition: they had been born again, and so they had to be named again.

And although women could not, indeed, be admitted directly into the covenant, they nevertheless shared in its privileges by virtue of their kinship with the men, who acted as sponsors for them. Thus, Sarai changed her name just as her husband did.