God Makes a Promise to Abram (Part II)

God first made His promise in 12:2. Twenty-four years later, God appeared to Abram again and changed his name. How old he is. “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram” (17:1). He was seventy-five when God first promised him a son. Twenty-four years have gone by. The only child in the camp is Ishmael, who came from the plan in chapter 16. The new names. Abram means something like exalted father. Abraham means father of a multitude (17:5). So a ninety-nine-year-old man with just one son is given a name that means father of nations. He has to answer to it every day, in front of everybody, before anything has happened. God speaks as if it is done. Not “you will be” but “I have made you a father of many nations” (17:5). God says it as if it has already happened. The baby does not exist yet, but the name is already true. A new name for God, too. In 17:1 God says, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.” This is the first time in Scripture God calls Himself El Shaddai — God Almighty. He says it alongside a promise that a ninety-nine-year-old has every reason to doubt. When God's promise seems impossible to you, remember who is making it.

17:1-8 begins with Abram's age and with a new name God uses for Himself. The age in 17:1 is exact: ninety-nine. In 12:4 Abram was seventy-five when he left Haran, so twenty-four years have passed. 16:16 places Ishmael's birth thirteen years back. For thirteen years Abram had lived with Ishmael, still waiting for the son God promised. El Shaddai (say: el shad-DYE) appears here for the first time in the Bible. The older English rendering God Almighty follows the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. The meaning is clear: God has all power, and nothing can stop Him from keeping His word. He gave Abram this name for Himself at the very moment the promise looked most impossible. The renaming in 17:5 turns on a single consonant. Abram probably means exalted father. The verse itself explains Abraham as av-hamon goyim, father of a multitude of nations. The new name sounds like that phrase, which is how Hebrew names are often explained. Every time someone called him Abraham, they repeated God's promise. In 17:5 God says netattikha (say: neh-tat-TEE-khah), I have made you. It is a completed form, used for something that has not happened yet. The same form comes again in 17:6, and in 17:8 about the land. When God speaks about the future, it is as good as done. Paul says the same in Romans 4:17: God calls things that do not exist as though they did. Berit olam (say: beh-REET oh-LAHM) in 17:7 — everlasting covenant — comes back at 17:13 and 17:19. Galatians 3:17 teaches that the promise to Abraham was never canceled, and Galatians 3:16 shows that it is fulfilled in Christ.

Abram was ninety-nine years old. God first promised him a son at seventy-five. That is twenty-four years of waiting. Then God came and changed his name. Abram means something like “great father” in Hebrew. Abraham means “father of many nations.” Abram was very old. He had no son with Sarai yet. But God started calling him “father of many” right away. God said it before the baby came.

Abram waited and waited for his baby. He was ninety-nine years old now. Then God gave him a brand new name.

In 17:9-14 God gives Abraham's family a sign of His covenant. What it was. Circumcision — a small permanent mark cut into the body — was given to every male in the household on the eighth day (17:10-12). That included sons, servants and anyone bought into the household. It marked a whole house, not only a bloodline. Why this sign. A robe comes off. A ring gets lost. A tattoo on the hand can be covered. This sign could not be removed, swapped or forgotten. Nobody but the family ever saw it. It was a sign meant for the people who carried it. It was given to babies. A boy got it at eight days old, before he had done anything right or wrong. That is a picture of grace: God acts first, and the person marked has added nothing. What the New Testament says. Paul explains the order. Abraham “received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised” (Romans 4:11). Chapter 15 came first, and chapter 17 put a seal on it. The sign never made anyone right with God. It marked people who already were. That is why Paul can later say the real thing is “circumcision… of the heart” (Romans 2:29).

17:9-14 moves from God's promise to the sign of that promise. The sign is ot berit, a sign of the covenant (17:11). It is given to the whole household — yelid bayit, born in the house, and miqnat kesef, bought with money (17:12-13). So it marks a household, not only a family line. Even servants from other nations were brought inside the covenant. The timing, the eighth day, becomes fixed law at Leviticus 12:3. Paul and Luke both take it for granted (Luke 1:59, 2:21; Philippians 3:5). The penalty in 17:14, wenikhretah hannefesh hahi — that person shall be cut off — uses the usual wording for being removed from the covenant community. To refuse the sign was to refuse the covenant itself. Romans 4:9-12 points to the order of events. Abraham was counted righteous in Genesis 15:6, years before Genesis 17. He then received circumcision as sphragida tes dikaiosynes tes pisteos — a seal of the righteousness of the faith — he already had. So the sign confirmed a standing it did not create. From that, Paul shows that Abraham is father of believing Gentiles as well as of the circumcised. Two more lines run forward. Romans 2:28-29, and Deuteronomy 10:16 and 30:6, move the requirement to the heart. Colossians 2:11-12 links the same picture to union with Christ. Neither passage treats Genesis 17 as useless. Both show that God always wanted a changed heart, not just a mark on the body. The sign was permanent, and it was given to babies who could do nothing to earn it. God chose a mark nobody could remove, as a lasting reminder that His people belong to Him. For Christians, the deeper sign is a heart made new by the Holy Spirit.

Then God gave the family a sign to keep. The Bible calls it circumcision. It was a small mark on their bodies. Every baby boy got it at eight days old. Why did God pick a mark like that? He could have picked a hat, or a ring. But you can leave a hat at home. You can take a ring off and lose it. This mark went with them everywhere, always. It said one thing, every single day: “You belong to God.” And God gave it to babies, long before they could earn it.

God gave the family a special mark. It showed they belonged to Him. They could never ever take it off.

The second half of chapter 17 has three things in it: a laugh, a prayer and a name. Sarai becomes Sarah (17:15). Both forms mean princess. The change marks her as part of the covenant in her own right. In 17:16, God says plainly for the first time that the promised son will come through her. Until now the promise was to Abram about children. Now it has her name on it. Abraham laughs (17:17). “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old?’” He is face down on the ground and laughing at the same time. He bows in worship and doubts in the same moment. And God does not scold him for it. He prays for Ishmael (17:18). “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” A father is asking God to count the son he already loves. It is a very human request. God's answer has two parts. No — the covenant runs through Isaac (17:19, 17:21). And: “As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him… He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation” (17:20). Remember Hagar in chapter 16? God heard her in the desert, and now He hears Abraham, about the same boy. The name. Isaac — Yitschaq — means he laughs. God heard the laugh and named the baby after it.

17:15-22 shows God's promise becoming clearer and more personal. The renaming of Sarai to Sarah (17:15) does not clearly change the meaning; both names are linked with princess. What the renaming does is bring her formally inside the covenant. 17:16 says for the first time that the heir comes mimmennah (say: mim-meh-NAH), from her. Every earlier promise named Abraham's seed without naming the mother. Chapter 16 had tried to fill that gap with Hagar. Now God fills it Himself. In 17:17, Abraham's response joins wayyippol al-panav, he fell on his face, with wayyitschaq, and he laughed. He bowed in worship and laughed in disbelief at the same moment, and God did not rebuke him. In 18:12 Sarah laughs with the same verb, tsachaq (say: tsah-KHAHK). Both of them found the promise hard to believe, and God was patient with both. He answered Abraham by naming Isaac, and He answered Sarah with a question. In 17:18-21 Abraham prays, lu Yishmael yichyeh lefaneykha, a prayer for the son he already has. God refuses to put Ishmael in Isaac's place but grants the blessing. The covenant line is Isaac (17:19, 21). Ishmael receives shema'tikha — I have heard you — with a promise of twelve princes and a great nation (17:20). The verb echoes the hearing that named Ishmael in 16:11. God heard Hagar, and now He hears Abraham about the same boy. The name Isaac, Yitschaq, comes from tsachaq, to laugh. God turns the laugh into a name. It also ties 17:17, 18:12 and 21:6 into one thread: Abraham laughs, Sarah laughs, and Sarah finally says “God has made me laugh.”

Then God talked about Abraham's wife. “Sarai gets a new name too,” He said. Her new name would be Sarah. Then God made a promise. “And I will give you a son by her.” Abraham bowed low. He fell on his face — and he laughed. “A hundred-year-old man, with a baby?” he thought. “And Sarah is ninety!” Then Abraham asked God for something. “Please — let Ishmael be the one.” Ishmael was his son. Abraham wanted God to bless the son he already had. God said no, Sarah would have the baby. “Call him Isaac.” And Isaac means “he laughs.”

God said Sarah would have a baby. Abraham fell down and laughed! He was a hundred years old.

Chapter 18 begins quietly, with a visit to Abraham's tent. Who the visitors are. “Then the Lord appeared to him by the terebinth trees of Mamre” (18:1). Then “three men were standing by him” (18:2). In 19:1, two angels arrive at Sodom. So the Lord Himself came to Abraham's tent with two angels. Abraham was able to talk with God as a friend. Abraham's welcome. It is the heat of the day, he is ninety-nine years old, and he runs (18:2). He offers “a morsel of bread” (18:5). Then he brings out three measures of fine meal, a tender calf, butter and milk. It is a feast, made quickly, for strangers. Then he stands while they eat. Hebrews 13:2 has this scene in mind: some have entertained angels without knowing it. The promise, with a date. “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son” (18:10). It is not someday. It is next year. Sarah laughs. She is behind him in the tent door, laughing to herself. It is the quietest laugh in the Bible, and God hears it (18:12-13). She denies it because she is afraid. God does not let the denial stand: “No, but you did laugh!” The question. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (18:14). God asks it of two people who had just laughed at the answer. The rest of the Bible keeps asking it — in Jeremiah 32:17 and 32:27, and when an angel speaks to a teenage girl in Nazareth: “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

18:1-16 tells of a meal with God at Abraham's tent and a promise with a date. 18:1 names YHWH as the one who appeared. 18:2 reports sheloshah anashim, three men. The speakers switch between plural and singular. In 19:1, shene hammal'akhim, two angels, reach Sodom, while Abraham still stands before the LORD (18:22). So the LORD came to Abraham with two angels. Many Christians believe that when God appeared in human form like this, it was the Son of God, who would one day take on flesh for good and live among us (John 1:14). The hospitality scene is full of verbs of hurry — wayyarots, he ran (18:2); wayemaher, he hurried (18:6); rats, he ran again (18:7). All this happens kechom hayyom, in the heat of the day, and the host is ninety-nine. In 18:5 he offers only pat-lechem, a morsel of bread, and then brings three seahs of fine flour and a calf. He offered little and gave much. Hebrews 13:2 has this scene in mind. The announcement in 18:10 gives a timetable — ka'et chayyah, at the time of life, meaning this time next year. That turns an open-ended promise into one with a date. God put His word on the calendar. Sarah's laugh in 18:12 is inward, beqirbah, within herself. Even so, the LORD reports it to Abraham. Her denial in 18:15 comes from fear, ki yare'ah, and God answers it plainly but gently. Abraham had laughed with the same verb in 17:17. God was patient with both of them, and in 21:6 Sarah's laugh becomes a laugh of joy. 18:14, hayippale me-YHWH davar, is the center of the passage. The root pala (say: pah-LAH) means what is wonderful or out of reach. The sentence is a question, not a statement. It comes back almost word for word at Jeremiah 32:17 and 32:27. It also stands behind Luke 1:37, when the angel tells Mary that she will bear the Son of God.

Some time later, three men came to the tent. It was the hottest part of the day. Abraham did not just sit and wave. He ran to meet them. He was ninety-nine years old, and he ran! “Please stay,” he said. “Let me get you something.” Then he made a feast. He had only offered “a little bread.” Sarah baked. A servant cooked a whole calf. Abraham brought milk and butter and stood while they ate. Then one of them asked where Sarah was. “She will have a son next year,” He said. Sarah was listening behind the door, and she laughed. Then God asked a question: is anything too hard for Him?

Three men came to Abraham's tent. He ran to bring them food. They said Sarah would have a baby!