gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
said
וַיֹּ֤אמֶרvai.Yo.mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Abraham
אַבְרָהָ֔ם'av.ra.Ham
H85
Abraham · proper noun, a man's name
Sarai
שָׂרַ֣יsa.Rai
H8297
Sarai · proper noun, a woman's name
wife
אִשְׁתְּךָ֔'ish.te.Kha
H802
a woman · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
call
תִקְרָ֥אtik.Ra'
H7121
to call out to (i.e. properly · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
name
שְׁמָ֖הּshe.Mah
H8034
an appellation · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
Sarai
שָׂרָ֑יsa.Rai
H8297
Sarai · proper noun, a woman's name
but
כִּ֥יki
H3588
(by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunc… · particle
Sarah
שָׂרָ֖הsa.Rah
H8283
Sarah · proper noun, a woman's name
name
שְׁמָֽהּshe.Mah
H8034
an appellation · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine 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 17:5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
Genesis 32:28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
2 Samuel 12:25 And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet; and he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 17:15-22
Here is, I. The promise made to Abraham of a son by Sarai, that son in whom the promise made to him should be fulfilled, that he should be the father of many nations; for she also shall be a mother of nations, and kings of people shall be of her, Gen 17:16. Note, 1. God reveals the purposes of his good-will to his people by degrees. God had told Abraham long before that he should have a son, but never till now that he should have a son by Sarai. 2. The blessing of the Lord makes fruitful, and adds no sorrow with it, no such sorrow as was in Hagar's case. "I will bless her with the blessing of fruitfulness, and then thou shalt have a son of her." 3. Civil government and order are a great bles…
As for Sarai . . . I will . . . give thee a son also of her--God's purposes are gradually made known. A son had been long ago promised to Abraham. Now, at length, for the first time he is informed that it was to be a child of Sarai.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 17:15
Thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah - See note on Gen 17:5.
John Gill on Genesis 17:15
And God said unto Abraham,.... After he had changed his name, and given him the covenant of circumcision:
as for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah her name shall be; her former name Sarai signifies "my princess", or rather "princesses", being to him in the room of many, and better than ten thousand; yet only a princess to him, and in his family, being sole mistress there: but Sarah signifies, as Jarchi observes, "princess" absolutely, because she was princess over all the princes and people that should come of her, as well as be the mother and princess of all female believers, who are called her daughters, 1 Peter 3:6.
John Calvin on Genesis 17:15-16
As for Sarai thy wife God now promises to Abraham a legitimate seed by Sarai. She had been (as I have said) too precipitate, when she substituted, without any command from God, her handmaid in her own place: Abraham also bad been too pliant in following his, wife, who foolishly and rashly wished to anticipate the design of God; nevertheless, their united fault did not prevent God frown making it known to them that he was about to give them that seed, from the expectation of which, they had, in a manner, cut themselves off. Whence the gratuitous kindness of God shines the more clearly, because, although men impede the course of it by obstacles of their own, it nevertheless comes to them. More…
The Church Fathers
ON THE KINGS OF ABRAHAM. — Why does God say to Abraham, speaking of his son: And the kings of the nations shall come from him . It is that since it did not have its origin according to the kingdoms of the earth, it must be understood according to the Church, or because it also happened literally because of Esau. [
[God] said, "And you shall not call your wife Sarai but Sarah," that is, "You shall not call her 'my ruler' but 'ruler.' " [This change teaches] clearly that since she had become a companion and sharer of such great faith, he should call her [by a name that expressed what] he understood her to be: not exclusively the ruler of his own house but ruler absolutely, that is, the parent of all rightly believing women. Hence, when blessed Peter was urging believing women from the nations to the virtues of humility, chastity and modesty, he remembered our mother Sarah with due praise, saying, "Just as Sarah was obedient to Abraham, calling him lord, you are her daughters when you do rightly and do not fear any disturbance."
Verse 7. "And the overseer of the eunuchs imposed names upon them, calling Daniel Belteshazzar (Balthasar), and Hananiah Shadrach, and Mishael Meshach, and Azariah Abednego." It was not only the overseer or master of the eunuchs (as others have rendered it, the "chief-eunuch") who changed the names of saints, but also Pharaoh called Joseph in Egypt Somtonphanec (Genesis 41:45), for neither of them wished them to have Jewish names in the land of captivity. Wherefore the prophet says in the Psalm: "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Psalm 137:4). Furthermore the Lord Himself changes names benignly, and on the basis of events imposes names of special significance, so as to call Abram Abraham (Genesis 17:5), and Sarai Sarah (Genesis 17:15). Also in the Gospel, the former Simon received the name of Peter (Mark 3:16), and the sons of Zebedee are called "sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17) - which is not boanerges, as most people suppose, but is more correctly read benereem.
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
Abraham — Father of a multitude, son of Terah, named (Gen. 11:27) before his older brothers Nahor and Haran, because he was the heir of the promises. Till the age of seventy, Abram sojourned among his kindred…
Circumcision — Cutting around. This rite, practised before, as some think, by divers races, was appointed by God to be the special badge of his chosen people, an abiding sign of their consecration to him. It was…
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…
Sarai — My princess, the name originally borne by Sarah (Gen. 11:31; 17:15).
Barrenness · .Sarai — .Sarai
Isaac · 1. The miraculous — 1. The miraculous
Name · Sarah — Sarah
Sarah · .Her miraculous conception of — .Her miraculous conception of
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).
The appointment of the sign of the covenant was followed by this further revelation as to the promised seed, that Abram would receive it through his wife Sarai. In confirmation of this her exalted destiny, she was no longer to be called Sarai (שׂרי, probably from שׂרר with the termination ai, the princely), but שׂרה, the princess; for she was to become nations, the mother of kings of nations. Abraham then fell upon his face and laughed, saying in himself (i.e., thinking), "Shall a child be born to him that is a hundred years old, or shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?" "The promise was so immensely great, that he sank in adoration to the ground, and so immensely paradoxical, that he…
