For even they who receive circumcision don’t keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may boast in your flesh.
Parallel Translations
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For even they who receive circumcision don’t keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may boast in your flesh.
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For they them selves which are circumcised kepe not the lawe: but desyre to have you circumcised that they myght reioyce in youre flesshe.
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For they themselues which are circumcised keepe not the law, but desire to haue you circumcised, that they might reioyce in your flesh.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Galatians 6:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Philippians 3:3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh;
- 1 Corinthians 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
- Romans 2:17-25 Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God, know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth. You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal? You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written. For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
- 2 Peter 2:19 promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.
- Matthew 23:3 All things therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do, but don’t do their works; for they say, and don’t do.
- Matthew 23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel around by sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves.
- 2 Corinthians 11:18 Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I will also boast.
- Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.
- Romans 3:9-19 What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written, “There is no one righteous; no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God. They have all turned away. They have together become unprofitable. There is no one who does good, no, not so much as one.” “Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have used deceit.” “The poison of vipers is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace, they haven’t known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.
- 1 Corinthians 3:21 Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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Martin Luther 1535 · Public Domain VERSE 13. For neither they themselves who are circumcised…
VERSE 13. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.
In other words: "I shall tell you what kind of teachers you have now. They avoid the Cross, they teach no certain truths. They think they are performing the Law, but they are not. They have not the Holy Spirit and without Him nobody can keep the Law." Where the Holy Ghost does not dwell in men there dwells an unclean spirit, a spirit that despises God and turns every effort at keeping the Law into a double sin.
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Mark what the Apostle is saying: Those who are circumcised do not fulfill the Law. No self-righteous person ever does. To work, pray, or suffer apart from Christ is to work, pray, and to suffer in vain, "for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." It does a person no good to be circumcised, to fast, to pray, or to do anything, if in his heart he despises Christ.
"Why do the false apostles insist that you should be circumcised? Not for the sake of your righteousness," although they give that impression, but "that they may glory in your flesh." Now what sort of an ambition is that? Worst of all, they force circumcision upon you for no other reason than the satisfaction they get out of your submission.
Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 13. For neither they who hold by circumcision keep…
13. For neither they who hold by circumcision keep the law. The old version and Erasmus translate thus: who are circumcised. But Paul appears to me to refer to teachers only; and for this reason I would prefer to render the words, those who hold by circumcision, which would not include all circumcised persons, and thus would avoid ambiguity. The meaning is, “It is not from a strong attachment to the law that they bind you with the yoke of ceremonies; for, even with their own circumcision, they do not keep the law. It is no doubt under the pretext of the law that they require you to be circumcised; but, though they have themselves been circumcised, they do not perform what they enjoin upon others.” When he says, indeed, that they do not keep the law, it is doubtful whether he refers to the whole law, or to ceremonies. Some understand him as saying that the law is an intolerable burden, and therefore they do not satisfy its demands. But he rather insinuates against them a charge of insincerity, because, except when it suited their own designs, they found themselves at liberty to despise the law.
Even now this disease rages everywhere with virulence. You will find many who are prompted more by ambition than by conscience to defend the tyranny of the papal system. I speak of our courtly apostles, who are attracted by the smell of a kitchen, and who pronounce, with an air of authority, that the decrees of the holy Church of Rome must be observed with reverence. And what is their own practice all the while! They pay no more regard to any decisions of the Roman see than to the braying of an ass, but they take care to avoid personal risk. In short, Paul had the same kind of controversy with those impostors as we now have with hypocritical professors of the gospel, who hold out to us a monstrous union between Christ and the Pope. Paul therefore declares that they are not acting the part of honest men, and that they have no other object in enjoining circumcision than to boast to the Jews of the converts they have made. Such is the import of the words, that they may glory in your flesh. “They wish to triumph over you, and to gratify their own desire of applause, by offering up your mutilated flesh to the false zealots of the law, as a token of peace and harmony.”
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain That they have entangled you in Judaism, and yet…
That they have entangled you in Judaism, and yet he harpeth on the form of circumcision.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 13 For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep…
13 For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.
Ver. 13. Keep the law] Rom 2:23. Jerome doubteth not to pronounce that man accursed, that saith it is impossible to keep the law. Sed quid visum sit Hieronymo, nihil moramur; nos quid verum sit inquirimus, saith Calvin. But let Jerome hold as he will, we know there is no such thing.
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That they may glory in your flesh] That they may pride themselves in the multitude of their followers, and curry favour with the Jews by gaining many proselytes.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain In this the hypocrisy of your false teachers discovereth…
In this the hypocrisy of your false teachers discovereth itself, that whereas, by their being circumcised, they had declared themselves debtors to the whole law, and under an obligation entirely to keep it if they would be saved, yet they themselves did not keep it; only they were very zealous for this one thing, not out of any love they had to the law, but that they might glory of you, as their converts, being by them persuaded to be circumcised.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But God forbid that I should glory,.... The apostle,…
But God forbid that I should glory,.... The apostle, on the contrary, expresses his aversion to glorying in anything these men did; not in his outward carnal privileges, as a Jew; nor in his moral, civil, and legal righteousness; nor in his gifts and attainments; nor in his labours and success, as of himself; nor in the flesh of others, or in any outward corporeal subjection to any ordinance, legal or evangelical; his glorying and rejoicing were rather in the spirituality, the faith, hope, love, patience, order, and steadfastness of the saints, than in anything in the flesh, either his own or others: and indeed he chose not to glory in any thing,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; meaning either the infirmities, reproaches, tribulations, and persecutions, which he endured for the sake of Christ, and the preaching of his Gospel; or the Gospel, the doctrine of the cross of Christ, and salvation by it: or rather a crucified Christ himself, whom he preached; though counted foolishness by some, and was a stumbling to others: he gloried in him, and determined to know, and make known, none but him, in the business of salvation; he gloried in him as crucified, and in his cross; not in the wood of the cross, but in the effects of his crucifixion; in the peace, pardon, righteousness, life, salvation, and eternal glory, which come through the death of the cross; he gloried in Christ as his wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption:
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by whom the world is crucified to me: so that he feared not the worst men, and things in it, any more than he would one that was fastened to a cross, or dead; since Christ, by his crucifixion and death, had overcome the world, the prince of it, the men and malice of it, the sin that was in it, and had made him more than a conqueror also; his faith in a crucified Christ overcame the world likewise; so that he looked upon it as the Israelites saw the Egyptians, dead on the sea shore; nor did he affect and love, but trampled upon and despised, as crucified persons generally are, those things in it which are the most alluring to the flesh, the lusts of it; the doctrine of grace, of a crucified Christ, taught him to deny the riches, honours, pleasures, profits, and applause of the world; which were to him as dross, in comparison of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord: the ceremonial law also, the elements of the world, were dead unto him, being nailed to the cross of Christ, to be of no further use and service unto men:
and I unto the world; that is, am crucified to the world, as the Syriac and Arabic versions express it; that is, he was despised by the world for the sake of a crucified Christ, as the world was by him, in comparison of him; the world had no affection for him, as he had none for the world; and as the ceremonial law was dead to him, so he was dead to that, through the body of Christ, and had nothing to do with these beggarly elements, nor they with him, which sense is confirmed by the following words.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain For neither they themselves keep the whole law -…
For neither they themselves keep the whole law - So far are they from a real zeal for it. But yet they desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh - That they may boast of you as their proselytes, and make a merit of this with the other Jews.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 13. Neither they themselves who are circumcised] They…
Verse 13. Neither they themselves who are circumcised] They receive circumcision and profess Judaism, not from a desire to be conformed to the will of God; but Judaism was popular, and the more converts the false teachers could make; the more occasion of glorying they had, and they wished to get those Christian converts, who had been before proselytes of the gate, to receive circumcision, that they might glory in their flesh. Behold my converts! Thus they gloried, or boasted, not that the people were converted to God, but that they were circumcised.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For neither they themselves who are circumcised - The…
For neither they themselves who are circumcised - The Jewish teachers, or perhaps all Jews. It was true in general that the Jews did not wholly and entirely obey the Law of Moses, but it is probable that the apostle refers particularly here to the judaizing teachers in Galatia.
Keep the law - The Law of Moses, or the Law of God. Paul’s idea is, that if they were circumcised they brought themselves under obligation to keep the whole law of God; see the note at Gal 5:3. But they did not do it.
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(1) No person perfectly observes the whole law of God.
(2) The Jewish nation as such were very far from doing it.
(3) It is probable that these persons did not pretend even to keep the whole Law of Moses.
Paul insists on it that if they were circumcised, and depended on that for salvation, they were under obligation to keep the whole law. But they did not. Probably they did not offer sacrifice, or join in any of the numerous observances of the Jewish nation, except some of the more prominent, such as circumcision. This, says Paul, is inconsistent in the highest degree; and they thus show their insincerity and hypocrisy.
That they may glory in your flesh - In having you as converts, and in persuading you to be circumcised, that they may show their zeal for the Law, and thus escape persecution. The phrase “in your flesh” here, is equivalent to “in your circumcision;” making use of your circumcision to promote their own importance, and to save themselves from persecution.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Translate, "For not even do they who submit to…
Translate, "For not even do they who submit to circumcision, keep the law themselves (Rom 2:17-23), but they wish you (emphatical) to be circumcised," &c. They arbitrarily selected circumcision out of the whole law, as though observing it would stand instead of their non-observance of the rest of the law.
that they may glory in your flesh--namely, in the outward change (opposed to an inward change wrought by the SPIRIT) which they have effected in bringing you over to their own Jewish-Christian party.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 13. He justifies the imputation of a bad motive,…
13. He justifies the imputation of a bad motive, by a fact which cannot be denied. The Judaizers could not pretend that they so complied with the terms of the Law as perfectly to fulfil its requirements. They could not be justified by the Law. They acknowledged in some sense their need of Christ. And if so, why impose one of the legal ceremonies as necessary to salvation? Their real object is to gain a party triumph, that they may make Christian converts into Jewish proselytes.
neither they themselves] Better, ‘not even they themselves’.
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who are circumcised] Lit. ‘the circumcised’, those on whom the rite is imposed as a condition of salvation, and therefore of course those also who imposed it. Another rendering, for which there is considerable authority, is, ‘who have been circumcised’. It does not, however, suit the argument so well as the present participle.
keep the law] This does not refer, as some suppose, to the impossibility of keeping strictly the ceremonial law, owing to the distance of many from Jerusalem and similar causes, nor to the insincerity of the men themselves, who were not enough in earnest to observe it rigorously; but, as explained above, to the moral impossibility of fulfilling the Law, on which St Paul so frequently insists, owing to the fallen nature of man.
glory in your flesh] boast in your submission to an outward ordinance. See note on Gal_6:12. In the later history of the Church there have been instances of the same tendency on the part of those who have gloried in the number of converts admitted to Baptism, without regard to the spiritual change of which it is the token and pledge.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (13) Their insincerity is shown by the fact that…
(13) Their insincerity is shown by the fact that they are not really careful to observe the Law. What they do is only to serve as a blind, that they may be able to point to your mutilated flesh as the visible sign of their success in gaining proselytes.
They themselves who are circumcised.—The expression in the Greek includes, not only those who were circumcised themselves, but also those who were for circumcising others.
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Glory in your flesh.—Make a boast of getting this rite performed upon your bodies.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the…
For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the Law (oujde gamenoi aujtoimon fulassousin); for neither do they who are being circumcised themselves keep the Law; or, for not even. they who are being circumcised, themselves keep the Law. It is doubtful whether the oujde accentuates the main idea of the clause, (see note on Gal_1:12) or only the single term, "they who are being circumcised," as inmenoi Joh_7:5 it accentuates "his brethren." "For;" pointing back to the words," only that," "for no other reason than that," of the previous verse. The apostle means, it is from no zeal for the Law itself that they do what they do, for they are at no pains to keep the Law; but only with the object of currying favour with the Jews. The present participle periteuno) is the reading more generally accepted, though the perfect peritetmhmenoi has a competing amount of documentary authentication. The perfect is so much the easier reading to understand ("not even those who have actually been circumcised") as to be much more likely to be a correction displacing peritemnomenoi than the converse hypothesis of the latter being a correction of the other borrowed from ver. 3. "They who are being circumcised" may be understood of a party, including those who first set the movement ageing, who were one after another undergoing the rite. Another turn is given to this participial phrase, as meaning "who are eager for circumcision," "who are all for being circumcised, the circumcision party." Bishop Lightfoot is in favour of this view, referring to "the apt quotation" from an apocryphal book, in which the phrase appears used in this very sense (see his note). It is a sense grammatically difficult to sustain from the usage of the New Testament; for oJ diwkwnssw of Gal_1:23, which has been cited on its behalf, does not bear it out. But the passion of scorn with which the apostle writes make the supposed strain upon strict grammatical propriety not altogether improbable. "Themselves;" this is inserted with allusion to the zeal shown by those men, both the first promoters and those drawn in by them, in urging upon others the observance, not indeed of the whole Law, but of certain of its prescriptions. The verb fula) is used similarly in Rom_2:26; mon, Act_21:24. The sense seems founded upon the notion of watching the Law to see what it requires, as one is endeavouring to carry it out. The article is wanting before no though specifically denoting the Law of Moses, as in Rom_2:25, Rom_2:27, and often. But desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh (ajllalousin uJmav peritemnesqai ina ejn th uJmetera sarkiswntai); but they desire you to receive circumcision, that in your flesh they may have whereof to glory. The conjunction ajlla is used in its proper original sense, "instead of that." All that they want is that in their intercourse with the Jews they may have your circumcision to refer to as evidence of the high respect which they and you as influenced by them have for the Law. "See! so far from trampling upon the Law, we and these our brethren too are adopting the very badge of the servants of the Law." The word "flesh" is in this clause used in its strictly literal signification. The account which the apostle here gives of the motives actuating this particular section of Judaizing reactionaries was no doubt grounded on specific information which he had just received. But such information, both in respect to its general probability and to its grave importance, was doubtless corroborated to his own mind by large experience which he had had elsewhere among the Gentile Churches of the behaviour of unsteady and imperfectly instructed Gentile converts. In almost every important place where Gentiles were won to the faith, there were previously existing communities of Jews; (Act_15:21) and contact with these must have given rise to an endless diversity of relations both of attraction and of repulsion. Everywhere, from the very first, the contact of Christianity with Judaism gave birth to varying phases of Judaico-Christian-ism such as afterwards developed into monstrous forms of error. It was no new thing with the apostle that he should find himself called upon to check, on the part of weak or insincere brethren, a tendency to draw towards Judaism at the cost of not merely unseemly but even fundamentally fatal compliances. The peril was always very near, and had to be constantly watched and guarded against.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 13. For neither they themselves. They do not keep…
13. For neither they themselves. They do not keep the law in all its details, but want to bring you under it that they may boast of their Gentile proselytes. Glory in your flesh. Glory because circumcision has made marks in your flesh.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain For not even they who receive circumcision do themselves…
For not even they who receive circumcision do themselves keep the law; but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh . [In taking the pen in his own hand it was natural that he should show his earnestness in what he had dictated about circumcision and the Judaizers, tracing with his own fingers a line or two more on that subject. This, therefore, he does, telling them that all those who desire to make a fair show in the flesh, i. e., to please men by complying with worldly demand, seek to compel them (the Galatians) to be circumcised. They did this for no zeal for circumcision, but in order to escape the persecution of their Jewish brethren for adherence to the doctrine of the cross. Moreover, these Judaizers who were thus urging circumcision did not do so from any zeal for the law, for they made no effort themselves to keep it, but they did it that they might boast to other strict and unconverted Jews how they were making Jews out of Gentile Christians. Thus their motives were not religious and holy, but base and selfish.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.