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2 And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. 3 Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: 4 "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. 8 Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." ~ Genesis 17:2-8
In our last study, we brought attention to the fact that God changed Abram's name to Abraham; God did this in conjunction with the continued unfolding of His covenant to Abram. Throughout the Bible, when God changes a name, it was to establish a new identity for that person. Throughout the Bible we see that when someone was renamed, it was an expression of their authority over them. This was the case for Abram when renamed Him. In renaming Abram, God gave him a part of His name, assuring him that God’s promise would be fulfilled in and through him.
In v.2 of today's passage we read, "And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly."
The key word in this chapter is "covenant," used 13 times. God waited thirteen years before He shared with Abram His next revelation to him. Interestingly, the number thirteen is the number that bonds multiplicity into oneness. For example: There are twelve tribes that are bonded into their father Israel who was the thirteenth. The meaning of the number thirteen is the bonding of many into one.
Waiting is one of the most difficult things we do as believers in the God of the Bible. Yet, exercising patience in God is a large part of learning to trust in Him as He navigates not only our story with Him but other peoples story with Him, as well. Once God gave this new revelation to Abram, it had a profound impact upon Abram's view on life.
In v.3 of today's passage we read, "Then Abram fell on his face."
Once he heard the new revelation from God, Abram prostrated himself before the Lord. Abram fell to his knees, he lowered his head to his knees, and then he touched the earth with his forehead. It was not a very comfortable posture, but it signified Abram's great humiliation, reverence, and submission before the Lord. In that moment, Abram was completely overwhelmed because all along he had figured that Ishmael was the fulfillment of the promise, but now he’s being told there is more to it all than he had realized.
In v.4 of today's passage we read, "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations."
God here restates His promise and then He refines it a bit. The word "nations" is normally used when speaking not of the chosen people, but of the pagan gentile peoples. Abram was now being told that he will be the "father of many nations" with the subsequent change of his name and it would be fulfilled in an amazing and unsuspected way, both physically and spiritually.
In v.5 of today's passage we read, "No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations."
In the change of Abram's name to Abraham, his name went from the future tense to the present tense. The giving of this name was God's tangible pledge of the fulfillment of the covenant God had spoken to Abram previously. The Lord personally renamed Abram, signifying both His authority over him and the completion of His promise to him.
YHWH, the covenant name of God, is spelled with four Hebrew letters: yod, hei, vav, and hei. When God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, He inserted the Hebrew letter hei from His divine name into Abram’s name. God gave to Abram a part of His name. In doing so, God symbolically was saying that in order for Abram to walk in His ways blamelessly, Abram needed His nature to be in him. Interestingly, Hei is the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it is the number that represents grace.
Abram's problem all along had been that he was looking for his own exaltation. This had to be changed in order for Abram to realize the dreams God had for him. Like Abram, we must lose our desire to exalt ourselves; we must stop trying to advance and please ourselves. This is when God changed Abram's name. His name would now be "the father of a multitude." This had to be if Abram were to realize the fruitfulness that was promised in his life. God essentially was saying to Abram, "Since you have now learned that I am El Shaddai, your name can no longer be 'exalted," it now must be 'fruitful,' for you will be the father of a multitude."
The Lord always keeps His promises. And, in a similar mark of surety to each one of us, God has also given every person who has been saved by the blood of Christ a new name as well. This is recorded in Revelation 2:17 where we read, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it."
In v.6 of today's passage we read, "I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you."
For thirteen years Abram had Ishmael thinking he would be the one through whom this mighty nation would be built but now he realized that Ishmael wasn’t the promised one. With this verse comes the promise of many more children. In addition to Ishmael and Isaac, we will see in Genesis 25 that Abraham will have many more children in the days to come.
In v.7 of today's passage we read, "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you."
The covenant was established as an everlasting covenant with Abram's spiritual descendants as is revealed in the book of Galatians. It will never fade away, it will never lessen or diminish, it will never fail. This covenant was and is a covenant of grace and it is everlasting. What God promised to Abraham here was primarily Himself and this part of the covenant is applicable to all who look to Him in faith. This partly explains why the believer in Christ has the promised Holy Spirit living within.
In v.8 of today's passage we read, "Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."
This part of the promise is only applicable to Abram's physical descendants, the Jews. And, down through the years God has been faithful to the Jews, His unfaithful people to fulfill this part of the promise. Miraculously, God brought the Jews back to the promised land against all odds in 1948. The Jews had been globally dispersed for 1,900 years, and yet, during that time they were able to retain their cultural and religious identity. Never before has a nation been destroyed and dispersed to the ends of the earth, and then, nearly two thousand years later be re-gathered to their homeland and reestablished as a nation. All due to the fact that the God of the Bible is a covenant keeping God whom we can trust with our very lives.
