Gênesis 17

Gênesis 17

Morgan - In this word Jehovah revealed Himself in a new way to Abram, and called him to a yet completer devotion. The name or title, El-Shaddai, is peculiarly suggestive, meaning quite literally, the mighty One of Resource or Sufficiency. We miss much of its beauty by our rendering God Almighty. The idea of Almightiness is present, but it is fully expressed by the word El. The word Shaddai goes further, and suggests perfect supply, and perfect comfort. We should reach the idea better by rendering God All-bountiful, or even better still, God All-sufficient. This was the new revelation, and it was in connection with its making that Abram was called to walk before this God, and to be perfect. This is ever God's way with His own. He reveals the perfection of their resources in Himself, and then calls them to a walk which is made possible by these very resources. Who can walk before God and be perfect in his own wisdom or strength? Surely none! But, on the other hand, who need fail to do so, if depending upon Him for all He, in tender and mighty strength, is able and willing to supply. To gather sustenance and consolation from the bosom of God, is to be made strong for all the pilgrimage, however long the march, or difficult the route. For us, the revelation of this truth about God is perfected in our Lord, for "The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He bath declared Him." And more: "Of His fulness we all received, and grace for grace." James Smith - ABRAHAM WALKING BEFORE GOD Genesis 17:1–5 Abram was ninety-and-nine years old when the Lord appeared unto him. Not too old to have fellowship with Him. Age may shut us out from the joys and companionships of youth, but through grace it may ripen our friendship with God. I. The Revelation. “I am the Almighty. I am God all-sufficient.” This is a divine plaster large enough to cover any human sore. A son had been promised Abram; he was now old, and no son had yet been given to him; but in this promise he had enough to brighten faith and trim afresh the flickering lamp of hope. This revelation of God, as our all-sufficiency, is made known to us in Jesus Christ. There is enough in Him to meet all our need, both as sinners and as servants. Weary, downcast Christian toilers, hear. Him say, “Look unto Me; I am God all-sufficient.” To brighten thy little dwelling there is plenty of light in this sun; to float thy little vessel there is plenty of water in this ocean. II. The Commission. “Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.” Perhaps Abram had been walking too much before Sarah. Seeking to please her, guided by her counsel, he had already turned aside from the life of faith in God (Genesis 16:1-4). This was a call— 1. THAT AFFECTED HIS LIFE. “Walk before Me.” In all things he was to act as one who lived in the immediate presence of God Almighty. This is not a life of dread and awkward restraint, but a holy, joyful, divinely-satisfied life. It is, in fact, the life of faith. This is the high privilege of every Heaven-born son of God. 2. IT AFFECTED HIS CHARACTER. “Be thou perfect.” That is, be whole-hearted. Not having a double heart (Psa. 12:2), seeking to please both God and man. All perfection comes from Him who alone is perfect. The highest human perfection lies in a whole-hearted life before God. III. The Submission. “And Abram fell on his face” (Ge 17:3). The best answer to God’s high calling is a humble and broken spirit. Abram did not say boastingly, like some of his descendants, “All that thou sayest will we do” (Ruth 3:5). He bowed his face to the dust, and “God talked with him.” A deep, conscious sense of ignorance and weakness brings us into the right attitude to be taught of God. God always talks to the heart of the self-abased. When John fell at His feet he felt the touch of His gracious hand, and heard His comforting “Fear not” (Rev. 1:17). May He give us that humbleness of heart, that calmness of spirit that bears the faintest whisper from the lips of the Holy Ghost. IV. The Transformation. “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram; but thy name shall be called Abraham.” Abram, the exalted, is changed into Abraham, the fruitful. He has bowed with his whole heart unto the will of God, and his character is transformed. It is not always so? Complete surrender brings a complete change of nature. Jacob became a prince, and prevailed when he yielded entirely to the heavenly wrestler. It is when we are crucified with Christ that Christ liveth in us (Gal. 2:20). It is by yielding to the Spirit of Christ that we are transformed into His holy and heavenly image. John Bennett - Genesis 17:1–14 AN EVERLASTING POSSESSION Abram was ninety-nine years old. Thirteen years had elapsed since the birth of Ishmael, Ge 16:16, and those years of silence indicate Abram’s folly in seeking his own solution to the problem of Sarai’s barrenness. The cost of disobedience is great! However, God now appears to Abram again and does so as ‘the Almighty God’, Ge 17:1. Abram had to learn the lesson of the all-sufficient, all-powerful God, One who was in control of every situation and was sufficient for every crisis. Was Sarai barren? Yet God says, ‘Thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee’, Ge 17:5; ‘I will establish my covenant … and … be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee’, Ge 17:7; ‘I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee’, Ge 17:8; ‘thou, and thy seed after thee’, Ge 17:9. It was for Abraham to appreciate the answer to the question, ‘Is any thing too hard for the Lord?’, Gen. 18:14. But with this new revelation comes responsibility. The command is, ‘Be thou perfect’, Ge 17:1. A relationship with God necessitates our sanctification: ‘But like as he which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living’, 1 Pet. 1:15 RV. Linked with that command is the manifest token of Abraham’s separation, ‘Every man child among you shall be circumcised’, Ge 17:10. Its application was extensive, ‘every man child in your generations … born in the house, or bought with money’, Ge 17:12. For us, that circumcision is in Christ, ‘the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh’, Col. 2:11. No half-measures will do! From those steps of obedience there comes the experience of God’s blessings, ‘I will make thee exceeding fruitful’, Ge 17:6; ‘I will make nations of thee’, Ge 17:6; ‘I will give unto thee, and to thy seed … all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession’, Ge 17:8. How extensive is the blessing. Yet, in contrast to the New Testament believer, it is, as Israel’s blessings, material and earthly. Our blessings are on a higher plane, we have been ‘blessed … with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ’, Eph. 1:3. What praise should emanate from our lips and what obedience should be manifest in our lives! J Fletcher - Walk before me, and be thou perfect. - In other words, Christian perfection is a spiritual constellation, made up of these gracious stars,—perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect humility, perfect meekness, perfect self-denial, perfect resignation, perfect hope, perfect charity for our visible enemies as well as for our earthly relations, and, above all, perfect love for our invisible God through the explicit knowledge of our Mediator Jesus Christ. And as this last star is always accompanied by all the others, as Jupiter is by his satellites, we frequently use, as St. John, the phrase “perfect love,” instead of the word “perfection”; understanding by it the pure love of God shed abroad in the hearts of established believers by the Holy Ghost, which is abundantly given them under the fullness of the Christian dispensation. J J Knap - Walk Before Me Genesis 17:1 First the Lord said who He was Himself: “I am the Almighty God,”and only then did He add what we should be: “Walk before me, and be thou perfect.”This order is encouraging. To walk before the Lord’s countenance means to walk in His holy presence, or as we often say, to live under the eye of God. However, there is much that seeks to keep us from the Lord’s communion. We meet with so many obstacles in our path and we have to do with so many insurmountable difficulties that we easily forget God. Our painful experiences of life not seldom intercept the light from His gracious countenance, and then we immediately walk in darkness, left to our own strength that in essence is weakness, yes, inability. This would not be the case if we were serious about the word of self revelation of God: “I am the Almighty God.”Whoever may know Him as the Almighty One, does not allow himself to be separated from Him by either height of sorrow or depth of care. To the Almighty One all things are possible. With a single wink He turns mountains of objections into the depth of the sea, strengthens our stumbling knees to jump with Him over a wall, and paves us a path through deep streams, yes, His almighty power was able to bear away the indescribable burden of our sins by Jesus Christ into a land of forgetfulness; “I am the Almighty God!” When we know Him in this manner, the walking before Him with an upright and thorough heart becomes the pleasure of our soul. Then we are continually before His eye, forever in His holy presence, surrounded by His steadfast faithfulness. This walking comforts us. Now we know already: when we sit down in sorrow and mourning, He will see it and know it and summon His almighty power to support and bear our weakness. This walking makes us brave. Now we know: no danger can harm us, no harm can touch us without the will of God, the hairs of our head are all counted, the Almighty Power watches and cares, guards and covers. Finally, this walking makes us also blessed. God is gracious. Whoever walks before Him, walks in a gracious light, he belongs to the blessed people upon whom God’s mercy is poured out. Let us thank our God that He has made this walking before Him possible in Jesus Christ by satisfying for our sin that had separated and estranged us from Him. He first walked with us in grace in that only begotten One. Only because of Him can sinners walk with Him without being consumed by the glow of His holiness. In this way they experience repeatedly in the solutions that He appoints, the truth of His promise: “I am the Almighty God!” Theodore Epp - God's Perfect Timing Genesis 17:1,2 In Genesis 17:1 we are told, "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." Thirteen years had gone by since Abraham had hearkened unto Sarah, and during this time there was no mention of God's appearing to Abraham. In the Scriptures these 13 years are passed over as a period of spiritual barrenness. For Abraham it was what is known spiritually as a time of wood, hay and stubble. But why all of this waiting? God had promised Abraham a son, and by this time only Ishmael had been born into his home--by a means that was not pleasing to the Lord. The reason for God's delay was so God could bring Abraham to the end of himself. Later it was said of Abraham, "And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb" (Rom. 4:19). Before divine power is put forth, man must learn his own impotency. Not until Abraham's body was as good as dead would God fulfill His word. Man's extremity is God's opportunity. Though to Abraham this seemed like a long delay, God was right on time. God has a perfect time for everything. "As for God, his way is perfect" (Ps. 18:30). Allen Ross - Genesis 17:1 “El Shadday” Throughout the oldest Old Testament records we have the name “El Shadday” used for God. For example, Genesis 17:1 records how the LORD identified Himself with this name when announcing the signs of the covenant to Abram and Sarai. But the name is used elsewhere as well, especially in the Book of Job. Many modern translations use the English “God Almighty” for the meaning. This is based on the writings of the Fathers primarily. For example, Jerome, who lived and studied with the Jewish teachers in Bethlehem, rendered it “Almighty God” [omnipotens]. But the fact remains that we really do not know exactly what the name means, and have no reliable clues for its etymology. The early tradition of the Church and Synagogue is all that we have to fall back on, and it may very well be right. This has not stopped modern writers from speculating--usually according to preconceived ideas. Some have connected shad- to the word for “hill,” to come to the idea of a “mountain God,” meaning the high God. But there is no external information to support this, and a similarity of words based on two Hebrew letters is not very compelling. More radical is the idea that it means the “God with breasts,” like the goddess Diana, who is portrayed with what looks like scores of breasts (but there is debate whether they are or not). The evidence given for this is rather contrived. It reasons that words for hills and mountains are often used for breasts in cultures (like the Grand Tetons), and therefore that language was used to describe the female component of the deity. Furthermore, passages that then speak of the LORD blessing hills and mountains might come to mean blessing breasts. (I may not be doing justice to all the arguments given for these suggestions in this brief discussion, but all that I have read is not very convincing.) Moreover, the idea that the Hebrews had such a physical vision of the great “I AM,” that they might have even had statues of the same, is without any support (which is not to say that some individuals had perverted ideas about God). God is a Spirit, neither male nor female; to identify God so fully with such an image would go beyond the metaphorical language (both masculine and feminine metaphors) to the world of pagan mythology. And there is just no evidence in Scripture that this was the meaning of the name. We are on better ground to work with the tradition and see if it fits the contexts. In the contexts where El Shadday is used, the characteristics of God that can be derived are primarily His sovereignty and His power. When God says, “I am El Shadday . . . . Be perfect,” there is a current of power and authority that demands compliance. When God Almighty speaks, His word must be obeyed. In Genesis 17 God proceeds to change the names of Abram and Sarai in accordance with the covenant promises, and then institutes the sign of the covenant, circumcision. God Almighty makes and fulfills the promises of the covenant, but he also demands compliance with the sign of the covenant. And His sign that He will fulfill the covenant takes the form of a new name, a new identity given to the members of the covenant. This act of renaming would have indicated to Abram and Sarai that their God was sovereign; but the new names would also have called for greater faith to see the promises fulfilled. We may not be able to prove etymologically that “shadday” means “almighty,” but we can see that where the name occurs there is clear evidence of His sovereign power and authority. In the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ in the New Testament, we see just such power revealed in the Son--He alone can declare that all power was given to Him. And with that power lies the authority of the sovereignty of God. We are not surprised to see our Lord Jesus Christ also renaming Simon as Peter in anticipation of the promise to establish and build the church. In fact, the parallels between Abram and Peter are even stronger when we see how the Lord used the image of the rock upon which He would build His church (Matt. 16:18), an image that had been used for Abram, the father of the covenant people in the Old Testament (Isa. 51:1,2). At the beginning of the covenant program God renamed Abram; and at the beginning of the new covenant program in the church Jesus renamed Simon. It is the same LORD, the same authority and power, and the same faith. And what the LORD promised in symbolic ways, building nations from Abram, or building His church, He has been able to do because all power resides with Him. We worship a Lord who is almighty. He has made promises to us that will be fulfilled because all power belongs to Him. And He has given us a new identity, a new name as it were, in Christ, as a pledge of the promises. And He also commands us to walk before Him and be perfect. Genesis 17:2 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly.” I will establish My covenant: Ge 17:4-6 9:9 Ge 15:18 Ps 105:8-11 Ga 3:17,18 multiply: Ge 12:2 Ge 13:16 Ge 22:17 Genesis 17 Resources - Multiple sermons and commentaries Related Passages: Genesis 15:18+ On that day the LORD made (karath - cut) a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: YAHWEH ESTABLISHES THE "ABRAHAMIC COVENANT" I will establish My covenant (beriyth; Lxx = diatheke) between Me and you - Note the two "I will's," the first of 15 uses of "I will" in Genesis 17. One might even call it the "I Will Chapter!" It is also notable that the Spirit in a sense "bookends" this section with God's promise of His covenant, here in Ge 17:2 making His promise to Abraham and then in Ge 17:21 adding "My covenant I will establish with Isaac." God's trustworthy Word assures the continuity of the everlasting covenant to the next generation. Note also the repetition of the phrase "My covenant," (9x/9v - Ge 17:2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 19, 21 out of 55 uses of this phrase in the Bible, Genesis 17 being the #1 chapter) which emphasizes that Yahweh is the Sole Possessor of this covenant so that what He is graciously bestowing on Abram belongs to Him. This covenant is usually referred to as the Abrahamic Covenant and is simply a reaffirmation of the same covenant mentioned in Ge 12:1-3, Ge 13:14-17 and Ge 15:1-21 with the addition of the sign of circumcision (Ge 17:10,11). Covenant (beriyth) is translated in the Septuagint with diatheke which was commonly used in the Greek and Roman world as a legal technical term in settling an inheritance. The emphasis of the Greek word diatheke is on its binding character. Indeed, covenant was the most solemn and binding agreement known in the ancient world and was often sealed with blood (symbolizing take my life if I break this covenant - See illustration in pagan culture)! The word diatheke as commonly used in the Old (Septuagint) and New Testament refers to a declaration of the will of God concerning His self-commitment, promises, and conditions by which He entered into relationship with a man, in this case the man Abraham. The phrase (or slight variation thereof) "I will establish My covenant" is found 9 times in the Old Testament, three times to Noah, three times to Abraham, once to Isaac and twice to Israel - Gen 6:18 Gen 9:9 Gen 9:11 Gen 17:2 Gen 17:7 Gen 17:19 Gen 17:21 Ezek 16:60 Ezek 16:62 Bob