Abraham took Ishmael his son, ... Here is an instance of prompt obedience to the divine command. It was in accordance with the patriarch's pious character and course of procedure; but he had an additional motive for ready compliance in the happy announcement which had been made to him (Genesis 17:16). It is important to observe the time when the patriarch was instructed to practice this peculiar rite, which had a relation to the birth of the Saviour, who was to appear "in the likeness of sinful flesh," and be made sin for us. Being appointed as the seal of the covenant made with Abraham, which had a direct reference to the Messiah, it was in the eye of faith a constant remembrancer of the special relation in which the patriarch stood to the promised seed; and accordingly it is deserving of particular notice, that it was not enjoined on Abraham previous to the birth of Ishmael, his son by the bond-woman, but at the very time of his receiving the promise of a son by Sarah; nor did he become the father of the child of promise until he had performed this rite. Many of the Christian fathers held that there was a mystical reference even in the circumstances that marked, as they assumed, the first observance of circumcision.
Abraham's household consisted, as they alleged, besides Ishmael, of 318 male servants, and that number involved a mysterious truth: for of the two Greek letters which represent 18, I stands for 10, and H for 8, which was a cipher (I H) in common use among the early Christians for the sacred name Jesus; and the letter Tau, the form of which suggests the idea of a cross, stands for 300; so that the number 318 was mystically significant of the 'cross of Jesus.' But the sacred historian does not say that 'all the men of Abraham's house (Genesis 17:27) who were circumcised,' were 318. That was the number of servants he selected for a warlike expedition fifteen years before; and since he must have left a sufficient number at home to take charge of his immense flocks, his household must have become suddenly and greatly reduced, if it comprised no more than 318 males "trained" men, slaves, and children.
This allegorical interpretation of the fathers, therefore, is not only a mere fanciful conjecture, but based on an unwarrantable assumption. Michaelis dwells on the difficulties connected with the simultaneous circumcision of all the males, master and servants, in the household:-all work must have ceased, and the cattle could not have been foddered. But there is no necessity for supposing that the collective body of males in the establishment were subjected to the operation at once. The conditions of the sacred narrative appear to be satisfied by considering that Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised on the self-same day on which the divine injunction had been given him while his servants followed in succession as rapidly as convenience allowed. And this is clearly implied in the record of Moses, who, while he first states (Genesis 17:23) the general fact that the rite was observed, seems to hint (Genesis 17:26-27) an order in the time of observance throughout the numerous household (see further the note at Joshua 5:5; Joshua 5:7).
In considering the views advanced in the exposition of this chapter, it naturally occurs to ask, 'What may be said to constitute the special and distinctive differences between the pagan and the Hebrew rite of circumcision?' It is not unlikely that this usage was connected first of all with the idea of generative purity, and so of a transcendent fitness for religious service and the higher culture of the intellect. As such it had continued to be prized in Egypt by the members of the hierarchy (no persons uncircumcised being allowed to study the sacerdotal or hieroglyphic characters), even though it was neglected or disparaged by the bulk of the people, among whom, indeed, on losing its original significance, it came to be regarded merely as an ancient custom or a sanitary and prudential regulation. It might also in some districts be perverted, with corruptions of religious thought, into a species of bloody offering, or might even, as a substitute for human sacrifices, be administered in every case with the intention of propitiating an angry god like Moloch. But whatever had become the pagan version of this symbol, no one will deny that when the Hebrew patriarch circumcised the members of his household, he both acted with a definite purpose and was animated with a spirit thoroughly religious.
The symbol was profoundly ethical, and was distinguished not only for its equal operation, but the grandeur of the end for which it was appointed. Translated into words-the meaning of it was-`Be ye holy, for I am holy.' Outward in the flesh, and so, accordant with the sterner genius of the old economy, it imprinted on the mind of every Hebrew the special closeness of his own relations to the pure and perfect God, and the necessity therein implied of fearing and loving Him, and circumcising (Deuteronomy 10:12-16) more and more 'the foreskin of the heart' (Hardwick.) The narrative describes the rite as performed upon "every male" in 'Abraham's house.' 'Females had no equivalent for it. The absence of circumcision, however, did not convey the idea that the privileges of the covenant were not applicable to woman also, but that she was dependent, and that her position in the natural and covenant-life was not "without" the husband, but in and with him-not in her capacity as woman, but as wife (and mother). Woman was sanctified and set apart in and with man; in and with him she had part in the covenant, and so far as her nature and position demanded and admitted of it, she had to cooperate in the development of the covenant' (Kurtz). (See a summary of the literature of this subject, religious moral, political, and medical, par Le Dr. Vanier du Havre, Paris, 1847.)