What pleasure can I take in any other gifts, so long as thou dost withhold from me that great and promised gift of that blessed and blessing Seed, in the giving of whom thy honour and the world's happiness is so highly concerned? Genesis 12:3. Seeing I go childless; either,
1. I pass the time of my life, going on and growing in years, and hastening to my long home. Or,
2. I die, i.e. am about to die, or likely to die. Going is ofttimes put for dying, as 1 Chronicles 17:11, compared with 2 Samuel 7:12 Job 10:21, Job 14:20 Matthew 26:24. What good will the world do me, if I have no heir to possess it? If God lose the glory of his truth in making good his promise, and I lose the comfort of my long hoped-for child, and that such a child the effect of a Divine promise, one out of whose loins he must come, in whom all nations shall be blessed? The steward of my house; Heb. The son of the care, or government, or management of my house, i.e. he who manageth the affairs of my house. A usual Hebraism, as captives are called children of captivity, Ezra 4:1, and afflicted persons, children of affliction, Proverbs 31:5. Others read the verse thus, And the steward of my house, this Eliezer of Damascus, understand, shall be my heir; which words may easily be supplied out of Genesis 15:3. And such supplements of a word or short sentence out of a member or verse either foregoing or following, are frequent in Scripture, as Numbers 24:22 Malachi 14:18 Nehemiah 5:2 Habakkuk 2:3 Ephesians 2:1. Damascus may be the name either of a man, or of a place so called.