They came to circumcise the child. — The day of circumcision, as the admission of the child into God’s covenant with his people, was, like the day of the baptism of infants among Christians, one on which relatives were invited to be present as witnesses, and was commonly followed by a feast. It was also, as baptism has come to be, the time on which the child received the name which was to bear its witness of the prayers of his parents for him, and of his personal relation to the God of his fathers.
They called him ... — The Greek tense is strictly imperfect — they were calling him. The choice of the name commonly rested with the father, but the kinsfolk seem to have assumed that, in the dumbness of the father, the duty devolved on them, and they, according to a custom not uncommon, showed their respect for the father by choosing his name.