Genesis 15:4 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Genesis 15:4
And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
a word · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֤הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
saying
לֵאמֹ֔רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
heir
יִֽירָשְׁךָ֖yi.ra.she.Kha
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
forth
יֵצֵ֣אye.Tze'
H3318
to go (causatively · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
bowels
מִמֵּעֶ֔יךָmi.me.'Ei.kha
H4578
used only in plural the intestines · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
heir
יִֽירָשֶֽׁךָYi.ra.She.kha
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 17:16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be…
2 Samuel 7:12 And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bow…
Galatians 4:28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Genesis 21:12 And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said…
2 Chronicles 32:21 And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So…
Philemon 1:12 Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels:
2 Samuel 16:11 And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now may th…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 15:2-6
We have here the assurance given to Abram of a numerous offspring which should descend from him, in which observe,
I. Abram's repeated complaint, Gen 15:2, Gen 15:3. This was that which gave occasion to this promise. The great affliction that sat heavy upon Abram was the want of a child; and the complaint of this he here pours out before the Lord, and shows before him his trouble, Psa 142:2. Note, Though we must never complain of God, yet we have leave to complain to him, and to be large and particular in the statement of our grievances; and it is some ease to a burdened spirit to open its case to a faithful and compassionate friend: such a friend God is, whose ear is always open. Now his co…
This shall not be thine heir--To the first part of his address no reply was given; but having renewed it in a spirit of more becoming submission, "whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it" [Gen 15:8], he was delighted by a most explicit promise of Canaan, which was immediately confirmed by a remarkable ceremony.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 15:2
What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless - The anxiety of the Asiatics to have offspring is intense and universal. Among the Hindoos the want of children renders all other blessings of no esteem. See Ward.
And the steward of my house - Abram, understanding the promise as relating to that person who was to spring from his family, in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed, expresses his surprise that there should be such a promise, and yet he is about to die childless! How then can the promise be fulfilled, when, far from a spiritual seed, he has not even a person in his family that has a natural right to his property, and that a stranger is likely to be his heir? This seems…
And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him,.... Either having disappeared, and then came a second time, or he again spoke unto him:
saying, this shall not be thine heir; this Eliezer, this servant of thine, as thou hast made him, or hast intended to make him, giving up all hopes of having issue by Sarai:
but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir; that is, one shall inherit all thou hast, that shall be begotten by thee; an own son of Abram's, and not a servant born in his house; one that should spring out of his own loins: the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "out of thy womb", that is, out of his wife's, which was his; the phrase designs a genuine and le…
The Church Fathers
This one shall not be your heir; but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. This is proved by reason to have been said about Isaac and his offspring; of whom it was later heard: In Isaac shall your seed be called. For the sons of the concubines, although they were the seed of Abraham, could not be partakers of his inheritance; and since to this inheritance beloved by God, in which the divine protection and great reward would exist, only heavenly souls pertain, it is fittingly added:
But if the words of Abraham are not enough to correct, consider the word of God, who condemns such a mode of transmitting inheritance. "This man shall not be your heir," he says, "but the other who will come out from you, he will be your heir." Who is this other of whom he speaks? In fact Hagar too bore a son, Ishmael, but he is not speaking of him. Instead, he is speaking of holy Isaac. For this reason he added "who will come out from you." In fact, the one who truly came out of Abraham is the one who was born of a legitimate marriage. But in Isaac, the legitimate son, we can see the One who is the true legitimate son, the Lord Jesus, of whom at the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew we read that he is the son of Abraham. He was the true heir of Abraham, bringing renown to the descendants of the progenitor. Through him Abraham looked up to heaven and understood that the splendor of his posterity would be no less luminous than the radiance of the stars of heaven. As "one star differs from another in brightness, so it is also for the resurrection of the dead," said the apostle. The Lord, in joining to his resurrection people whom death was accustomed to hide in the ground, made them sharers in the heavenly kingdom.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Chronology — Is the arrangement of facts and events in the order of time. The writers of the Bible themselves do not adopt any standard era according to which they date events. Sometimes the years are reckoned,…
Covenant — A contract or agreement between two parties. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word berith is always thus translated. Berith is derived from a root which means “to cut,” and hence a covenant is a…
Children · .To Abraham — .To Abraham
Concubinage · .Children of, not heirs — .Children of, not heirs
Condescension Of God · Enters into covenant with Abraham — Enters into covenant with Abraham
Vision · .Concerning his — .Concerning his
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
This shall not be thine heir. We hence infer that God had approved the wish of Abram. Whence also follows the other point, that Abram had not been impelled by any carnal affection to offer up this prayer, but by a pious and holy desire of enjoying the benediction promised to him. For God not only promises him a seed, but a great people, who in number should equal the stars of heaven. They who expound the passage allegorically; implying that a heavenly seed was promised him which might be compared with the stars, may enjoy their own opinion: but we maintain what is more solid; namely, that the faith of Abram was increased by the sight of the stars. For the Lord, in order more deeply to affect…
The words of Jehovah run thus: "Fear not, Abram: I am a shield to thee, thy reward very much." הרבּה an inf. absol., generally used adverbially, but here as an adjective, equivalent to "thy very great reward." The divine promise to be a shield to him, that is to say, a protection against all enemies, and a reward, i.e., richly to reward his confidence, his ready obedience, stands here, as the opening words "after these things" indicate, in close connection with the previous guidance of Abram. Whilst the protection of his wife in Egypt was a practical pledge of the possibility of his having a posterity, and the separation of Lot, followed by the conquest of the kings of the East, was also a p…
God affirmed that the promise was for Abram’s own offspring and showed him the stars as a promise of the vast number of descendants that he would have (22:17; 26:4). Paul quotes this promise in Rom 4:18 to underscore the strength of Abram’s faith.
Rashi on Genesis 15:3
הן לי לא נתתה זרע BEHOLD, TO ME THOU HAST GIVEN NO CHILD —What use, then, is all else that thou givest me?
