7 I'm establishing my covenant between me and you, a covenant that includes your descendants, a covenant that goes on and on and on, a covenant that commits me to be your God and the God of your descendants. 8 And I'm giving you and your descendants this land where you're now just camping, this whole country of Canaan, to own forever. And I'll be their God." 9 God continued to Abraham, "And you: You will honor my covenant, you and your descendants, generation after generation. 10 This is the covenant that you are to honor, the covenant that pulls in all your descendants: Circumcise every male. 11 Circumcise by cutting off the foreskin of the penis; it will be the sign of the covenant between us. 12 Every male baby will be circumcised when he is eight days old, generation after generation - this includes house-born slaves and slaves bought from outsiders who are not blood kin. 13 Make sure you circumcise both your own children and anyone brought in from the outside. That way my covenant will be cut into your body, a permanent mark of my permanent covenant. 14 An uncircumcised male, one who has not had the foreskin of his penis cut off, will be cut off from his people - he has broken my covenant."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Genesis 17:7-14
Commentary on Genesis 17:7-14
(Read Genesis 17:7-14)
The covenant of grace is from everlasting in the counsels of it, and to everlasting in the consequences of it. The token of the covenant was circumcision. It is here said to be the covenant which Abraham and his seed must keep. Those who will have the Lord to be to them a God, must resolve to be to him a people. Not only Abraham and Isaac, and his posterity by Isaac, were to be circumcised, but also Ishmael and the bond-servants. It sealed not only the covenant of the land of Canaan to Isaac's posterity, but of heaven, through Christ, to the whole church of God. The outward sign is for the visible church; the inward seal of the Spirit is peculiar to those whom God knows to be believers, and he alone can know them. The religious observance of this institution was required, under a very severe penalty. It is dangerous to make light of Divine institutions, and to live in the neglect of them. The covenant in question was one that involved great blessings for the world in all future ages. Even the blessedness of Abraham himself, and all the rewards conferred upon him, were for Christ's sake. Abraham was justified, as we have seen, not by his own righteousness, but by faith in the promised Messiah.