Genesis 17:8 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Genesis 17:8
And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular construct
stranger
מְגֻרֶ֗יךָme.gu.Rei.kha
H4033
a temporary abode · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
land
אֶ֣רֶץ'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular construct
Canaan
כְּנַ֔עַןke.Na.'an
H3667
Kenaan · proper noun, a place name
everlasting
עוֹלָ֑םo.Lam
H5769
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
possession
לַאֲחֻזַּ֖תla.'a.chu.Zat
H272
something seized · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
God
לֵאלֹהִֽיםle.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · preposition + 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
Leviticus 26:12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.
Genesis 12:7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared u…
Psalms 105:11 Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance:
Exodus 6:7 And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out fr…
Genesis 13:15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
Deuteronomy 14:2 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations…
Deuteronomy 26:18 And the LORD hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandme…
Deuteronomy 29:13 That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath s…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 17:7-14
Here is, I. The continuance of the covenant, intimated in three things: - 1. It is established; not to be altered nor revoked. It is fixed, it is ratified, it is made as firm as the divine power and truth can make it. 2. It is entailed; it is a covenant, not with Abraham only (then it would die with him), but with his seed after him, not only his seed after the flesh, but his spiritual seed. 3. It is everlasting in the evangelical sense and meaning of it. The covenant of grace is everlasting. It is from everlasting in the counsels of it, and to everlasting in the consequences of it; and the external administration of it is transmitted with the seal of it to the seed of believers, and the int…
I will give unto thee . . . the land--It had been previously promised to Abraham and his posterity (Gen 15:18). Here it is promised as an "everlasting possession," and was, therefore, a type of heaven, "the better country" (Heb 11:16).
Adam Clarke on Genesis 17:8
Everlasting possession - Here עולם olam appears to be used in its accommodated meaning, and signifies the completion of the Divine counsel in reference to a particular period or dispensation. And it is literally true that the Israelites possessed the land of Canaan till the Mosaic dispensation was terminated in the complete introduction of that of the Gospel. But as the spiritual and temporal covenants are both blended together, and the former was pointed out and typified by the latter, hence the word even here may be taken in its own proper meaning, that of ever-during, or eternal; because the spiritual blessings pointed out by the temporal covenant shall have no end. And hence it is immedi…
And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee,.... To him in right, and to them in possession, and for an inheritance:
the land wherein thou art a stranger; or "the land of sojournings" or "pilgrimages" (l), which were many; for he often removed from place to place, and sometimes sojourned in one place, and sometimes in another:
all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; this respects only the natural seed of Abraham, and those in the line of Isaac and Jacob, to whom this land was given to hold for ever, in case they were obedient to the will of God; and therefore whenever they were disobedient, they were carried captive from it, as they are at this day; but when they s…
The Church Fathers
And I will give to you and to your seed after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. It requires a more laborious exposition on how it should be understood as fulfilled or still expected to be fulfilled, since any earthly possession cannot be eternal for any nation. But it should be known that "eternal" is interpreted by our people as what the Greeks call "Aeonion," which is derived from "age." For in Greek "Aeon" is called an age. But the Latins did not dare to say "age-long," lest they send the meaning far off into something else. For many things are called "age-long" that are done in this age in such a way as to pass away in a short time. However, what is called "Aeonion" either has no end or extends to the end of this age. And therefore, as we said above, the land of Canaan is given as an everlasting possession to the seed of Abraham, because in it Christians, up to the end of this age, whether from the Jews or from the Gentiles, that is, the seed of Abraham, are believed never to be lacking.
HOW GOD CALLS ETERNAL WHAT WILL LAST ONLY A TIME? — And I will give to you and to your seed after you the land wherein you wandered, even all the land of Canaan for an eternal possession . The question is why he said "eternal", when it was given to the Israelites for a time: whether it was called "eternal" with respect to this world, so that from Greek αἰών, which also means saeculum (in English "world"), there was said αἰώνιον as though you could say saeculare in Latin (in English, "worldly"); or whether we are forced from this to understand something pertaining to a spiritual promise, so that it was called eternal because something eternal is signified by it; or whether it rather belongs to an expression of the Scriptures, so that these call eternal a thing whose end is not determined or which is not done without necessity to be done continually as far as lies in the care or power of the doer, as when Horace says, "He who does not know how to be content with little shall be eternally a slave" (Ep. 1, 10, 41). A person cannot eternally be a slave when their life itself, during which they are a slave, cannot be eternal. I would not use this evidence if it did not pertain to an expression. Naturally, those people are for us authorities concerning words, not concerning facts or opinions. Now if the Scriptures are defended concerning peculiar expressions, which are called idioms, how much more will they be defended concerning those that they share with other languages? [
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…
Canaan — (1.) The fourth son of Ham (Gen. 10:6). His descendants were under a curse in consequence of the transgression of his father (9:22-27). His eldest son, Zidon, was the father of the Sidonians and…
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…
Canaan · 2. Land of — 2. Land of
Canaanites · Given to the Israelites — Given to the Israelites
Canaanites, The · Abraham: Was promised the country of, of inheritance — Abraham: Was promised the country of, of inheritance
Circumcision · Covenant promises of — Covenant promises of
Covenant, The · Made with: Abraham — Made with: Abraham
Holy Land · Promised to: Abraham — Promised to: Abraham
Jews, The · Promises respecting made to: Abraham — Promises respecting made to: Abraham
And thy seed after thee There is no doubt that the Lord distinguishes the race of Abraham from the rest of the world. We must now see what people he intends. Now they are deceived who think that his elect alone are here pointed out; and that all the faithful are indiscriminately comprehended, from whatever people, according to the flesh, they are descended. For, on the contrary, the Scripture declares that the race of Abraham, by lineal descent, had been peculiarly accepted by God. And it is the evident doctrine of Paul concerning the natural descendants of Abraham, that they are holy branches which have proceeded from a holy root, (Romans 11:16.) And lest any one should restrict this assert…
On the part of God אני placed at the beginning absolutely: so far as I am concerned, for my part) it was to consist of this: (1) that God would make Abram the father (אב instead of אני chosen with reference to the name Abram) of a multitude of nations, the ancestor of nations and kings; (2) that He would be God, show Himself to be God, in an eternal covenant relation, to him and to his posterity, according to their families, according to all their successive generations; and (3) that He would give them the land in which he had wandered as a foreigner, viz., all Canaan, for an everlasting possession. As a pledge of this promise God changed his name אברם, i.e., high father, into אברהם, i.e., f…
The land of Canaan was to be an everlasting possession for the descendants of Abraham; the Lord would be their God forever (see Jer 31:31-40; Zech 8:8; Luke 1:68-79; Rev 21:1-4).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
— the land 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).
