Behold, days are coming, saith Jehovah, when I will visit all [them that are] circumcised with the uncircumcised;
Jeremiah ends a long lament over Judah with a warning: the coming punishment will fall on the nations around, and on the people who carry the mark of circumcision in their flesh. So the verse raises a question: can a mark in the body help a person whose heart stays untouched?
The chapter calls people to boast in nothing but knowing the Lord. Then the judgment widens, and one commentator sets its reach beside the reach of grace.
Human achievements and resources would never do for man to boast in. A man should boast only in understanding and knowing the Lord, who is righteous in all His ways here below and delights in goodness... If grace can be indiscriminate, judgment sometimes takes this shape too. And this is what Jeremiah deals with.
Circumcision cut away flesh. But the Lord's complaint in Jeremiah points somewhere else — to the ear and the heart.
Circumcision was merely an outward cutting off of the flesh, merely an outward ceremony. The Holy Spirit insists that outward forms and ceremonies have no power whatever... The spiritual meaning of circumcision was "a heart affair." In Jeremiah 6:10 the Lord complains of Israel that "their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen." In Jeremiah 9:26 He adds that "all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart." So Paul says: "For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law... For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter."
Verse 26 lists the nations under judgment, and it drops Judah's name in among them. One commentator reads that placing as the charge.
Notice that in Jeremiah 9:26 Judah is placed between Egypt and Edom. There is no distinction, and so there is no separation. The nations were literally uncircumcised. Israel had submitted to the outward rite, yet they were just as uncircumcised in heart.
A sign with nothing behind it does not just fail to help. One commentator says what it costs its owner.
Human power and human scheming can win no exemption. Only God endures, and He will display that endurance in His people on earth, as in heaven, once they have bowed to learn themselves as well as Him. Until then, Israel's circumcision is made uncircumcision, and they are even more guilty than the Gentiles they despise.
The prophet was not chasing a better ceremony. One commentator names what he wanted, then turns it on the reader.
Jeremiah 9:25-26 gives the last mention of it in the Old Testament. The prophet seeks true circumcision "to the Lord", the circumcision that touches the heart and prepares it for Him. With pleading and warning he works to reach them. It is the same today. Unless we have been reached in the heart, and in the spirit, in the very centre of our being, we are separated from the living God. That stays true even though, like these Jews, we call ourselves "the people of God" and have priests and a form of religion.
So who can change a heart? One commentator points to God's own promise to do that work, and to the day it will be kept.
"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" (Deut. 30:6). This verse looks on to the future. For Israel, this promise has never yet been fulfilled. The terms of the New Covenant come to mind here: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts" (Jer. 31:33). In that day Israel will be a nation born again, and true love for God will be produced.
- Heart — the mark in the flesh always pointed inward. Where the ear will not listen, the ceremony has no power at all.
- Heart missing, distinction gone — the list names Judah between Egypt and Edom, because nothing set her apart from them any longer.
- Heart missing, guilt greater — the sign does not shield. It turns, and leaves Israel more guilty than the nations they looked down on.
- Heart missing, profession worthless — the same test falls on anyone who claims God's name and keeps a form of religion while the heart stays untouched.
- Heart given — the answer is not a better ceremony. God promises to circumcise the heart, so that His people love Him and live.
Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners [of their beard] cut off, that dwell in the wilderness for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.