25: Circumcision is, in fact, of benefit only if you practice law; but if you are a transgressor of law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26: If, therefore, an uncircumcised person keeps the righteous requirements of the Law, his uncircumcision will be counted as circumcision, will it not?
First, it's not a fact that circumcision is only a benefit if you practice the law.
Oh, look, you omitted Rabbi Hirsch saying circumcision is only a benefit if you fulfill the law:
The inference is two-fold. On the one-hand, "Be a mensch, a decent human being, before you attempt to be a Jew." First acquire all the humane virtues; only then can you become a Jew.
Rabbi Hirsch seems to imply you must first acquire the human virtues related to the righteous requirement of the Law before you attempt to be one of the circumcision (i.e., a Jew). Stated another way, circumcision is of benefit only when you've already practiced the Law and become competent at it: First acquire all the righteous virtues related to performance of the Law, and only then can you be circumcised. If that's not clear enough, we have this:
Now, had Scripture not told us here that Avraham was ninety-nine years old when the covenant of Milah ---which is the founding covenant of Judaism---was established with him, we would have thought that all of Abraham's virtues, of which we have learned until now, were the result of the covenant established with him in youth, and that the whole flowering of this covenant consisted in these virtues. In fact, however, they all preceded the covenant of Milah. The full attainment of the purely humane virtues preceded the mitzvah stated here: והיה תמים. The covenant of Avraham [that is circumcision, the founding covenant of Judaism] is a higher perfection of the humane virtues.
The Hirsch Chumash, Genesis 17:1 (bracked added by me).
Rabbi Hirsch appears to be saying Abraham was already a righteous person before he was then given the great honor to enter the covenant of circumcision. Rabbi Hirsch seem to be saying something similar to St. Paul, vis-à-vis, first attain to the righteousness of the Law, and then you can consider a higher perfection, i.e., becoming one of the circumcision by being circumcised.
Second, no, an uncircumcised non-Jewish person cannot consider their uncircumcision a circumcision, because the non-Jewish person was never given instructions from the Almighty regarding their foreskin one way or the other.
But the instructions found in Genesis chapter 17, say to be circumcised (without saying what that is, verse 10). And then it says secondarily to cut the flesh of the foreskin as a "sign" of what circumcision is (verse 11). Cutting the flesh is not circumcision, but a "sign" of what circumcision is (Rabbi Hirsch notes this himself). A sign is some kind of emblem that gives an idea of what it signifies. If you conflate the two (sign and what is signified by the sign) you have an utterly meaningless tautology.
What does cutting off flesh down there signify to you? What does the "sign" signify to you? In other words, why there? Why blood? Why cutting flesh, why the penis, why
metzizah, etc. etc.? ------These are all "signs" signifying what circumcision is, and is all about. The signs are not circumcision (they're the sign signifying what circumcision is).
The sign of circumcision (i.e., cutting the flesh of the foreskin) is a
chok חק for Israel. What the sign of circumcision means is unknown for Israel until Messiah reveals it to Israel. Israel faithfully cuts the flesh (of the foreskin), to produce the sign, and will do so, until Messiah tells them what it means. That's what they're suppose to do. But they're not suppose to conflate sign and signified as though they're the same thing.
Now poor ole YoursTrue seems to be utterly confused by all the exegetical shenanigans taking place in the Jewish interpretation of Genesis 17:10-11. And who can blame her? And now stupid ole me is going to make it still worse by unwrapping all the Hebrew high jinks going on if we but scratch deeper than the surface of the Masoretic Text.
Two Hebrew words are found in Genesis 17:10-11. The word used for being "circumcised" is מול, while the word used for cutting the flesh of your penis is מלל. They're not the same word. And the latter of the two means to cut, while Rabbi Hirsch tells us that strangely enough only here in Genesis 17 is מול used as though it means the cutting. In other words, and Rabbi Hirsch points this out, מול doesn't even mean to cut. That's מלל.
Now a Christian like YoursTrue should truly know just how well-versed St. Paul was, even though he was often speaking to Hebrew illiterates who don't even know the brilliance of his writing.
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilators of flesh. For we are the circumcision, we who worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Philippians 3:2-3.
Hebrew illiterates think Paul is just being inflammatory toward Jews, as though he's just arguing tit-for-tat. But Paul reveals an incredible mystery unknown to most Christian exegetes, but well-known to his exegetical Jewish peers like the great Ramban. What concerns Ramban about Genesis 17, is what Paul reveals to his Christian audience without them having a clue what he's revealing since in many cases they don't know Hebrew grammar from a hill of beans.
Paul reveals that what's bothering Ramban (or will bother Ramban since Paul predates him) is that in the Hebrew text of Genesis chapter 17, there are two distinct words being interpreted and translated as "circumcision" (מלל and מול). Paul properly translates מלל into the Greek κατατομην translated into English as,
to scratch, cut, or mutilate. He then uses a different Greek word to translate מול; he uses the Greek word περιτομη, which in English means "circumcision" or to "circumcise." What Paul is revealing is that in Genesis chapter 17, the Jewish interpretation and translation conflates two distinct words מלל (κατατομην,
scratch, cut, mutilate) and מול (περιτομη, circumcision) as though they're speaking of the same thing when they're not.
Paul uses sanctified sarcasm to imply that anyone who thinks מול is מלל (or conflates them) can't be anything but a "mutilator" of the flesh since if the word מלל means the same thing as מול "circumcision," then "the circumcision" המול is speaking of "mutilators of the flesh" since the words don't have distinct --different ---meanings. Paul is saying that if circumcision, and the sign of circumcision, are just a tautology (if they mean the same thing, and thus nothing really) then all circumcision can possibly be is mutilating the penis. But that's not true. Mutilating the penis is a "sign" signifying what מול "circumcision" actually means. If it means merely mutilating the penis, then to be "the circumcision" is merely to be a mutilator of the flesh. Paul is pointing out that Jews who think this way (i.e. that מול and מלל are talking about the same thing, rather one being a sign of something it signifies in some way) can't be anything but mutilators of the flesh since they're undeniably saying mutilating the flesh is the fulfillment of mutilating the flesh, while Genesis 17, and Paul, imply mutilating the flesh, though a strange sign indeed, signifies something that isn't mutilating the flesh (something Messiah will reveal in good time).
In a verses never exegeted properly, Paul proves that by their own choice ----i.e., turning Genesis 17:10-11 into an asinine tautology rather than admit that for Israel circumcision is a
chok חק (such that they should obediently perform the ritual while admitting they don't know what it means), Jews make the sign of the covenant mean that once you've mutilated the flesh (i.e., manufactured the "sign") you've risen above your peers. Paul's statement in Philippians 3:2-3 is a brilliant way of saying that any Jew who turns a
chok חק (a decree whose meaning is unknown) into a thoughtless, stupid, tautology (cutting the flesh signifies cutting the flesh) is nothing but a mutilator of the flesh according to their own thoughtless reasoning. Paul can say, as can anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Hebrew, that if the shoe fits a person must wear it.
John
