Jeremiah 9:25,26 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Behold the days come, &c. Blaney translates these two verses, “Behold, the days are coming, saith Jehovah, that I will punish all the circumcision with the uncircumcision; Egypt, &c., and all those that have their coast insulated, those that dwell in the wilderness: for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.” The Greek word ακροβυσια, which properly means uncircumcision, is several times used by St. Paul for the persons who are uncircumcised, as περιτομη, circumcision, is put for persons circumcised. See Romans 2:26-27; Romans 3:30. Because the Jews valued themselves so much upon their circumcision, God here tells them that, when he should send his judgments abroad into the world, they should find no more favour than those that were not circumcised; and, accordingly, in mentioning the heathen nations whom he would punish, he places Judah among them, because they were, in effect, uncircumcised as well as the heathen, contenting themselves with the outward sign of circumcision in the flesh, without seeking that internal circumcision, which is of the heart and spirit, and the purification and holiness signified thereby. By those that have their coast insulated, as Blaney renders one of the clauses of Jeremiah 9:26, he supposes the Arabians are designed, which he thinks may be fairly concluded from the connection in which the same words. קצוצי פאה, stand with the context, in Jeremiah 49:32. Concerning the precise meaning, however, of these words, he justly observes, “interpreters differ very greatly. Some represent them as signifying persons cut off from other people, by being thrust into a remote corner; in which light the translators of our Bible appear to have considered them, when they rendered them in the text, All that are in the utmost corners, and in the margin, cut off into corners. But all the ancient versions understand them as expressing the peculiar manner in which the Arabians cut the hair of their heads or beards,” expressed also in our marginal reading; which reading, Dr. Durel says, ought doubtless to be received into the text; the Arabs, who are meant, he thinks, by this periphrasis, being accustomed to cut their hair short, particularly about the crown of the head; and in respect to their beards, leaving only a tuft of hair growing about their chins; a practice which was forbidden to the Jews, Leviticus 19:27. But it seems much more probable that the words have a respect to the peninsular form of the country, surrounded on all sides by the sea, excepting only the isthmus to the north; and thus almost insulated, or cut off, from any other land.