Charles Ellicott Commentary Philippians 3:5

"circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;" — Philippians 3:5 (ASV)

Circumcised the eighth day—that is, a Jew born, not a proselyte.

Of the stock of Israel—that is, emphatically, a true descendant of the covenanted stock, the royal race of the “Prince of God.”

Of the tribe of Benjamin—that is, the tribe of the first king, whose name the Apostle bore; the tribe to which belonged the holy city; the one tribe faithful to the house of Judah in the apostasy of the rest.

An Hebrew of the Hebrews.—Properly, a Hebrew descended from Hebrews. The Hebrew Jew, who retained, wherever born, the ancestral language, education, and customs of his fathers, considered himself superior to the Grecian or Hellenist, who had to assimilate himself to the language, as well as to the thoughts and habits, of the pagans around him. St. Paul united the advantages of both the true Hebrew, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and the Hellenist of Tarsus, familiar with Greek language, literature, and thought.

Compare his own words to his countrymen from the steps of the Temple, which illustrate the whole passage: “I verily am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous before God . . . and I persecuted this way unto the death” (Acts 22:3–4).

Concerning the law, a Pharisee.—Compare Acts 23:6, “I am a Pharisee, and the son of Pharisees;” and Acts 26:5, “according to the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.” In these words St. Paul passes from his inherited Judaic privileges to the intense Judaism of his own personal life.

On verses 5-6:

The comparison with the celebrated passage in 2 Corinthians 11:18–23 is striking, not only in its similarity of substance but also in the change of tone from the indignant and impassioned abruptness of the earlier Epistle to the calm impressiveness of this one. The first belongs to the crisis of the struggle, the other to its close. We also have a parallel, though less complete, in Romans 11:1, “I also am an Israelite, of the stock of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”