This perspective about circumcision as it relates to an agricultural setting is so interesting. It helped me understand what was meant by perplexing verses elsewhere referring to such things as uncircumcised lips and hearts.
And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised: three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of. Leviticus 19:23
Indeed, biblical language describing circumcision is the same used to describe the practice of pruning fruit trees to increase their future yield: “When you enter the land and plant any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as its foreskin. Three years it shall be uncircumcised for you, not to be eaten…only in the fifth year may you use its fruit—that its yield to you may be increased.”
Thus, God’s covenant with Abraham—to “make you exceedingly fertile” and to make your descendants “as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore”—is symbolically enacted each time a Jewish male child is circumcised.
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According to the midrash, circumcision also symbolizes human partnership with God, an example of our role in completing the divine work of creation. By extension, the word “uncircumcised” often refers in the Bible to body organs that are spiritually incomplete or obstructed: uncircumcised lips, hearts, and ears.
(Frankel, Ellen, and Betsy Platkin Teutsch. 1992. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols.
Thanks---this is a witness for me.
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful insights on circumcision. I have pondered on the circumcision of the child at 8 days old, as we are taught in the JST this is in remembrance of the covenant that is to be entered into when the child is 8 years old.
ReplyDeleteI love the symbolism in the number eight. Since the number 7 is whole, complete, finished, the number 8 is similar to the number 1 in that it symbolizes new birth or creation. Is it any wonder 8 would be the age of baptism?
Very good! Are you aware oh the Jewish natural array Tree of Life, by ant chance, and how it comments on 3 levels of circumcision with the 3 horizontal lines which are considered as the 3 Mother Letters in Hebrew?
ReplyDeletefirst of all anything God commanded are all good and for our own good. Sometimes He don't explain why He commanded so. It's called faith and trust.
ReplyDeleteWhen God commanded that all trees baring fruit has to be circumcised because all must be holy and to be acceptable to Him. The first 3 years was the process of circumcisions of all trees, in the 4 th year the fruits must be offered to Him as a Thanksgiving of worship. 3 is number of wholeness 4 is completion and is grace of perfection. I believe God commanded that all must be circumcised because all was defiled including the land, trees, people etc. Canaan was defiled and circumcision of all was not only a figure of speech or whatever any scholar or so called expert want to call it, BUT GOD COMMANDED IT period. Man loves to make GOD SIMPLE COMMANDMENTS complicated when GOD ONLY DESIRES TO OBEY WHAT HE COMMANDED US. FAITH AND OBEDIENCE IS THE KEY you don't need any scholars or expert to understand all , simply OBEY.