8 And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.
And the Lord came to Abram, and said, I will give all this land to your seed; then Abram made an altar there to the Lord who had let himself be seen by him.
Saying, To you will I give the land of Canaan, the measured line of your heritage:
For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your seed for ever.
The agreement which he made with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac;
And I will take you to be my people and I will be your God; and you will be certain that I am the Lord your God, who takes you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.
And may God give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed, so that the land of your wanderings, which God gave to Abraham, may be your heritage.
For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has taken you to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.
For is not my house so with God? For he has made with me an eternal agreement, ordered in all things and certain: as for all my salvation and all my desire, will he not give it increase?
And because of his love for your fathers, he took their seed and made it his, and he himself, present among you, took you out of Egypt by his great power;
And by this agreement, he and his sons after him have the right to be priests for ever; because, by his care for the honour of his God, he took away the sin of the children of Israel.
And said to me, Truly, I will make you fertile and give you increase and will make of you a great family of nations: and I will give this land to your seed after you to be their heritage for ever.
I am living among you as one from a strange country: give me some land here as my property, so that I may put my dead to rest.
And he said to him, I am the Lord, who took you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land for your heritage. And he said, O Lord God, how may I be certain that it will be mine? And he said, Take a young cow of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a sheep of three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon. All these he took, cutting them in two and putting one half opposite the other, but not cutting the birds in two. And evil birds came down on the bodies, but Abram sent them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep came on Abram, and a dark cloud of fear. And he said to Abram, Truly, your seed will be living in a land which is not theirs, as servants to a people who will be cruel to them for four hundred years; But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth. As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place. And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full. Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies. In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, And the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, And the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.
Then his master is to take him to the gods of the house, and at the door, or at its framework, he is to make a hole in his ear with a sharp-pointed instrument; and he will be his servant for ever.
And for this cause it is through him that a new agreement has come into being, so that after the errors under the first agreement had been taken away by his death, the word of God might have effect for those who were marked out for an eternal heritage.
When the Most High gave the nations their heritage, separating into groups the children of men, he had the limits of the peoples marked out, keeping in mind the number of the children of Israel.
And let this be an order for ever for you, so that the sin of the children of Israel may be taken away once every year. And he did as the Lord gave orders to Moses.
And the children of Israel are to keep the Sabbath holy, from generation to generation, by an eternal agreement. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever; because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he took his rest and had pleasure in it.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Genesis 17
Commentary on Genesis 17 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 17
Ge 17:1-27. Renewal of the Covenant.
1. Abram … ninety years old and nine—thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael [Ge 16:16]. During that interval he had enjoyed the comforts of communion with God but had been favored with no special revelation as formerly, probably on account of his hasty and blameable marriage with Hagar.
the Lord appeared—some visible manifestation of the divine presence, probably the Shekinah or radiant glory of overpowering effulgence.
I am the Almighty God—the name by which He made Himself known to the patriarchs (Ex 6:3), designed to convey the sense of "all-sufficient" (Ps 16:5, 6; 73:25).
walk … and … perfect—upright, or sincere (Ps 51:6) in heart, speech, and behavior.
3. Abram fell on his face—the attitude of profoundest reverence assumed by Eastern people. It consists in the prostrate body resting on the hands and knees, with the face bent till the forehead touches the ground. It is an expression of conscious humility and profound reverence.
4. my covenant is with thee—Renewed mention is made of it as the foundation of the communication that follows. It is the covenant of grace made with all who believe in the Saviour.
5. but thy name shall be Abraham—In Eastern countries a change of name is an advertisement of some new circumstance in the history, rank, or religion of the individual who bears it. The change is made variously, by the old name being entirely dropped for the new, or by conjoining the new with the old; or sometimes only a few letters are inserted, so that the altered form may express the difference in the owner's state or prospects. It is surprising how soon a new name is known and its import spread through the country. In dealing with Abraham and Sarai, God was pleased to adapt His procedure to the ideas and customs of the country and age. Instead of Abram, "a high father," he was to be called Abraham, "father of a multitude of nations" (see Re 2:17).
8. I will give unto thee … the land—It had been previously promised to Abraham and his posterity (Ge 15:18). Here it is promised as an "everlasting possession," and was, therefore, a type of heaven, "the better country" (Heb 11:16).
10. Every man child among you shall be circumcised—This was the sign in the Old Testament Church as baptism is in the New, and hence the covenant is called "covenant of circumcision" (Ac 7:8; Ro 4:11). The terms of the covenant were these: on the one hand Abraham and his seed were to observe the right of circumcision; and on the other, God promised, in the event of such observance, to give them Canaan for a perpetual possession, to be a God to him and his posterity, and that in him and his seed all nations should be blessed.
15, 16. As for Sarai … I will … give thee a son also of her—God's purposes are gradually made known. A son had been long ago promised to Abraham. Now, at length, for the first time he is informed that it was to be a child of Sarai.
17. Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed—It was not the sneer of unbelief, but a smile of delight at the improbability of the event (Ro 4:20).
18. O that Ishmael might live before thee—natural solicitude of a parent. But God's thoughts are not as man's thoughts [Isa 55:8].
19, 20. The blessings of the covenant are reserved for Isaac, but common blessings were abundantly promised to Ishmael; and though the visible Church did not descend from his family, yet personally he might, and it is to be hoped did, enjoy its benefits.