Commentary - Jeremiah 9:25-26

Bird's-eye view

In this brief but potent oracle, Jeremiah, speaking for Yahweh, delivers a radical leveling of the spiritual landscape. The prophet dismantles any notion of ethnic privilege or sacramental security that is detached from genuine heart-felt covenant faithfulness. God declares a coming judgment that will sweep over not only the pagan nations but also His own covenant people, Judah. The basis for this judgment is uniform: a shared state of spiritual rebellion. The sign of the covenant, circumcision, has become for Judah a meaningless mark in the flesh because it is not accompanied by a circumcised heart. God is about to punish all those who are circumcised in their uncircumcision, effectively lumping Judah in with the very nations they despised.

This passage is a crucial Old Testament expression of a theme that runs throughout Scripture: God detests religious formalism. He is not interested in the mere external performance of religious duties. The sign of the covenant was never intended to be a magical totem that wards off judgment. It was meant to be an outward sign of an inward reality, a pointer to a heart cut off from its native rebellion and consecrated to God. When the inward reality is absent, the outward sign becomes an object of contempt in God's eyes, a testimony against the one who bears it. Jeremiah here sets the stage for the New Testament's profound teaching on justification by faith alone, where, as Paul would later argue, a true Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit (Rom 2:29).

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

This pronouncement comes within a larger section of Jeremiah (chapters 7-10) known as the "Temple Sermon" and its aftermath. Jeremiah has been relentlessly attacking the false security of the people of Judah. They believed that the presence of the Temple in Jerusalem and their adherence to the external forms of the law, like sacrifice and circumcision, guaranteed them God's protection. Jeremiah's task is to demolish this deadly presumption. He has already declared that God will do to the Jerusalem Temple what He did to Shiloh (Jer. 7:12-14). Now, he takes aim at another pillar of their false confidence: the sign of the covenant itself. This passage serves as a theological hammer blow, equating the covenant people with the pagan nations in their shared guilt and shared destiny of judgment.

Verse by Verse Commentary

25 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised,

Jeremiah opens with a formula that always signals a solemn and momentous announcement from God: “Behold, the days are coming.” This is not idle speculation; this is a divine appointment being set in the calendar of Heaven. Yahweh Himself is speaking, and He is declaring His intention to act. The action is one of judgment, or as the text says, punishment. The Hebrew word here is paqad, which means to visit, to attend to, to muster. God is about to pay a visit, and it will not be a social call. He is coming to inspect the accounts, and He will find them wanting.

And who is the target of this visitation? It is a curious, paradoxical group: “all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised.” Literally, it reads “circumcised in uncircumcision.” This is a divine oxymoron, a contradiction in terms designed to shock the hearers out of their complacency. How can one be both circumcised and uncircumcised at the same time? The physical mark is present, but the spiritual reality it signifies is utterly absent. They have the sign of the covenant in their flesh, but they live like pagans who have no covenant relationship with God at all. Their circumcision is nothing more than a fleshly mark, a tribal tattoo, devoid of its covenantal meaning. God is saying that He sees right through the external ritual to the unregenerate heart beneath. He is not fooled by religious performance.

26 Egypt and Judah, and Edom and the sons of Ammon, and Moab and all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”

Here God provides the specific manifest for His coming judgment, and the list is scandalous. He begins with Egypt, the archetypal enemy of God’s people, the house of bondage. Then He names Judah. Let that sink in. Judah is placed right in the middle of a list of pagan nations. The covenant people are put on the same level as Egypt, Edom, Ammon, and Moab, their perennial enemies and relatives in rebellion. Some of these nations, like Egypt, practiced a form of circumcision, but it was not the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. The inclusion of those "who clip the hair on their temples" refers to certain Arab tribes, another group outside the covenant. God is gathering all the nations for judgment, and He makes a point of placing Judah squarely among them.

The reason for this shocking equivalence is then stated plainly. First, “for all the nations are uncircumcised.” This is their natural state. They are Gentiles, strangers to the covenants of promise. They are without the sign in their flesh because they are without the covenant in their hearts. This is what one would expect. But the hammer blow falls in the final clause: “and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”

This is the central point of the passage. The pagan nations are uncircumcised in the flesh. The house of Israel is uncircumcised in the heart. And in God's economy, the latter is the far greater offense. To have received the sign, to have been brought into the visible covenant community, to have been given the law and the prophets, and yet to have a stubborn, rebellious, and unyielding heart, this is a profound treachery. The circumcision of the heart, which the law itself pointed to (Deut. 10:16; 30:6), is the removal of the foreskin of our natural stubbornness, our sinful flesh. It is the work of regeneration, where God gives us a new heart, a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone (Ezek. 36:26).

Israel’s sin was that they mistook the sign for the thing signified. They rested in their external privilege while their hearts were as hard and impenetrable as those of the pagans. Therefore, God says, their external privilege will not save them. In fact, it will condemn them. Judgment begins at the house of God (1 Pet. 4:17), and those who have received more light will be judged more strictly.

Application

The warning of Jeremiah lands in our midst with as much force as it did in ancient Judah. The temptation to substitute outward religious affiliation for inward spiritual reality is a perennial one. We can be baptized, we can be members of a sound church, we can have our quiet times and say all the right things, and yet remain thoroughly uncircumcised of heart. We can be circumcised in our uncircumcision.

This passage forces us to ask: where is our confidence? Is it in our baptism? Is it in our church membership? Is it in our Reformed theology? Or is it in the finished work of Jesus Christ, received by a living faith that has transformed our hearts? The New Testament makes it clear that the true circumcision is a work of the Holy Spirit, not of human hands (Col. 2:11). It is the cutting away of the old man, the crucifixion of the flesh with its passions and desires.

God is not impressed with our religious resumes. He looks at the heart. A rebellious heart wrapped in a church bulletin is still a rebellious heart. This is why the gospel is such good news. It is the news that God, in Christ, does for us what we could never do for ourselves. He provides not only the perfect sacrifice for our sin but also the gift of a new heart. Through the gospel, God takes rebels from among the nations, and rebels from within the visible church, and makes them one new man in Christ, a people who are truly circumcised in heart, for His glory.