properly · preposition + noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
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
Psalms 25:10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.
Psalms 103:18 To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.
Isaiah 56:4-5 For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;
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 God said unto Abraham, thou shalt keep my covenant therefore,.... Observe the sign or token of it, circumcision, in the manner after related:
thou, and thy seed after thee, in their generations; in successive ages until the Messiah come, the end of the law for righteousness.
The Church Fathers
God said again to Abraham: And you shall therefore keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations; this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised; and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. The Lord, in His kind provision, first established the covenant of His grace with the blessed Abraham and his offspring; and then He requires of them the covenant of obedience: so that the labor of striving might be less terrifying when the reward of perpetual remuneration is heard first. Therefore, the foreskin of the flesh is commanded to be circumcised, as a sign of the covenant between God and men, so that by this sign the faithful of that time might be reminded to cleanse themselves from all pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God; but also by a higher mystery, that carnal circumcision was done as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham's offspring, because it was given as a sign of that covenant of which it was said above to Abraham: In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed; which no faithful person doubts pertains to the grace of the new testament. Therefore, in the sign of this covenant, no faithful person doubts that Abraham and his offspring were circumcised in the flesh of their foreskin, so that it might be typologically prefigured that one would be born from his seed who would cleanse his chosen ones from all stain of sins, and grant them perpetual blessing; to the sacrament of which cleansing aptly corresponds what follows:
WHY DID ABRAHAM RECEIVE CIRCUMCISION AS A SIGN OF HIS FAITH? — If you want to pay attention to it, you will see a perfect fit in what at first sight might seem to you devoid of reason. Abraham believing that he would have a son in which all nations would be blessed, and who would be the principle of all holiness, received the sign of this promise on the member by whom the generation of children begins, it tends to a higher holiness. If we were tempted to see in it something different, let us remember that circumcision was a subject of joy for Abraham, and that his children were always glorious in this testimony. Indeed, Achior, one of the princes of the idolatrous nations, witnesses of the great wonders of the God of Abraham, who by the hand of a simple woman had cut off the head of that general of the olives Assyrian militia, whose whole land dreaded power, wished to receive circumcision himself as a mark of honor and dignity (Judith 13:27; 14:16). Is not a Christian proud to have lost an eye or a member for the name of Jesus Christ? does he not discover this part mutilated in the eyes of men as a title of glory? And in this way, a momentary loss for faith is a real gain. The circumcision which Abraham received as a sign of his faith, was therefore for him not a mutilation of the soul, but a mark of honor. Now this ceremony signified in the spiritual sense that the clouds of the flesh were to be cut off from the hearts of men by the faith of Jesus Christ, because the error of the senses, covering the hearts of men as a cloud, an obstacle to the Creator's knowledge. Now, Abraham, to whom God promised that the Christ who was to dispel this cloud would be born one day of his race was circumcised, because he believed that a son would be born to him that would destroy this error. Judge now whether it was not proper that he should receive on this part of the body the sign of his faith. [Questions on the Old and New Testaments, PL 35,
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…
Circumcision · Covenant promises of — Covenant promises of
Covenant, The · Made with: Abraham — Made with: Abraham
Obedience · ENJOINED — ENJOINED
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).
John Calvin on Genesis 17:9
Thou shalt keep my covenant As formerly, covenants were not only committed to public records, but were also wont to be engraven in brass, or sculptured on stones, in order that the memory of them might be more fully recorded, and more highly celebrated; so in the present instance, God inscribes his covenant in the flesh of Abraham. For circumcision was as a solemn memorial of that adoption, by which the family of Abraham had been elected to be the peculiar people of God. The pious had previously possessed other ceremonies which confirmed to them the certainty of the grace of God; but now the Lord attests the new covenant with a new kind of symbol. But the reason why He suffered the human rac…
On the part of Abraham (ואתּה thou, the antithesis to אני, as for me, Gen 17:4) God required that he and his descendants in all generations should keep the covenant, and that as a sign he should circumcise himself and every male in his house. המּול Niph. of מוּל, and נמלתּם perf. Niph. for נמלּתם, from מלל = מוּל. As the sign of the covenant, circumcision is called in Gen 17:13, "the covenant in the flesh," so far as the nature of the covenant was manifested in the flesh. It was to be extended not only to the seed, the lineal descendants of Abraham, but to all the males in his house, even to every foreign slave not belonging to the seed of Abram, whether born in the house or acquired (i.e.,…
