Philippians 3:5

“circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,. Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law,. Pharisee”

“The eighth day”: This was in strict accordance with the Law (Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3). “But the same thing could probably not be said for every Judaizer. In all likelihood some of these were proselytes from the Gentile world” (Hendriksen p. 156). “He stresses the fact that he had been born into the Jewish faith and had known its privileges and observed its ceremonies since his birth” (Barclay p. 57). “Of the stock of Israel”: “Nation of Israel” (NASV). Of the original stock, not. proselyte.. direct descendant of the patriarch Jacob, who was renamed Israel by God. “Of the tribe of Benjamin”: This is also stated in Acts 13:21 and Romans 11:1. Benjamin was the youngest son of the wife that Jacob loved the most (Genesis 30:23; Genesis 35:16). From Benjamin came Israel's first lawful king (1 Samuel 2:1). The tribe of Benjamin remained loyal to the house of David at the time of the break-up of the nation (1 Kings 2:21). After the captivity, Benjamin and Judah formed the core of the nation that returned to Palestine and Jerusalem (Ezra 4:1). “Paul was not. leftover from any of the ten tribes” (Lenski p. 833). “It would be the equivalent in England of saying that he came over with the Normans or in America that he traced his descent to the Pilgrim fathers” (Barclay p. 58).

“A Hebrew of Hebrews”: “A full-blooded Jew” (Phi). “A Hebrew was. Jew who was not only of pure racial descent but who had deliberately, and often laboriously, retained the Hebrew tongue one who still spoke Hebrew” (Barclay p. 59). “No ancestor on either side being of other blood” (Lenski p. 833). “Unlike many Jews of the dispersion (such as those who lived outside of Palestine), Paul's family had apparently avoided as far as possible assimilation to the culture of their Tarsian environment” (Bruce p. 108). Compare with Acts 21:40. “He maintains his Jewish language and customs and manner of life; he is (was) no Hellenist or Graecised Jew, that being. Jew who had adopted the language, dress and customs of the Greeks” (Muller p. 110). “As touching the Law,. Pharisee”: Acts 23:6; Acts 26:5; Galatians 2:14. “Of this law the Pharisees were the most ardent expositors and defenders. Pharisees were not all and always hypocrites” (Erdman p. 114). “There were not very many Pharisees, never more than six thousand, but they were the spiritual athletes of Judaism. He had devoted his whole life to its most rigorous observance. No man knew better from personal experience what Jewish religion was at its highest and most demanding” (Barclay p. 60). “Not content merely to obey the Law of Moses, the Pharisees bound themselves also to observe every one of the myriad of commandments contained in the oral Law, the interpretive traditions of the Scribes (Mark 7:3)” (Hawthorne pp. 133-134).