And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
And when eight days were accomplished (see the note at Luke 1:59 ) for the circumcising of the child - `for circumcising Him' is the better supported reading,
His name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived ... Circumcision was a symbolical and bloody removal of the body of sin (Colossians 2:11; Colossians 2:13; cf. Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4; Romans 2:29). But as if to proclaim, in the very act of performing this rite, that there was no body of sin to be removed in His case, but rather that He was the destined Remover of it from others, the name JESUS, in obedience to express command from heaven, was given Him at His circumcision, and given Him "because," as said the angel, "He shall save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). So significant was this, that His circumciser, had he been fully aware of what he was doing, might have said to Him, as John afterward did, "I have need to be circumcised of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" and the answer, in this case as in that, would doubtless have been, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:14-15). Still, the circumcision of Christ had a profound bearing on His own work. For since he that is "circumcised is a debtor to do the whole law" (Galatians 5:3), the circumcised Saviour thus bore about with Him, in His very flesh, the seal of a voluntary obligation to do the whole law-by Him only possible in the flesh, since the fall. But further, as it was only to "redeem (from its curse) them that were under the law," that He submitted at all to be "made under the law" (Galatians 4:4-5; Galatians 3:13), the obedience to which Jesus was bound over was purely a redeeming obedience, or the obedience of a "Saviour." Once more, as it was only by being made a curse for us that Christ could redeem us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), the circumcision of Christ is to be regarded as a virtual pledge to die; a pledge not only to yield obedience in general, but to be "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8).
`Like sacrificial wine Pour'd on a victim's head Are those few precious drops of thine Now first to offering led.' (-KEBLE)