He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised. My covenant will be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
Parallel Translations
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He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised. My covenant will be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
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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.
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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.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to Genesis 17:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Exodus 12:44 but every man’s servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then shall he eat of it.
- Genesis 37:36 The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard.
- Nehemiah 5:8 I said to them, “We, after our ability, have redeemed our brothers the Jews that were sold to the nations; and would you even sell your brothers, and should they be sold to us?” Then they held their peace, and found not a word to say.
- Genesis 14:14 When Abram heard that his relative was taken captive, he led out his three hundred eighteen trained men, born in his house, and pursued as far as Dan.
- Genesis 15:3 Abram said, “Behold, you have given no children to me: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”
- Genesis 37:27 Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened to him.
- Genesis 39:1 Joseph was brought down to Egypt. Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites that had brought him down there.
- Exodus 21:2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.
- Exodus 21:4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.
- Exodus 21:16 “Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
- Nehemiah 5:5 Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we bring our sons and our daughters into bondage to be servants, and some of our daughters have been brought into bondage. It is also not in our power to help it, because other men have our fields and our vineyards.”
- Matthew 18:25 But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 13. For an everlasting covenant The meaning of this…
13. For an everlasting covenant The meaning of this expression may be twofold: either that God promises that his grace, of which circumcision was a sign and pledge, should be eternal; or that he intended the sign itself to be perpetually observed. Indeed, I have no doubt that this perpetuity ought to be referred to the visible sign. But they who hence infer, that the use of it ought to flourish among the Jews even of the present time, are (in my opinion) deceived. For they swerve from that axiom which we ought to regard as fixed; that since Christ is the end of the law, the perpetuity which is ascribed to the ceremonies of the law, was terminated as soon as Christ appeared. The temple was the perpetual habitation of God, according to that declaration,
“This is my rest forever, here will I dwell,” (Psalm 132:14.)
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The Sabbath indicated not a temporal but a perpetual sanctification of the people. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied, that Christ brought them both to an end. In the same way must we also think of circumcision. If the Jews object, that in this manner, the law was violated by Christ; the answer is easy; that the external use of the law was so abrogated, as to establish its truth. For, at length, by the coming of Christ, circumcision was substantially confirmed, so that it should endure forever, and that the covenant which God had before made, should be ratified. Moreover, lest the changing of the visible sign should perplex any one, let that renovation of the world, of which I have spoken, be kept in mind; which renovation — notwithstanding some interposed variety — has perpetuated those things which would otherwise have been fading. Therefore, although the use of circumcision has ceased; yet it does not cerise to be an everlasting, or perpetual covenant, if only Christ be regarded as the Mediator; who, though the sign be changed, has confirmed the truth. And that, by the coming of Christ, external circumcision ceased, is plain from the words of Paul; who not only teaches that we are circumcised by the death of Christy spiritually, and not through the carnal sign: but who expressly substitutes baptism for circumcision; (Colossians 2:11;) and truly baptism could not succeed circumcision, without taking it away. Therefore in the next chapter he denies that there is any difference between circumcision and uncircumcision; because, at that time, the thing was indifferent, and of no importance. Whence we refute the error of those, who think that circumcision is still in force among the Jews, as if it were a peculiar symbol of the nation, which never ought to be abrogated. I acknowledge, indeed, that it was permitted to them for a time, until the liberty obtained by Christ should be better known; but though permitted, it by no means retained its original force. For it would be absurd to be initiated into the Church by two different signs; of which the one should testify and affirm that Christ was come, and the other should shadow him forth as absent.
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.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 17:13 He that is born in thy house,…
Gen 17:13 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.
Ver. 13. He that is born in thy house.] Householders must see to it, that their families fear God. They walk not "in a perfect way" that do otherwise, {Psa 101:2} that look not
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“Aedibus in propriis, quae prava, aut recta gerantur.”
My covenant shall be in your flesh.] That is, the sign of my covenant (by a metonymy of the subject), seem it never so simple, and prove it never so painful and shameful. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, that cry, Credat Iudaeus Apella ,& c.
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 So it was, and is properly in regard of…
So it was, and is properly in regard of the thing signified to all true believers; and for the sign, it is so called because it was to endure through all generations till the coming of the Messias; the word olam, here and elsewhere rendered everlasting, or for ever, being oft used to express not only simple eternity, but any long continuance, for many ages, yea, sometimes for a man’s life. See Exo 21:6; Deu 15:17; 1Ki 9:3.
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 He that is born in thine house, and he…
He that is born in thine house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised,.... Or "in circumcising shall be circumcised" (l), shall certainly be circumcised; this is repeated to denote the necessity of it, and what care should be taken that this be done, because there was to be no uncircumcised male among them, Gen 17:10; nor any conversation and communion to be had among them, especially in a religious way.
And my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant; circumcision was to be seen in their flesh, and no methods were to be taken to draw over the foreskin again, but it was to continue as long as they lived; and so in their posterity, in all succeeding ages, as a sign of the covenant and promise which should remain until the Messiah's coming.
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(l) "circumcidendo circumcidetur", Pagninus, Montanus &c.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 13. He that is born in thy house]…
Verse 13. He that is born in thy house] The son of a servant; he that is bought with thy money - a slave on his coming into the family. According to the Jewish writers the father was to circumcise his son; and the master, the servant born in his house, or the slave bought with money. If the father or master neglected to do this, then the magistrates were obliged to see it performed; if the neglect of this ordinance was unknown to the magistrates, then the person himself, when he came of age, was obliged to do it.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 13. He that is born in thy house —…
13. He that is born in thy house — The bond slave of a patriarchal family as distinguished from one bought or taken in war. Comp. Gen_14:14.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (13) He that is born in thy house .…
(13) He that is born in thy house . . . —Two things follow from this wide extension of the rite of circumcision: the first, that all members of Abram’s household, being thus sharers in the covenant, were also numbered as belonging to the nations that sprang from him. We have seen that even in early days his followers must have numbered six or seven hundred men (Gen_14:14), and they were growing in multitude all the rest of his life, and during the lifetime of Isaac. They were then divided between Esau and Jacob at Isaac’s death (Gen_35:27; Gen_36:6-7), but the diminution in the number of Jacob’s family thus caused must have been compensated by those whom he gathered for himself in Mesopotamia (Gen_30:43). All his household went down with him into Egypt, as part of his taf, translated “little ones” in Gen_46:5, but really signifying the whole body of dependents, men, women, and children. Placed there in the fruitful Delta, they would be counted as members of that tribe to the chief of which they belonged, and would swell the numbers of the vast host which left Egypt (Exo_12:37). The second point is, that as all who were circumcised were regarded as Israelites, so also circumcision was confined to the Israelites. It was not ‘a catholic ordinance, intended, like baptism, for all people and all times. Nor was it primarily a religious institution. The bought slave was circumcised first, and instructed afterwards. No profession of faith was required, but he was admitted to the privilege in right of his master. The reason of this was that it was an admission into the Jewish nation first, and by consequence only into the church. It is one of the many points which distinguish slavery, as practised among the Jews, from the degrading form of it which existed in modem times, that from the days of Abram onwards the slave by being circumcised was proclaimed to be one of the same race and nation as his master, and thereby entitled to share in his national and religious privileges.
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 He that is born in thy house, and he…
He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised. Literally, circumcised, must be circumcised, he that is born, &c., the niph. inf. abe. with the finite verb occupying the place of emphasis at the beginning of the sentence (;vide Gesenius, "Grammar," And my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.