Tag: covenant

Under Abraham’s Thigh

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Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household who was in charge of all that he owned, “Please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live.
Genesis 24:2-3 (NASB)

Some rabbis wondered if “under my thigh” meant for the servant to grab hold of Abraham’s circumcision, as that was tied to covenant.

But many disagree, and suggest that “sitting on the hands” was symbolic of binding the servant to an action.

Hagar’s Cry

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Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “May I not see the boy die!” And she sat opposite him, and raised her voice and wept. God heard the boy crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.
Genesis 21:16-17 (NASB)

It’s fascinating to read that both Hagar and Ishmael are crying out, but the text only says that God heard the boy crying, but then the angel asks “what is the matter with you, Hagar?”

Why would it say “God heard the boy crying?”

There are thoughts in the commentaries about this:

Perhaps the boy is about to die, and his need is greater than hers. Surely God attends to the needs of the most needy.

Or Perhaps it’s because Ishmael is a son of Abraham, so there’s a special connection. God has made a promise to be with Ishmael.

Etc, etc. It’s all Ishmael-centered.

But maybe the story is actually still centered around Hagar. Maybe the reason God hears the boy’s cry is because that is Hagar’s specific prayer. She cries out to God, “Please hear my son’s cry.” Though God made a promise about Ishmael to make him a great nation, God and Hagar already have an established relationship. God sees Hagar.

Well of Oaths

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So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.
Genesis 21:14 (NASB)

Beersheba means “the well of oaths.” The way we see it in Genesis 21 shows us the difference between God and man.

Abraham makes no covenant with Hagar. He sends her off with bread and water, and though he is worried about his son Ishmael, he makes no promise to them.

Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him.”
Genesis 21:18 (NASB)

In the wilderness of Beersheba, God meets Hagar and makes an oath to her: to make Ishmael a great nation. This promise is similar the one made about Isaac.

Immediately afterwards, we see Abraham take an oath and make a covenant with Abimelech, king of Gerar and with the commander of Abimelech’s army. With the rich and the powerful.

He said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand so that it may be a witness for me, that I dug this well.” Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because there the two of them took an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba; and Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
Genesis 21:30-32 (NASB)

Perhaps we are meant to learn that our oaths should be made to protect the weak and the lowly, as that is where God dwells. But instead, we are inclined to make covenant only with those who can benefit ourselves.

Weeping with God

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The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do…?”
Genesis 18:17 (NIV)

The word “hide” in Genesis 18:17 isn’t the word khabah (חָבָא) that Adam used in Genesis 3:8-10. Khabah means to hide away to avoid being seen. It’s secretive.

God uses the word kasaw (כָּסָה), which is the same word used to describe Japheth and Shem covering Noah, shielding him. They aren’t trying to conceal their father. They are protecting him from shame and grief.

Similarly, God is not musing over obsecuring the truth from Abraham. It’s heavier than that. God is about to break Abraham’s heart by bringing him into the same grief that God experienced back in Genesis 6. It’s a spiritual and emotional burden.

So the Lord was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
Genesis 6:6 (NIV)

Now, in the prior chapter, the rabbis suggest a special union was made between Abraham and God through Covenant. This brought in the divine Presence and in-dwelling of God into Abraham and changed the relationship. In this new relationship, God says: “You will share in my glory; and you will share in my heartache.”

So when God asks, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,” this marks the first instance where a man of God is being brought into that heartache on a personal level. Abraham’s response gives us a clearer picture of God’s heart.

When God destroyed the world by flood, the text says that the thoughts and intents of the heart of all man was evil continually, except for Noah. Would God have destroyed the world if there were even more righteous people?

Look at Abraham’s words that reveal God’s heart.

Abraham approached and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous people within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”
Genesis 18:23-25 (NIV)

So when Abraham pleads with God, asking “What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? What if there are 40? 30? What if there are only 10?”, we are shown the kind of consideration God gave back in Genesis 6. God’s own heart broke over the rising wickedness.

Later, fire falls from the night sky to destroy the cities.

We have to picture Abraham watching and weeping, coming to the realization that there weren’t even ten righteous people in the city, just like there weren’t even two righteous people in the world before the flood.

Abraham weeps. God weeps.

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”

If you walk with God, you will weep, too.

Cut Off

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But as for an uncircumcised male, one who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
Genesis 17:14 (NASB )

There are two instances of word play happening here in the text.

1. “Person” here is nefesh, or “soul.” As in, spirit. So there is an interplay between flesh and spirit.

2. “Cut off” is the same word for establishing the covenant: one “cuts a covenant” through circumcision.

God and Women

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Does the Genesis 17 Covenant of Circumcision show that God has a special relationship with men that He does not have with women? Does Circumcision make men more special?

Perhaps the opposite. Per Jewish teaching, women are “born circumcised,” and are therefore under the Covenant from the beginning. It is only men who must be “fixed.”

Eternal Covenant

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I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
Genesis 17:7 (NIV)

Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.
Genesis 17:13 (NIV)

Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
Genesis 17:19 (NIV)

The Hebrew phrase “brit olam” (בְּרִית עוֹלָם), means “everlasting covenant,” and it shows up three times in Genesis 17. It is a promise of relationship: “I will be your God, and the God of your descendants.”

The first time we see brit olam, it’s when God says He will not destroy the world by flood. One symbol of the flood is the rising of darkness and chaos, so this covenant gives us hope.

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
Genesis 9:16 (NIV)

After God’s brit olam with Abram in Genesis 17, the next time we see it is in Exodus 31, where God gives us rest as an everlasting covenant.

The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant.
Exodus 31:16 (NIV)

From this, God tells us: Rest. Be still. Remember.

So these are the words of God’s everlasting covenant with us:

“I will not harm you.”

“I will be with you.”

“I will give you rest.”

El Shaddai

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When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.
Genesis 17:1 (NIV)

There is so much depth in the Hebrew names of God, and the English has a hard time capturing it succinctly.

Yes, “El Shaddai” means “God Almighty.” But it also means so much more.

Shaddai is a word that has several meanings. The root is assumed to be SH-D-D, related to power, force, and destruction. The related Hebrew word “shadad” means to devastate, ravage, or plunder.

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.
Proverbs 11:3 (NIV)

The scriptures use this word as power against unrighteousness. Divine judgement.

But some scholars suggest that the root of “El Shaddai” may be something else. Focusing on the last part of the word (dai), the Hebrew meaning becomes “sufficient” or “enough.”

Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.
Exodus 36:6-7 (NIV)

In this, they see El Shaddai as:

The God who is self-sufficient.
The God who is enough.
The God who says ‘it is enough.’

And it’s from this third name (The God who says ‘it is enough’) that we arrive at this teaching that says “with the name יְהֹוָה (I AM), God creates the world and it expands; with the name אֵל שַׁדַּי (God Almighty), God stops the expansion, so the world is contained.”

As the rabbis explored this name, they also saw something special about this covenant of Genesis 17.

Abram was already given a promise of land and progeny in Genesis 15; this new covenant can’t seal those two things which were already unconditionally promised.

So what is new?

God uses this Hebrew word “olam” four times in this chapter, which means “everlasting.”

It’s not the first time the word shows up. Previously, God mentions the “everlasting covenant” with all humanity after the flood.

I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
Genesis 17:7 (NIV)

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
Genesis 9:16 (NIV)

But what’s different here is this promise of **relationship.**

In Genesis 9, God promises not to destroy the world by flood, but in Genesis 17, God promises to always be Abram’s God and the God of Abram’s descendants.

But this is conditioned on circumcision. An outward sign.

This is the nature of relationships: It has to go both ways. God is not merely “out there” keeping the universe from flying apart. He’s right here, desiring intimacy with us. He wants us to be whole hearted with Him as He is with us.

And if we will not? If Abram refused?

The rabbis see something else in the “sufficient” part of El Shaddai: Perhaps God says if we will not participate with Him, then there is no point to any of it. The world could end in fire and God will still be holy and have kept His word: “shadad = destroyer.”

To be “self-sufficient” is to need nothing. God can do it all himself.

And yet… God desires to engage the world with us, through us, in relationship. He wants us involved. He loves us. Though He is self-sufficient, God *wants* us.

To love God back is to respond.

In this way, our “works” in response earn us nothing. It doesn’t save us from fire or elevate us in righteousness. It is purely the manifestation of relationship: to be circumcised is to dedicate ourselves in relationship. To be circumcised of heart is to belong to God.

There is another meaning of “El Shaddai,” and it is tied to nurturing. It is the word “shad,” or “breasts.”

… because of your father’s God, who helps you,
because of the Almighty, who blesses you
with blessings of the skies above,
blessings of the deep springs below,
blessings of the breast and womb.
Genesis 49:25 (NIV)

In Genesis 49, Jacob blesses his sons, and “shaddai” and “shad” are tied together here.

And there is both a meaning of blessing of progeny and of comfort, like a mother holding her child against her body. Nurturing. Compassion.

El Shaddai cares deeply for you.

All of this in a name of our God: mighty, sufficient, nurturing, compassionate… for us. For you.

Come and meet my God.

Strange Requirements

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As I begin the study of Genesis 17, I find it so strange.

1. Exceedingly old people being told they’ll have babies: That’s rather weird.

2. God institutes a covenant through circumcision: That’s even weirder.

3. Abram gets his name changed to Abraham, and he is instructed to start calling his wife by a different name as well. That’s just completely bonkers.

Could you imagine if your spouse did that?!