Circumcise Baby Boys on the Eighth Day

“And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.” Genesis 17:12

There is a legitimate scientific reason why circumcision is safest for a male child on the eighth day after birth, but Moses could not possibly have known or understood this fact.   The science of Moses’ day was not sufficiently advanced to have discovered this fact.  Those who believe the Bible account know that God led Moses to give this instruction.

At birth, the infant’s immune system has just begun to work and the child could not yet successfully fight off infection.  Luckily, for the first week of life, the child carries antibodies in his blood which have been provided by the mother.  The mother’s antibodies begin to decline in number after one week,

The infant’s ability to form clots begins to develop about day five and reaches its peak at day eight.  If any surgery is to be performed, day eight would be the ideal day.  On day eight, the infant is best able to prevent infection and to close and seal a surgical wound.  Moses could have only known this in one of two ways: 1. Trial and error, with a large number of dead babies, or 2.  He was told.

The science behind this was not elucidated until the Twentieth Century.  In 1935, Dr. Carl Peter Henrik Dam (1895 - 1976), while doing research on cholesterol metabolism in baby chicks at the University of Copenhagen, discovered Vitamin K, a vital factor in the coagulation mechanism.  He initially called it the Koagulationsvitamin.  He received the 1943 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on the subject.

The American pediatrician, Luther Emmett Holt (1855 – 1924) discovered that infants were especially susceptible to bleeding on days two through five, but had nearly 100% clotting ability by day eight.

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The Jewish Kabbalists, in their numerology, say that the eighth day has a mystical meaning.  The number seven has the meaning of “nature,” or “finite.”   The number eight carries the meaning of “super-rational,” or “infinite.”