And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
Lift ... thine eyes ... all the land which thou seest. So extensive a survey of the country, in all directions, can be obtained from no other point in the neighbourhood; and those plains and hills then lying desolate before the eyes of the solitary patriarch were to be populated with a mighty nation, "like the dust of the earth in number," as they were in Solomon's time (1 Kings 4:20). On inquiring into the manner in which this promise was fulfilled, we learn that God did not see fit, in His adorable wisdom, to begin giving effect to it until 430 years after it was announced, and that, through the obstinate unbelief of the children of Israel, forty years more elapsed before they obtained possession of the promised land. As to the extraordinary increase of the posterity of Abram, repeated testimonies are borne to the actual accomplishment of this part of the promise, in terms which attribute the increase to the special exercise of the Providence of God in effecting a result greatly exceeding what the history and experience of all other nations can parallel (Exodus 4:12; Numbers 22:5; Deuteronomy 1:10; Deuteronomy 10:22).