And when Abram was ninety years old and nine the LORD appeared to Abram and said unto him I am And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.
Abram was ninety years old and nine - thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael. During that interval he had enjoyed the comforts of communion with God, but had been favoured with no special revelation as formerly. It was a period of spiritual desertion, probably on account of his hasty and blameable marriage with Hagar, and the promise of his son was so long deferred that the faith of Abram and Sarai might be tried, and God's power at their extreme age illustriously displayed, the Lord appeared-some visible manifestation of the divine presence, probably the shechinah, or radiant glory of overpowering effulgence.
I am the Almighty God - [Hebrew, 'Eel (H410) Shaday (H7706) from shaadad (H7703), to be strong or powerful, to lay waste, to desolate.] It is strictly speaking a plural termination; but it is never joined [like 'Elohiym (H430)] with an adjective or verb plural. It is a name of God that seems to have come into use after the flood, being not found in the Scriptures previous to that destructive dispensation, but soon after it, in perhaps the oldest book in the world, that of Job, thirty-one times. It is used once in this book by itself (Genesis 49:25: cf. Ruth 1:20-21; Isaiah 13:6; Ezekiel 1:24; Ezekiel 10:5; Joel 1:15); but in six other passages it appears as a compound title, as here, with "God" prefixed (Genesis 28:3; Genesis 35:11; Genesis 43:14; Genesis 48:3; Exodus 6:3; Ezekiel 10:5); and in all of these it denotes the second person in the Godhead. It was the name by which He made himself known to the patriarchs, designed to convey the sense of 'all-sufficient' (Psalms 16:5-6; Psalms 73:25); and accordingly, in harmony with the object of this manifestation, the lord announces himself as El Shaddai-a Mighty Promiser of blessings-this name, used only in the progressive development of the covenant, being a pledge of their fulfillment. Nothing was more appropriate or more needful to be kept before the mind of Abram than that the Divine Being, on whose word he relied, was able to do things which seemed above and contrary to nature (cf. Hebrews 11:11-12.)
Walk ... and be ... perfect - upright, sincere (Psalms 41:6) in heart, speech, and behaviour. Faith was to be manifested by works, and by works to be made perfect (James 2:22).