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We discovered in the last Episode that God again says I will make a covenant between them. But God had already made a covenant with Abram in chapter 15. The Hebrew word that used here is not about making something from scratch. God is saying here, I'm now going to put a previously given covenant into force. The application of that covenant is now being signified by the change of his name.

He said in 17:5

“Your name no longer shall you be called Abram, but your name should be called Abraham”.

(Gen 17: 5)

The word translated Abram means, ‘high father’ or ‘exalted father’, and it is a generic term, but, Abraham means, “Father of the Nations”. So, the Lord is saying I am now going to fulfill the covenant I made with you back in the day when I told you were going to have multiple descendants. These verses here in chapter 17 will show that God is doing this now. Which is why he says in verse 7. 

“I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 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”.

(Gen 17: 6-7)

God is now going to give him a sign that this covenant is fulfilled in people today and from this point forward. At this point God is emphasizing that this is not a temporary time restricted promise, it is going to be an everlasting covenant promise. 

“The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

(Gen 17: 8)

This is something new going on here. He had told them before about the land, but this is the first time it is recorded that the land is called Canaan.  Now look at what God next says to Abraham. 

“Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come”.

(Gen 17: 9)

The sign and the purpose of the covenant will now be explained in the next few verses.

“This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you”.

(17: 10-11)

So, circumcision is not the actual covenant, it is a sign of the covenant. The promise was made back in chapter 15 and what he is adding to that is the sign that the promise has been embraced, and that sign  will be circumcision, the physical removal of the foreskin. An actual cutting and removal of the flesh.  This is the next part of the narrative deals with the whole idea of circumcision as a sacrifice, the idea of having to sacrifice a part of the body to commemorate a promise. 

How about circumcision men, might that be something you will remember? This is important because that’s the entire point. For an adult man of that time, I could image that this idea was quite disturbing. The idea of undergoing this as an adult without anesthetic sound dramatic/traumatic to me. If someone came to me today andingyou cut of a body part to mark a commitment I would be pretty shocked. Furthermore, if I did it, I think I would certainly remember the commitment I had made that day.  What we've seen in the biblical stories is that when you make a sacrifice it's often something dramatic or it means giving up something that you possess. To take the life of something and to spill its blood that's also going to be something you remember especially if you haven't done it before. You see, in these early chapters of Genesis we see for the first time in recorded history that humanity establishes the idea that sacrifice was necessary to move ahead to a new place in life, and in our relationship with God. The principle of moving through loss and sacrifice in order to obtain something better is established here. The principle of really striving to move to where God wants us to be in life, and how that may not just be a cake walk. We shall see how that idea is further developed in the next episode.