| Genesis 17:14
| The male whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, that soul shall be destroyed out of his people: because he hath broken my covenant.
| Circumcised. Septuagint adds, "on the eighth day," with the Samaritan and many Latin copies. (Calmet) --- Destroyed, etc. lose the privileges of the Hebrews, or be put to death, when he grows up and does not supply this defect. St. Augustine reading on the eighth day, concluded that as a child of that age, could not, with reason, be put to death for an offense, in which he could have no share, the destruction here threatened is that of the soul, for transgressing, in Adam, the original covenant, and dying in that state unclean, must be excluded from heaven, as people are now who die unbaptized. This difficult passage may, however, be explained as if the threat regarded the negligent parents. "He who shall not circumcise...shall be destroyed." Syriac, or, as the Hebrew may be rendered, "the male that doth not," etc.; in which case, he becomes guilty of a transgression, when he is arrived at the years sufficient to understand his duty, and does not fulfil it. (Worthington)
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