CRITICAL NOTES.—
Genesis 17:3. God talked with him.] “We must notice here the expression Elohim, and the Dabbar (word). God, as the Author of the universe, begins a conversation with Abram, when he should become Abraham the father of a multitude of nations.” (Lange.)
Genesis 17:4. As for Me.] Thus one party to and the originator of the covenant is here made prominent. Father of many nations. Fulfilled in a literal sense. The twelve tribes of Israel, many Arab tribes, the twelve princes of Ishmael, Keturah’s descendants, and the dukes of Edom sprang from him. But St. Paul teaches that this is also to be realised in a spiritual sense (Romans 4:16-17).
Genesis 17:5. Abram.… Abraham.] The former name was composed of Ab (father) and ram (high, eminent). The name Abraham is formed by dropping the last letter, and inserting the first syllable of the word hamon (multitude). Abram-hamon is abbreviated into Abraham, the high father of a multitude. Have I made thee.] Heb. Have I given thee—appointed or constituted thee. The word used by St. Paul conveys exactly the same idea (τεθεικα) (Romans 4:17).
Genesis 17:6. Kings.] “From him were descended the chief of the twelve tribes of the Hebrews, and after their separation, the kings of Judah as well as the kings of Israel. From him sprang the ancient monarchs of Edom, and the Saracen kings in Arabia, Babylon, and Egypt. If we pass from the literal to the spiritual fulfilment, we find the heavenly Messiah, the King of kings, descending from the same stock, and all true Christians, his seed, by faith ‘Kings and priests unto God’ ” (Revelation 1:6). (Bush).
Genesis 17:8. The land wherein thou art a stranger.] Heb. The land of thy sojournings, or wanderings.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 17:3-8
THE SECOND STAGE OF THE COVENANT
Already Jehovah, the Covenant God, had appeared thrice to Abram.
(1) Simply to assure him that he should be blessed, and become a blessing (ch. Genesis 12:7).
(2) To give him the promise of a numerous progeny, as the dust of the earth for multitude (ch. Genesis 13:16).
(3) To repeat this assurance, but now likening the number of his seed to the stars of heaven (ch. Genesis 15:5). This third vision was confirmed by a solemn sacrifice. In it God stands clearly out as the contracting party, conveying certain blessings to Abram, and requiring the performance of no distinct conditions on his part. Now the Covenant has moved forwards another stage, and Abram is to take his own part in it by receiving the appointed sign—“the sign and seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised.” (Romans 4:11.) This second stage of the Covenant was marked—
I. By more definite and circumstantial promises. In the revelation of God’s will to mankind we can trace a gradual progress. Promises and prophecies, at first vague and mysterious, are succeeded by others which are clearer and more minute in their contents. As time moves on, the Divine purpose becomes more definitely revealed. Such were the prophecies concerning Christ, until the fulness of time was come. This law of progressive revelation has an illustration in the case of Abram. The original promise is renewed, but spread more out into details. Consider these promised blessings—
1. In their natural greatness. Though they have a higher meaning and importance, yet there are aspects of them which belong entirely to this present world. They speak of a numerous seed, of Abram as the fountain of the inextinguishable life of countless generations. They speak of him as the progenitor of kings and great nations, so that there was spread before him the vision of great lawgivers, and statesmen, and warriors, and all that belongs to the idea of a great civilisation. His seed would be great and distinguished, cared for in an especial manner by God, living under the immediate eye of Providence, and made to fill a prominent place in the history of mankind. Their continuance was assured by an unfailing covenant, by which God bound Himself to preserve them. They are the only nation of mankind whose history is written on the awful scroll of prophecy. Hence they still persist throughout human history—a remarkable evidence of the truth and stability of God’s word.
2. In their spiritual significance. Considering that it was God who made these promises, and in behalf of men who were destined to live for ever, they cannot be restricted to this present life, but look towards a higher and a spiritual world. Their ultimate reference is above and beyond the things of time and sense. The numerous seed represents a wider family, the children of Abram’s faith who are to be blessed with him. The sands on the sea-shore, and the multitude of the stars, speak to us Christians of the number and extent of the true Church of God. That, too, is possessed of an indestructible life—an energy which will remain unhurt by the wrongs of time. The spiritual privileges of the Church are secured by covenant. The true King of men—the rightful Monarch of human souls, has sprung from Abram, and He has gathered around Him a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. There is only one institution now in the world whose continued existence is assured, and that is the family of God named after the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:14-15). Thus the life of Abram, speading and continuing through history, is a figure of the life of the Church of God. Also, the promise of the land to Abram for an everlasting possession points to a more glorious inheritance—the heavenly Canaan. In some way or other, Abram was to inherit the land; for so the grant runs, “I will give unto thee, and unto thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8). Thus Abram himself had a vested right in this inheritance—a condition which was never fulfilled in this world, and which can only be satisfied by an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. God leads His people from the earthly to the heavenly, and through many disappointments He conducts them to some real and permanent good. The blessing in its highest form may for a while be hidden from them, but in the end it is revealed, and their souls are satisfied. Again: this second stage of the Covenant was marked—
II. By a changed name. Abram had reached a new stage in his history, and this is indicated by a new name. So the name Jacob was changed to that of “Israel,” which signifies Prevailer, in remembrance of his triumphant wrestling with the Angel of the Covenant, and as a gracious assurance of his future successes in prayer. The name Cephas was changed to that of Peter, to indicate that a stage of firm and unshaken faith had been reached. The sons of Zebedee were called Boanerges, to signify their new-born zeal and the earnest work which they were to do. With God, names are not empty designations, but represent the truth of things. They are the outward signs of reality. They are a form which encloses a substance. God gives a new name with a new nature. To Abraham it was as a new life to find the promises growing more clear, the gifts of God’s goodness more palpable and evident. His importance in the external history of nations, his spiritual connection with the Church in all ages, the deathless energy of the example of his life, all combined to make this time, as it were, a resurrection into a new state. All things had become new. Abraham’s faith had prevailed, and a new name was given to him as it shall be given to all who have overcome. This second stage in the Covenant was also marked,
III. By special engagements on the part of God. A covenant implies two parties, and among men takes the form of a bargain, or agreement, with conditions imposed. But with God it becomes a covenant of grace, which is virtually a command, founded upon God’s promises, and the advances of His love. “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee” (Genesis 17:4). God is the fountain of the blessing, and the sole proposer of the terms. His covenant is the only foundation of all our hope. We can look for nothing but what is thus assured to us. God first engages Himself to us, and then we become bound to engage ourselves to Him. To believers in covenant, God conveys the riches which are in Christ. They are bound to a life of faith and love, and He engages Himself to impart His fulness.
1. This should excite our gratitude. As creatures, and especially as sinful creatures, we are not in a position to dictate to God or to lay any claims on His bounty. We, therefore, receive all as the gift of His grace, and the uppermost feeling in our hearts should be gratitude. When the Most High binds Himself down for our sakes, we can only adore His goodness with a thankful heart.
2. It should stimulate our faith. Every fresh blessing received is a confirmation of our past faith and an additional reason why we should trust for the future. Thus a long-tried faith, and a faith encouraged by fulfilled hopes, becomes to us as the certainties of knowledge. “I know whom I have believed.” As God’s engagements to bless come home more and more to our life and experience, a new impulse should be given to our faith in Him for all that is to come.
3. It should excite our reverence. When Jehovah appeared to announce His Covenant blessings, Abram “fell on his face” (Genesis 17:3). He was oppressed with the sense of God’s Sovereign Majesty. The sublime Object of our worship appears in the greatness and freeness of His blessings. Such good and perfect gifts can only come from the Father of Lights. Profound reverence should be the posture of our souls when God appears, for reverence is the life of all religion and that habit of soul which prepares it for that heavenly state where one Supreme Will alone is loved and obeyed. The worship of reverence and praise is eternal. To be brought to the feet of God in humble adoration, and in the bliss of His presence, is our highest glory.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 17:3. Like Abraham, we must learn to fall upon our faces before God as a preparation for receiving His promised blessings.
The first effect of a Divine manifestation is to overcome us, and thus an awe and silence are produced by which we are fitted to hear what God will say.
There is no playing in phrases or disputing about God when once He appears. All speculation and controversy are hushed, and we feel the greatness of His power and majesty.
This is the lowliest form of reverence, in which the worshipper leans on his knees and elbows, and his forehead approaches the ground. Prostration is still customary in the East. Abram has attained to loftier notions of God. God talked with him. Jehovah, El Shaddai, is here called God. The Supreme appears as the Author of existence, the Irresistible and Everlasting, in this stage of the Covenant relation.—(Murphy.)
God’s revelation of Himself is made to reverent minds.
It was fit that he should fall on his face, now that God talked with him. Such a posture of body befits us at the hearing of the word, as may best express our reverence, and further our attention. Balak is bid to rise up to hear Balaam’s parable. (Numbers 23:18.) Eglon, though a fat unwieldy man, riseth up from his seat to hear God’s message from Ehud. (Judges 3:20.) The people in Nehemiah “stood up” (ch. Genesis 8:5) to hear the law read and expounded. Constantine the Great would not be entreated to sit down or be covered at a sermon; no more would our Edward VI., whose custom was also to take notes of what he heard. The Thessalonians are commended for this, that they heard Paul’s preaching “as the word of God, and not of man.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13.) Had Samuel thought it had been God that called to him (and not Eli), he would not have slept, but fallen on his face before the Lord, as Abram here, who was no novice, but knew well that though God loves to be acquainted with men in the walks of their obedience, yet He takes state upon Him in His ordinances, and will be trembled at in His word and judgments.—(Trapp.)
The speech of God to man makes up the substance of the Bible. We can know the nature of physical bodies by knowing their properties and relations, but we can only know the nature of a person when he speaks. He thus declares himself. Hence the necessity for revelation if we are to know anything of God.
Where did holy men of old get those sublime ideas of God and human duty and destiny—ideas which never could have arisen in the mind uninformed from a Divine source? The only answer is, that God talked with them.
Genesis 17:4. The greatness of the Being from whom the Covenant proceeded imparted to it a surpassing value, grandeur, and excellence.
The assurance of God’s Covenant mercies console us after long trials, and revive our faith and devotion.
God might have formed gracious designs towards us, and yet have us ignorant of them. But He has revealed to us His gracious purpose in Christ Jesus. He hastens to console us, as He did to Abram, by telling us that His Covenant is with us and for our advantage. Our hope’s foundation lies in the word of God.
The living personality of the Divine Being lights up the pages of the Bible, and imparts the potency of life to its truths.
The living energy of the faith of this primitive and model believer pervades all history. Abraham, according to St. Paul, is “heir of the world.” All nations which have any future before them profess that same faith (though with added light) which was held by this first Father of the Church. To Abraham and his seed we Christians are indebted for all the religious privileges we enjoy.
Thus emphatically is the promise confirmed to Abraham; and the assurance is peculiarly well timed, and well fitted to sustain and revive his spiritual faith. What does he see before him? Not a long line of earthly monarchs, and a great variety of earthly communities, all tracing their natural descent from him as their common ancestor, but a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, gathered into one in Christ; all justified like Himself, by faith, and all rejoicing to be called His children, and to be blessed as such along with Him. The patriarch had indeed many sons after the flesh, for his second spouse bore him a numerous offspring, and of these sons many various nations sprung, over whom renowned kings reigned. But it was not such a patriarchal honour that Abraham chiefly valued. Himself a partaker of the righteousness that is by faith, he longed for a more illustrious distinction, and sought a more congenial family to arise and call him father. He saw the day of Christ afar off, and in Christ he saw the exceeding increase and fruitfulness of the great household of faith, the countless host of the elect, gathered into one out of all nations, united in the same holy faith and fellowship with himself; and finally, nations themselves and their kings converted to the knowledge of the Saviour in whom he believed, and so becoming His children indeed. What a prospect, to revive, to elevate, and to ennoble the patriarch; to break every worldly and carnal spell; to make the eye of his spiritual faith beam keen, and the pulse of his spiritual life beat warm, and high, and strong!—(Candlish).
This Covenant was not made with many nations, but with one man. They were to trace their natural and spiritual greatness to him: Thus it was intended that the world should grow familiar with the great principle upon which our salvation rests—redemption through One, even Christ. Not by laws of progress, or political systems, or philosophies, are mankind to be delivered, but by the Son of God, who has brought salvation.
Genesis 17:5. It has been said that all our science consists ultimately in giving right names to things. God, who knows all, can give names which correspond to realities.
“God calleth those things which be not as though they were,” i.e., He called or denominated Abraham the father of a multitude, because he should finally become so, though now he had but one child, and he not the child of promise.—(Bush.)
A new name—
1. Is fitted for those who have new hopes and a clearer view of their inheritance. Abraham had now his hope turned in a new and unlooked-for direction. His inheritance in the future was more clearly marked out; the whole scene standing vividly before him, so as to affect his soul with the sense of new pleasures.
2. Is a stimulus to fulfil the high destiny signified by the changed name. That name would ever remind the patriarch of God’s calling and purpose.
By the exposition given of this promise in the New Testament (Romans 4:16-17), we are directed to understand it not only of those who sprang from Abraham’s body, though these were many nations; but also of all that should be of “the faith of Abraham.” It went to make him the Father of the Church of God in all future ages; or, as the Apostle calls him, “the heir of the world.” In this view he is the father of many, even of “a multitude of nations.” All that the Christian world enjoys, or ever will enjoy, it is indebted for it to Abraham and his seed. A high honour this, to be the Father of the Faithful, the stock from which the Messiah should spring, and on which the Church of God should grow. It was this honour that Esau despised, when he sold his birthright; and here lay the profaneness of that act, which involved a contempt of the most sacred of all objects—the Messiah, and His everlasting kingdom!—(Fuller.)
God has no relations to time (as we count it) and speaks of the future as here, and present before Him. We may well, therefore, trust His word against all appearances to the contrary.
The high father becomes the father of a multitude; thus God enlarges the portion of those who trust in Him.
Genesis 17:6. God’s Providence ordains the sources of nations, and controls their destinies.
Nations and kings. Thus the history of mankind is to stand connected with political order.
The true king of men was to arise from the seed of Abraham. All kings shall fall down before Him.
God, in His Providence, ordered nations to arise with kings over them, with their laws and usages of government, in order that He might prepare mankind for the idea of a holy nation, presided over by the true priest-king.
The spiritual is founded on the natural, and is the goal of it. Abraham’s high distinction is that he is the spiritual father of a vast spiritual progeny, having a Divinely established order, and under one Supreme sovereignty.
Nations, though they may exist for ages, at length share the mortality of their founders. Kings reign for a few brief years, and then pass away. But the nation of true believers and their kingship are perpetual, for they belong to that realm of the Messiah which for ever lasts.
There was this sense existing in men’s hearts, showing itself in their acts, that the relations between man and man rest on something out of sight, that they are spiritual relations, not those of force, or fraud, or convenience—that men do not huddle together as cattle to keep themselves warm, nor band together as wild beasts, that they may hunt in company; that law is not the result of so much self-will which each man might have kept, yet for certain advantageous considerations throws into a common stock, but that rather there is a law of laws, anterior to and constituting the ground of each positive enactment. If men had any sense of this divine order, which they did not themselves constitute, but into which they entered—which to accept was good, which to deny and fight against was evil—if they did thus believe, in the words of the father of Roman philosophy, nos ad justitiam esse natos, then we have implicitly here an acknowledgment of, and a yearning after, the kingdom of God. They who believed this, believed in “the City which hath foundations,” in that only one which can have everlasting foundations, for it is the only one whose foundations are laid in perfect righteousness and perfect truth—the city “whose builder and maker is God”—the same that Abraham looked for, and because he looked for would take no portion in the cities of confusion round him, but dwelling in tents witnessed against them, and declared plainly that he sought a country—the city of which we already are made free, and which it was given to the latest seer of the New Covenant, ere the Book was sealed, to behold in the spirit coming down in its final glory from Heaven (Revelation 21:2.)—(Trench).
Genesis 17:7. The Abrahamic Covenant includes the seed of the parent along with himself. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.” The great chief personage contemplated in the seed is Jesus (Galatians 3:16). But the seed does also include all who are in Christ (Galatians 3:9). This household feature of the Covenant is perpetual. It was from the beginning the plan of God to propagate His Church by means of a pious posterity; and in His Covenant provision, He is pleased to compass in His arms of love not only the parent, but the infant children also. This was definitely fixed by the very terms of the Covenant, and in the very form of the Covenant seal. And it has thus always been a feature of the Church. And it comes down to us under the New Testament dispensation: “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. For the promise is unto you, and to your children” (Galatians 3:29; Acts 2:39). The seed of Abram according to the flesh—the Jewish people—has great promises as a people (Romans 4).—(Jacobus.)
The great blessings of God’s Covenant were not intended to terminate in those who first received them, but to flow down though the generations of mankind. God gives as one who inherits all time.
Children may be partakers of God’s Covenant, though they are unconscious of its nature and blessings.
There were blessings of the Covenant which were intended to be partial and to endure only for a time, but in their higher meaning and intent they are eternal. God hath willed it that His greatest gifts to those who love Him shall be enjoyed for ever (Hebrews 13:20).
God’s gifts are kingly.
1. In their greatness. For He is Lord and possessor of all. He gives not according to our narrow, niggardly notions, but according to His fulness.
2. In their duration. He is King for ever, and therefore can bestow eternal good.
God is in covenant with every child of grace. Let witnesses be called. First, let Abraham appear. He was born in sin,—prone to evil,—the child of wrath, laden with iniquity, just as we are. But his evidence asserts that God thus communed with him, “I will establish My Covenant between thee, and thy seed after thee.” Let David next be heard. By natural descent he was as we are. But his truthful gratitude exclaims, “He hath made with me an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things, and sure.” Thus far the point is clear. God covenants with man. But perhaps some trembling believer may doubt whether such grace extends beyond the favoured elders in the household of faith. Mercy speeds to give the reply. The Covenant is established with Abraham, and his seed after him (Galatians 3:29). If you are Christ’s, you are a Covenant-child of God. In His majesty, God says, “I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thy hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a Covenant to the people.” We are here bade to gaze on Jesus, as Himself the Covenant. And such He is: for it has no being, no continuance, no power but in Him. He is its essence, its reality, its fulness, its all. It is founded, erected, concluded in Him. No Christ, no Covenant. Receive Him, and it is yours in all its truth and riches. Reject Him, and you perish, because you have not the shadow of a plea. He is the Covenant, because, as Jehovah’s fellow. He designs it, and wills it, and orders it, and frames it, and accepts it. He is the Covenant, because, as God-man, He takes it into His own hand, and works out its every condition.—(Archdeacon Law: “Christ in All.”)
The Covenant with Abraham’s Children by faith.
1. Christ is the messenger of it (Malachi 3:1). He tells us that it is made, and informs us of its contents; by His word—His servants—His sealing ordinances.
2. Christ is the Surety of it (Hebrews 7:22). He engages to carry out its provisions, and by His Spirit to work in His people the fruits of righteousness.
3. Christ is the Mediator of it (Hebrews 12:24). He touches God and man, and they become one in Him. He is the Mediator by means of death (Hebrews 9:15). Thus it was sealed with His blood.
To be a God unto thee. Thus all God’s promises to His people, which seem to point to merely limited and temporal good, have their fruition in glory; we have only that one name for that happiness which is dealt out according to the full measures of the Divine riches.
What God is and what he has belongs to the whole generation of faithful believers.
All the privileges of the Covenant of mercy, its richest joys and most glorious hopes, are summed up in this assurance. He that comes within its scope, as does every believer, can desire nothing more to make him happy. It is as if He had said, “Whatever I am or have, or purpose in a way of grace to do, all that I will be to thee and to thy seed, all that shall be employed for thy protection, consolation, and salvation.”—(Bush.)
The force of language can no further go to express the bliss of God’s chosen; for what good can there be which is not in God? Therefore, blessed are they whose God is Jehovah (Psalms 144:15).
Genesis 17:8. The temporal and the spiritual are here brought together. The land of promise is made sure to the heir of promise for a perpetual possession, and God engages to be their God. The phrase “perpetual possession” has here two elements of meaning: first, that the possession in its coming form of a certain land shall last as long as the co-existing relations of things are continued; and, secondly, that the said possession, in all the variety of its ever grander phases, will last absolutely for ever. Each form will be perfectly adequate to each stage of a progressive humanity. But in all its forms, and at every stage, it will be their chief glory that God is their God.—(Murphy.)
They who possess God can never want any good thing. The blessings which are suited to them in this life last as long as they require them, while those which are specially suited to the habits and requirements of their spiritual nature last for ever.
God’s promises are fulfilled to believers in their lower sense, so that they might be prepared for their enjoyment in a higher. The land of Canaan was thus a type of heaven, that blessed country which shall be cleared of all enemies, and shall be the portion of God’s people for ever. They were once “strangers” to it, for it was not theirs by the inheritance of birth, but it has been given to them as the inheritance of faith—as the grant of grace, and not as coming of natural right.
The two expressions, “I will be a God unto thee,” and “I will be their God,” represent religion considered in two ways.
1. As personal. The soul comes face to face with the personal God. And God gives Himself entirely to the individual believer as if there were no other being besides that soul which He loves. He is not imperfect, as we are who can only bestow but a little of our thought and feeling upon others; for it is a necessity of His nature that He should love with all the directness and intensity of His being.
2. As the character of a corporate body. While we rejoice in the intimate and full relation in which God stands to our individual souls, we must not be unmindful of the spiritual interests of others—of the Church of God considered as a corporate body. God’s word teaches believers to give due regard both to public and to private interests. The infinite resources of God secure the perpetual bliss of the heavenly Canaan.
Abraham most certainly saw in this promise the hope of an inheritance with God, to be reached by a resurrection from the dead; an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Compared with this—to be for ever possessed by himself, and by all like-minded with himself—how poor the prospect of the occupation of Canaan for a few brief centuries, by a nation—all born of him, it is true, but, alas, not all partakers of that faith by which alone he was justified, and by which alone he or they could be saved. That, assuredly, was not the hope of Abraham’s calling. No. He had lived by the power of the world to come, he rejoiced in hope of the glory to be revealed, and in this renewal of the Covenant he had his eye directed to no earthly prize but to heaven itself, and to God as constituting the blessedness of heaven—or, in a word, to the full enjoyment of God as his own and his children’s portion for ever. (Candlish.)
As the call of Abraham was the first Divine act towards the formation of a Church, so in this renewed Covenant God revives the long-tried faith of His servant by opening up a wide and glorious prospect before him.
1. Countless multitudes of believing children.
2. Their unity in Him who is the true seed. Thus they are bound together into one sovereignty—a holy nation, a people for God’s possession.
3. The intimate relation in which God stands to this true seed, and to all who are one with Him.
4. The glorious hope of an eternal inheritance, which they are to reach through the resurrection from the dead.
When Abraham was promised that his seed were to inherit the land, and that God was to be theirs for a perpetual possession, the thoughts of the patriarch would naturally be cast upon the future. He would feel that God was not granting to him blessings which vanish with life, but those which endure for ever. Thus would he be weaned from the world, and learn to fix the eye of his faith upon the larger prospect of the heavenly country.