Genesis 17

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:27utc

In this third appearance of God to Abraham the covenant is signed between God and man. It is another one of the peak experiences in Abraham's life. It happens thirteen years after the previous chapter. This is the first time God reveals Himself as "El Shaddai," God Almighty. We find the expression five times in the book of Genesis; besides this verse in Ch. 28:3; 35:11; 43:14 and 48:3. It is a plural of the root word for "powerful" or "to be strong." Thomas Aquinas translates it as "the One who is sufficient." The Pulpit Commentary says about "El Shaddai" that the term is used: "distinguishing Jehovah, the God of salvation, from Elohim, the God who creates nature so that it is and supports it that it may stand, as 'the God who compels nature to do what is contrary to itself, and subdues it to bow and minister to grace'; characterizing Jehovah the covenant God, 'as possessing the power to realize his promises, even when the order of nature presented no prospect of their fulfillment, and the powers of nature were insufficient to secure it."

Against the background of the promise God had given to Abraham and the condition in which both Sarah and Abraham found themselves, being respectively 89 and 99 years old, this revelation of as the One 'who compels nature to do what it contrary to itself' and 'as possessing the power to realize his promises, even when the order of nature presented no prospect of their fulfillment' is very significant. Abraham and Sarah have both come to the conclusion that the time for the fulfillment of God's promise is passed. They have accepted the fact that Ishmael, that unruly teenager, is the fulfillment of God's promise. And here comes God to tell Abraham that he is wrong.

Abraham had little or no idea that God was preparing the world for an event that was even more momentous than the birth of a baby after its due time. Paul put this in the proper perspective when he says in Rom.4:17 - "As it is written, 'I have made you the father of many nations'- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist." (RSV). And he draws the line through to us by saying in Rom.4:22-24 - "This is why 'it was credited to him as righteousness.' The words 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, But also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness; for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."

That is why Jesus can say: - "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." (John 8:56)

However, we are running ahead of our subject. God says to Abraham: "Walk before me and be blameless." We have to remember that God's speaking is creative. He calls into being that which does not exist. Abraham had not been blameless. His affair with Hagar was there to prove it. In chapter 15 we read that God imputed righteousness to Abraham because he believed God's promise. Here this righteousness is translated into perfection. God sanctifies Abraham to prepare the world for the resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. This perfection is no static entity that was imposed upon Abraham, but it was the result of his "walk" with God that is his daily fellowship with Him. God set Abraham's feet on the path to glory. It is as if God shows to Abraham that there would have been no reason for Abraham's failure to take place, if he had walked with God on a daily basis. Abraham had taken Hagar without consulting God. God could have kept him from stumbling, had Abraham asked.

What God demands of Abraham, He will later put as a demand before the whole nation of Israel. One example of the many we find in Lev 19:2 where God says: "Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: 'Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy." The same demand is put before us as New Testament Christians. In I Pet.1:15,16 - "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; For it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

We have to realize that God's standard for us is humanly impossible. Yet it was God's intention in the creation of man to make him blameless and holy as Himself. We can apply Jesus' words to His disciples here in Luke 18:27 - "What is impossible with men is possible with God." The same words are quoted in Matt.19:26 and Mark 10:27. Sin has not changed God's mind about man. It seems to us that God is reaching far above us to an eternity that we cannot comprehend. Actually, He is just stating His goal for each of us. I am not preaching sinless perfection for us in our present condition. Fortunately we cannot see what God is doing in us. Sanctification is usually not a conscious experience. To quote Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest: "We want to be conscious saints and unconscious sinners. God makes us conscious sinners and unconscious saints."

So what God says here to Abraham is actually a statement about His goal for all of mankind, because the purpose of the whole plan of salvation is holiness. Paul expresses this several times in his epistles. In Eph 1:3-4 we read: - "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." And I Thess. 4:3 we read: "It is God's will that you should be sanctified." Abraham is the main link in this plan of salvation. So this appearance of God to him is of cosmic importance. The eternal destiny of each one of us hinges on it.

The covenant that was made in chapter 15 is confirmed at this moment. God has given Abraham time to understand what He had done for him. His failure of faith, which resulted in his marriage with Hagar and the birth of Ishmael have given him a clearer insight both in the unreliability of his own person and the faithfulness of God. He knows now that there is no point of "trusting the flesh," as Paul expresses it Phil. 3:3. This does not mean that he will not have moments of relapse. We will see another example of this in chapter 20.

Abraham's reaction to God's revelation is the only one possible: he falls face down. He is overwhelmed. I know that we are in another dispensation. In a certain way our access to the throne is greater than of Abraham. But I often wonder what it would be to have a physical experience of this spiritual reality, such as Abraham had and Daniel and John. Both Daniel and John fainted in the presence of the Lord. Abraham remains conscious, although overwhelmed. But his body responds to the God's appearance by prostrating itself completely.

Both the KJV and the RSV say, "I will make my covenant between me and thee (you)," but the NIV says: "I will confirm my covenant between me and you." The LB paraphrases it as: "I will prepare a contract between us."Although grammatically the KJV and RSV are correct, the obvious intent is not a new covenant, different from the one in ch.15. The Pulpit Commentary says that it is an "intimation that the covenant already concluded was about to be carried into execution."

The essence of the covenant is stated in vs.7 - "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you." The other articles of the contract lead up to this or are a confirmation. In the light of the history of salvation, this means that after the fall, in which man broke the bond of fellowship with God, God comes back and offers peace and complete restoration and even more. He does this in choosing one particular man, who will be the father of one particular nation, which will be the guardian of God's revelation. That is why Paul can say about Israel in Rom.9:4,5 - "Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen."

The covenant is eternal, but some of the articles are temporary provisions, such as the possession of Canaan and the rite of circumcision. If we would consider those parts of the agreement to be eternal also, we would have to believe that this planet would exist eternally and that Paul is wrong in the New Testament when he argues that circumcision makes no difference in our relationship with God. (See Gal.6:15).

The first article of the covenant consists in the establishing of a link between Abraham and posterity. He will be the father of a great multitude consisting of many nations. The latter phrase is consistent with the promise that was included in the call, recorded in Gen 12:3 ".... all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." It clearly means that although Israel will be the guardian of the covenant, the covenant is not to be restricted to the nation of Israel alone. As Paul states in Gal.3:14 - "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."

The execution of the promise is first of all expressed in a change of name. Abram will henceforth be called Abraham according to verse 5. "No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations." Abram meant "a high father" and Abraham "father of a multitude of nations." In Hebrew the difference consists only in the addition of the letter "he." The Pulpit Commentary remarks that in changing Abram's name to Abraham God adds one letter of His own Name YHWH to the name of Abraham. He does the same when He renames Sarai into Sarah.

There are other instances in the Bible where the name of a person is changed. Jesus renames Simon to Peter in John 1:42. Jesus says to the church in Pergamum in Rev 2:17 "I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it," and to the church in Sardis in 3:12 "I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name."

In cultures such as we find in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, a change of name occurs always when someone turns from heathenism to Christ. Sometimes it is only an indication that a person is in favor of Western culture and wants to leave the Stone Age behind him. For Abraham it must have had a very deep significance. God changed his name to indicate the new reality. From a man without descendants he was to be the father of many nations. As we shall see Abraham initially thought that God's promise pertained to Ishmael. The fact that God announces the promise as if it had already gone into effect contributed, no doubt, to the misunderstanding. God does not say: "I will make you a father of many nations," but "I have made you..." But evidently God wants to give the promise a touch of eternity, where there is no past or future, but just present.

But even when God says specifically that Abraham will have a son from Sarah, Abraham has a hard time accepting this. He laughs at the impossibility. We shall see that there is a lot of laughing before and at the birth of Isaac - some laughs of doubt, some of joy.

The next clause in the covenant is about the country. Abraham has lived in Canaan as an alien ever since his arrival. God promises that both Abraham and his offspring will possess the land. Heb.11:13 says about this: "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth." And in Heb.11:9-10 we read: "By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God."This new testament comment throws a new light on this passage. It indicates that Canaan, although is was to be the habitat of the nation of Israel and evidently has become so again in this century, is only an temporary image of a greater, spiritual reality. Again in Heb.4:8-10 we read:"For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his."

Abraham's part in the covenant is to submit to circumcision. It is important to realize that circumcision is not something one does to one self; it is being done. Abraham did not circumcise himself. In the New Testament circumcision is presented as part of the "works of the law," but this is not literally correct. That is why physical circumcision can be taken as an image of a spiritual reality, as Paul does in Phil.3:3 - "For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh." And Paul says in Rom.2:28,29 - "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God."

In vs.11 God explains that the circumcision is to be a sign of the covenant between God and man. For Abraham it meant in the first place that he would have the sexual intercourse with Sarah, which would result in the conception of Isaac, as a circumcised man. This too has spiritual significance. Paul explains this in Col. 2:11 - "In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ." The KJV uses the expression "in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh." This may translate the idea more appropriately. We partake in the covenant God makes with us in the "circumcision done by Christ," which is done when we submit to having our sinful nature put on the cross. Some things are to be done away with in our lives in order to enter into the this unique relationship with God.

About people who do not want to submit to this circumcision God says in vs.14 - "Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." This "cut off" does not mean physical death, but a being excluded from the covenant. The Pulpit Commentary says that the term "to be cut off" can mean capital punishment in some cases, but it seems highly unlikely to me that such a case is meant here. After all in most cases an infant was circumcised, not an adult. It must mean that the person who is not circumcised and refuses to submit to the rite as an adult is not considered to have part in God's covenant with Israel.

Then God addresses Abraham about his wife, Sarai. He announces a change of name for her in the same fashion as Abram's name was changed to Abraham. In her case God adds one of the letters of His own name YHWH also, as we mentioned before. The problem with Sarah's name change seems to be that there is no radical change of meaning. Both Sarai and Sarah mean "princess." "Sarai" probably meant princess in the more restricted sense of the word; someone who ruled over her household. "Sarah" gives the impression of an extension of the domain over which she rules. Henceforth she is no longer to be the strong voice in the household, but the mother of nations, kings and people.

Here for the first time does God declare clearly that Abraham's link with his offspring through which the promise is carried on, will be through Sarah. We have seen already that both Sarah and Abraham understood this to be the case, since Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham as her slave girl, as an extension of herself, not as Abraham's wife in her own rights. Now it turns out that Sarah was both wrong and more right than she knew.

In the dialogue of vs.17-22 Abraham is irreverent, to say the least. His outward attitude is correct. Both in vs.3 and vs.17 we read that Abraham prostrated himself before God. He must have looked up, or relaxed in the verses in between. But inwardly he laughs at God and tells him that what God proposes is impossible. It can't be done! Abraham either had never understood what God planned to do, or he thought that he had misunderstood, or he suspected God's plan but considered it too fantastic to be real. Too good to be true. It is true that the Gospel seems often too good to be true, but it is true anyhow. What Abraham thought about the announced birth of Isaac, we can think about the incarnation and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It sounds too good to be true.

Abraham was not the first man in human history who lay prostrate before the LORD and did not really believe that what God said was true. He was not the last man either. Demonstration of outward piety can cover a lot of unbelief. Sometimes it is a substitute for faith.

God does not reproach Abraham his lack of faith, but He does end the encounter abruptly, as we read in vs.22 - "When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him."

In vs.18 we read: - "And Abraham said to God, 'If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!' "In other words "Why do not you forget about the whole deal! Let's just keep it at Ishmael." Abraham meant much more than just that Ishmael should not die, but that he would be the fulfillment of God's promise. In a certain way Abraham wanted to justify himself with this proposal. If God agreed with him, his affair with Hagar would become legitimate. It would no longer be a big mistake, a sin. Abraham and Sarah could have said that they were right after all.

God takes Abraham's words literally. His answer is "Yes," followed by "but..." This is not the "but" of doubt, like we express it as humans. It is the "but" of God's possibilities as over against man's impossibilities. "But God..." It is impossible to misunderstand God's intent after hearing what is said in vs. 19 - "Then God said, 'Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.'"

For the first time Isaac's name is mentioned. "Isaac" means "laughter" or "he laughs." In the first place this is a reference to Abraham's laughter of unbelief in vs.17. Later it will refer to Sarah's unbelief also, as we read in ch.18:12. But God has a way of turning man's laughter of unbelief into a laughter of joy. That is what laughter should be to start with.

It has been said that Abraham's reflection on his age and that of Sarah contradicts the fact that he married other women after Sarah's death. In chapter 25:1-7 we read that he married Katurah and had six sons with her. We do get the impression that this happened after Sarah's death, but this is not stated specifically. We will get to this at a later point. The fact remains that at this point Abraham considers himself and Sarah too old to have children. Heb.11:12 says about him: - "And so from this one man, and he a good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore." It is true in our age that men and women past the age of ninety do no longer get children, but then men do not live to be 175 either! But the Bible stresses the fact that for both Sarah and Abraham it was physically impossible to have a child at their age. So this we accept.

The point in question is that God chose Isaac as the child with whom the covenant would continue. The crucial point of the covenant was the promise of the Messiah. It was not a matter of Isaac being saved and going to heaven and Ishmael going to hell, but of to whom the task of guarding God's revelation in this world would entrusted. As we mentioned before God wanted to foreshadow the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the birth of Isaac. The Apostle Paul emphasizes this in Rom.4:24 where he links Abraham's faith at the birth of Isaac with our faith in the resurrection of Jesus. He says: "But also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness; for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."

The blessings promised to Ismael are basically the same as those God gave to Abraham himself. He would be fruitful and important in the history of man. But he would not be in the line of the Messiah. He would have no part in the process that would make the Word become flesh. That does not mean that he would not be allowed to share in the results. There are presently more Arab Christians than Jewish, especially in the Near East.

Abraham took God's Word very seriously, because we read that on that very day he circumcised his son Ishmael and all the male members of his household and submitted himself to the rite also. At that time Ishmael was 13 years old and Abraham 99.

The law on circumsision is very sketchy in the Old Testament. It is only mentioned in passing in Leviticus: "On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised."[ 1 ] The words there pertain more to the purification of the mother after birth than to what has to happen to the child. There are some strange instances in the early history of Israel where circumcision was neglected, as in the case of Moses's son. In Ex.4:24-26 we read: "At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched feet with it. 'Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said "bridegroom of blood,' referring to circumcision.)" It is not clear whose life was in danger. It could be Moses' or his son's. Since the oldest son of Pharaoh is mentioned in the preceding verse, it would be most logical to conclude that Moses' son Gershom was about to die. It seems that Moses had given in to his wife's objection against the circumsision of Gershom.

Circumcision was not enforced during the voyage through the wilderness from Egypt to Canaan. In Joshua, we read: "At that time the LORD said to Joshua, 'Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.' So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth. Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt; all the men of military age; died in the desert on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not. The Israelites had moved about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the LORD. For the LORD had sworn to them that they would not see the land that he had solemnly promised their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, 'Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.' So the place has been called Gilgal to this day."[ 2 ]

It is clear though, that circumcision was considered a basic requirement for every Israelite male, and we do not read about any exceptions beside the two instances mentioned above.

[ 1 ] Lev.12:3

[ 2 ] Josh. 5:2-9