Genesis 17:14

And the uncircumcised man-child; or rather, and as for the uncircumcised man-child. So the nominative is put absolutely, as is frequent in the Hebrew tongue. Whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, or, who shall not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin; for the Hebrew verb may be rendered actively, which seems best here; because the punishment seems more justly to belong to the parent, who was guilty of this neglect; than to the child, who was not capable of this precept, and therefore not guilty of the violation of it. And this may further appear from Exodus 4:24,25, where God seeks to kill, not the child, but the father, Moses, for this sin. And the flesh of the child's foreskin is rightly called the flesh of his, i.e. the parent s, foreskin, because the child is a part and the possession of his parent. So that this threatening concerns only grown persons, and of them only such as shall wilfully and unnecessarily neglect this duty; for otherwise it was neglected by the Israelites for forty years together in the wilderness, Joshua 5:7, without any token of God's displeasure for it. That soul shall be cut off from his people. This phrase denotes either,

1. An exclusion from fellowship with God's people, and from all the promises, privileges, and blessings belonging to them, either in this life or that to come. Or rather,

2. An untimely and violent death, as may be gathered from Exodus 31:14, to be inflicted by the magistrate, to whom God committed the execution of this as well as other laws; and in case of his neglect and default, or the secrecy of the fact, by the extraordinary hand of God, who sometimes ascribes this act to himself, as Leviticus 17:10, Leviticus 20:6. He hath broken my covenant, that sacred bond which tied him and me together; and by his neglect and contempt of the condition required on his part, he hath forfeited the blessing promised on my part.