Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible Part in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is Part #13 of Genesis, chapter 17 and we are going to read Genesis 17:11-14:

And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

I will stop reading there. We have been spending some time looking at the “covenant” and “circumcision.” God is intently going over these things in this chapter. In our last Part, we looked at the word “circumcised” in verse 10, Strong’s #4135. That word was found 31 times and 30 times it was translated as some form of “circumcise,” but only one time it was translated another way other than “circumcised” in Psalm 90:5-6:

Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

Our word was translated as “cut down” here, but it is the word “circumcised: “In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is circumcised.” This would be a correct translation. In the evening it is circumcised and it withereth. This is referring to “grass” and we saw in 1Peter that “all flesh is as the grass,” so the reference to “grass” being cut down, we can understand as people being circumcised in the evening and the evening or night identifies with Judgment Day.

We are continuing now in Genesis 17:11:

And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

We saw that the word translated as “foreskin” can also be translated as “uncircumcised.” That is what “uncircumcision” means – the flesh of the foreskin has not been cut off. We also saw that God uses the word “uncircumcised” (foreskin) to refer to the foreskin of the heart and He refers to the “uncircumcised ear.” Of course, this is impossible in both cases. Circumcision has nothing to do with a heart or ears, but God uses it as a figure of an unsaved individual who has a heart of stone or a wicked and deceitful heart, which is a “dead heart.” Figuratively, it is an uncircumcised heart. Likewise, someone with “uncircumcised ears” does not have ears to hear spiritual things because they are dead in sin. Once God saved an individual and took out the heart of stone and gave him a heart of flesh, it is as if the heart has been circumcised. It is the same thing with the “uncircumcised ears.” Once God saved an individual, they are able to hear and understand the Word of God and they now have circumcised ears. We can see that God uses the figure of “uncircumcision” for one that is unsaved and “circumcision” is a figure for one that is saved.

I mentioned last time that it is also possible for “circumcision” to refer to Israel or the corporate church and “uncircumcision” to refer to Gentiles or the people of the nations of the world.

But, again, it says in Genesis 17:11:

And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin…

The word translated as “circumcise” is a different Hebrew word than used in Genesis 17:10:

…Every man child among you shall be circumcised.

It is also a different word than used later in Genesis 17:12:

And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised…

In both verses 10 and 12, it is Strong’s #4135, but in our verse in Genesis 17:11, where it says, “And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin,” it is the Hebrew word that is Strong’s #5243 and this Hebrew word is only found five times in the Bible. It is found here translated as “circumcised,” which means we have to keep that translation in mind when we look at the other four places. And we are going to look at the four other places. Three are in the book of Job and one is in the Psalms.

The first place it is used is in Job 14:1-2:

Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

The word translated as “cut down” here is Strong’s #5243, which was translated as “circumcised.”

This is similar to 1Peter, chapter 1, is it not? We read about the “grass” and it said in 1Peter 1:24:

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

In this verse God also speaks of the “flower of grass” and not just grass alone. In Job 14:2 it said, “He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down,” and in Psalm 90, this word translated as “cut down” is the word translated as “circumcised.” This is speaking of mankind. Again, this word translated as “cut down” is translated as “circumcised” in Genesis 17:11.

The third place we see this word is in Job, chapter 18. So we can see who is being spoken of, let me read Job 18:5:

Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.

Then we read further down where it is still speaking of the wicked, in Job 18:16:

His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.

The word translated as “cut off” is our word and it has to with judgment on the wicked and you can see this clearly in the next verse, in Job 18:17:

His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.

In other words, he will cease to exist. It is the final judgment of the unsaved. They will be no more. This word also translated as “circumcised” has been used by God twice in Job to refer to the death of mankind and, in this case, the final destruction of the wicked.

Also, it says in Job 24:19-20:

Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so doth the grave those which have sinned. The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.

It is the same idea as the other verse in Job. They are no longer brought to remembrance. When God destroys (unsaved) mankind and this earth, there will be no memory of them. We are told that in Isaiah 65:17: “…and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”

Then it says in Job 24:24:

They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all other, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.

Here, again, the unsaved or the sinner will be “cut off.” In every case, this word that is also translated as “circumcised” has to do with the final end of the unsaved.

The last place we will look is in Psalm 37:1-2:

Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

Our word is translated here as “cut down.” We can see how close this sounds to Psalm 90, even though it was a different word that was translated there as “cut down” and, yet, it is the same idea for the use of this word, as far as Psalm 37:2 is speaking of man that will soon be “cut down” or “circumcised” like the grass. And, remember, “all flesh is as grass.”

So, through this second word that is translated only once as “circumcised,” we see the same picture of the wicked being “cut down” or “circumcised.” It has to do with the end of the world and the final destruction of the wicked. We must keep this in view when we look at the Biblical language concerning “circumcision.”

If we go back to Genesis 17, let us look at what it says in the next verse in Genesis 17:12:

And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

Again, the eight days were determined by God for the child to be circumcised. God even said in Genesis 17:14:

And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

Since God has related circumcision to the thousand years as yesterday when it is past (as a day), we can see the tie-in with the 7,000-year period from the flood, as 2Peter, chapter 3 linked a day to a thousand years. And from the flood date in 4990 B.C. to 2011 A.D. was “seven days” or 7,000 years. May 21, 2011 came and it was the fulfillment of the 7,000 years, which was like fulfilling the “week.” All the time after May 21, 2011, the day in which we are currently living, is the “eighth day.” We are living in the beginning of the “eighth day” in millennial terms and by the “eighth day” the child was to be circumcised and circumcision has to do with salvation. We have known this for years, even prior to May 21, 2011. Salvation had to be accomplished by God toward His elect by that date because that would be the end of His salvation program and the “day of salvation” would end and the night, or evening, would come in which there would be “spiritual circumcision” of the cutting off of the flesh.

Of course, there is an aspect of this that relates to the elect and God will “cut off” the flesh of our bodies as we are translated to receive new resurrected bodies that will live for evermore in the new heaven and new earth. That also identifies with “circumcision.”

But, again, the “eighth day” has come and all those that are not saved will be “cut off.” That soul shall be cut off; that is, they will be destroyed and their flesh will be “cut off,” but the tragedy is that since they are carnal in every aspect of their being, there will be nothing left of them when the flesh is cut off. They will be annihilated and cease to exist. There will be no further remembrance of them.

Just as God told Noah, “And yet seven days,” and He would bring the flood waters, we have correctly understood that statement to spiritually represent the 7,000 years in which mankind could potentially become saved. God saved many people in the generations of those seven thousand years in His times and seasons, but at the completion of the “seven days” or 7,000 years, no salvation would be possible. It would come to an end.

Likewise, man had to be circumcised by the eighth day. If you were not circumcised (become saved), you will be cut off. So, we see this similar picture and we can see how God will fulfill the millennial nature of that “eighth day” when He completes His judgment program. Right now, we are looking at the year 2,033 as the possible end, as it has much good Biblical evidence pointing to it as the end of the world. We are continuing to Part this and there is no rush to state it absolutely, at this point.

Let us say that 2033 A.D. is correct. It would still be Part of the “eight-day” period or the 8,000th year, which if the world continued would go to the point of 3,000 A.D. But, of course, there is no way that date will ever come because God will bring this world to an end and He will bring all His people, circumcised in their bodies, on the “eighth day” into eternity. It is pointed out in Revelation 20:6:

Blessed and holy is he that hath Part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

You see here the “millennial” reign that Pre-millennialists and Post-millennialists have been so captivated with, but they have gotten it all wrong, unfortunately. They see the language of “a thousand years,” but what they fail to understand is that those that live and reign with Christ will do so forever and ever. The “eighth day,” as it were, will continue into eternity future.

The Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead early Sunday morning and you could look at it as if at the completion of the seventh day, the week begins again, but it is also the “eighth day.” Christ was resurrected on the eighth day and we will follow that pattern of His ministry. This seems certain since even the Jubilee years align perfectly, separated by 2,000 years. We know that from 7 B.C. to 2033 A.D. is the same length of time as it is from 1994 to 2033, spiritually. As Christ rose early in the morning on the “eighth day,” there is mounting Biblical evidence that God’s people will rise on the “eighth day,” this millennial period that will continue into eternity future.