Circumcised the eighth day; literally, at circumcision eight days old. The apostle was not a proselyte, circumcised at his reception into the Jewish Church; nor an Ishmaelite, circumcised, like Ishmael, at the age of thirteen.
Of the stock of Israel Neither were his parents proselytes; he was by descent an Israelite. He uses here the highest title of God's ancient people, the title which implied the inheritance of the covenant made with Jacob.
Other nations were descended from Abraham and Isaac; the Israelites alone could claim Jacob for their ancestor; they only could glory in the covenant name given to him when he wrestled all night long with the angel, and proved himself a prince with God (comp.
Trench, 'Synonyms of the New Testament,' sect. 39.). Of the tribe of Benjamin. His family had preserved their genealogy; he came from the tribe which gave the first king to Israel; which never swerved in its allegiance to the house of David; which, after the Captivity, united with Judah and the Levites to go up and build the house of the Lord (Ezra 1:5); the tribe of Esther and Mordecai; the tribe within whose boundary stood the holy city.
A Hebrew of the Hebrews; rather, of Hebrews; omit the article. His father and mother were not only Israelites, but also they retained, though living at Tarsus, the Hebrew language and customs. St. Paul was not a Hellenist; he was brought up at Jerusalem under the great Rabban Gamaliel; he spoke Hebrew (Acts 21:40), and uses the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Septuagint translation.
All the descendants of Jacob were Israelites; those were called Hebrews distinctively who adhered to the use of the sacred language (Acts 6:1). As touching the Law, a Pharisee. He was by birth an Israelite, by education a Hebrew; he became by choice a Pharisee (Acts 23:6); he embraced the straitest sect "as regards Law," the sect which took the strictest view of the Law of Moses.