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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Philippians 3:5 - 3:5
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In three particulars he shows how he “might have confidence in the flesh” (Phi 3:4): (1) His pure Jewish blood. (2) His legal preciseness and high status as such. (3) His zeal for the law. The Greek is literally, “Being in circumcision an eighth day person,” that is, not one circumcised in later life as a proselyte, but on the eighth day after birth, as the law directed in the case of Jew-born infants.
of the tribe of Benjamin - son of Rachel, not of the maid-servant [Bengel].
Hebrew of the Hebrews - neither one or other parent being Gentile. The “Hebrew,” wherever he dwelt, retained the language of his fathers. Thus Paul, though settled in Tarsus, a Greek city, calls himself a Hebrew. A “Grecian” or Hellenist, on the other hand, in the New Testament, is the term used for a “Greek-speaking” Jew [Trench].
touching the law - that is, as to legal status and strictness.
a Pharisee - “of the straitest sect” (Act 26:5).