Galatians 6:13 - Exposition

For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the Law ( οὐδὲ γὰρ οἱ περιτεμνόμενοι αὐτοὶ νόμον φυλάσσουσιν ); 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 οὐδὲ accentuates the main idea of the clause (see note on Galatians 1:12 ), or only the single term, "they who are being circumcised,'' as in John 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 περιτευνόμενοι is the reading more generally accepted, though the perfect περιτετμημένοι 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 περιτεμνόμενοι than the converse hypothesis of the latter being a correction of the other borrowed from John 7:3 . "They who are being circumcised" may be understood of a party, including those who first set the movement agoing , 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 ὁ διώκων of Galatians 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 φυλάσσω is used similarly in Romans 2:26 ; Acts 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 νόμον , though specifically denoting the Law of Moses, as in Romans 2:25 , Romans 2:27 , and often. But desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh ( ἀλλὰ θέλουσιν ὑμᾶς περιτέμνεσθαι ἵνα ἐν τῇ ὑμετέρᾳ σαρκὶ καυχήσωνται ); but they desire you to receive circumcision , that in your flesh they may have whereof to glory. The conjunction ἀλλὰ 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 ( Acts 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.