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 of her.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
bless	וּבֵרַכְתִּ֣י u.ve.rakh.Ti	H1288	to kneel · conjunction + verb, piel sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
give	נָתַ֧תִּי na.Ta.ti	H5414	to give · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
son	בֵּ֑ן Ben	H1121	a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
bless	וּבֵֽרַכְתִּ֙יהָ֙ u.ve.rakh.Ti.ha	H1288	to kneel · conjunction + verb, piel sequential perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
nations	לְגוֹיִ֔ם le.go.Yim	H1471	a foreign nation · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
kings	מַלְכֵ֥י mal.Khei	H4428	a king · noun, common masculine plural construct
people	עַמִּ֖ים 'a.Mim	H5971	a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine plural absolute

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 35:11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come…
Genesis 17:6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
Genesis 18:10-14 And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it i…
Isaiah 49:23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth,…
Galatians 4:26-31 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
1 Peter 3:6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the…
Genesis 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

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…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 17:15

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 17:16

I will bless her, etc. - Sarah certainly stands at the head of all the women of the Old Testament, on account of her extraordinary privileges. I am quite of Calmet's opinion that Sarah was a type of the blessed Virgin. St. Paul considers her a type of the New Testament and heavenly Jerusalem; and as all true believers are considered as the children of Abraham, so all faithful holy women are considered the daughters of Sarah, Gal 4:22, Gal 4:24, Gal 4:26. See also Pe1 3:6.

John Gill on Genesis 17:16

And I will bless her,.... The Targum of Jonathan adds, "in her body", with fruitfulness, who before was barren, and in her soul with spiritual blessings, and in both with the blessing of eternal life: and give thee a son also of her; as he had given him one of Hagar: God had before promised Abraham a son that should be his heir, but he had not till now told him that he should be born of Sarah his wife: yea, I will bless her; which is repeated for the confirmation of it, and for the greater strengthening Abraham's faith in it: and she shall be a mother of nations; of the twelve tribes of Israel; of the two nations of Israel and Judah: kings of people shall be of her; as David, Solomon, an…

The Church Fathers

And I will give you a son by her, whom I will bless, and he will become nations, and kings of peoples shall come from him. And notably, not as we read in Greek: God said to Abraham, Your wife Sarai will no longer be called Sarai; in Hebrew it is, You will not call her name Sarai; that is, you will not call her My Princess: she is now to be the princess of all nations, wherefore the Apostle Peter, instructing the life of women, says: So once holy women also, who hoped in the Lord, adorned themselves, being subject to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, of whom you are daughters, doing good and not fearing any disturbance (1 Peter 3:5).
— Bede, Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron)

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…
Barrenness · .Sarai — .Sarai
Isaac · 1. The miraculous — 1. The miraculous
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).

Genesis 17:16

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 17:15-22

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 17:15

Adam Clarke on Genesis 17:16

John Gill on Genesis 17:16

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Genesis 17:16

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 17:15-22

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 17:15

Adam Clarke on Genesis 17:16

John Gill on Genesis 17:16

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on Genesis 17:15-16

Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis 17:15-21

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Genesis 17:15-16