Genesis 17:4-9

17:4 “As for me, ¹  this ²  is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations. 17:5 No longer will your name be ³  Abram. Instead, your name will be Abraham ⁴  because I will make you ⁵  the father of a multitude of nations. 17:6 I will make you ⁶  extremely ⁷  fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you. ⁸  17:7 I will confirm ⁹  my covenant as a perpetual ¹⁰  covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ¹¹  17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ¹²  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ¹³  possession. I will be their God.”

17:9 Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep ¹⁴  the covenantal requirement ¹⁵  I am imposing on you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

Leviticus 26:42

26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ¹⁶  and I will remember the land.

Psalms 105:8-10

105:8 He always remembers his covenantal decree,

the promise he made ¹⁷  to a thousand generations –

105:9 the promise ¹⁸  he made to Abraham,

the promise he made by oath to Isaac!

105:10 He gave it to Jacob as a decree,

to Israel as a lasting promise, ¹⁹ 

Psalms 106:45

106:45 He remembered his covenant with them,

and relented ²⁰  because of his great loyal love.

Psalms 111:5

111:5 He gives ²¹  food to his faithful followers; ²² 

he always remembers his covenant. ²³ 

Ezekiel 16:8

16:8 “‘Then I passed by you and watched you, noticing ²⁴  that you had reached the age for love. ²⁵  I spread my cloak ²⁶  over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the sovereign Lord, and you became mine.

Ezekiel 16:60

16:60 Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish a lasting ²⁷  covenant with you.

Galatians 3:15-17

Inheritance Comes from Promises and not Law

3:15 Brothers and sisters, ²⁸  I offer an example from everyday life: ²⁹  When a covenant ³⁰  has been ratified, ³¹  even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it. 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. ³²  Scripture ³³  does not say, “and to the descendants,” ³⁴  referring to many, but “and to your descendant,” ³⁵  referring to one, who is Christ. 3:17 What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, ³⁶  so as to invalidate the promise.

[17:4]  ¹ tn Heb “I.”

[17:4]  ² tn Heb “is” (הִנֵּה, hinneh).

[17:5]  ³ tn Heb “will your name be called.”

[17:5]  ⁴ sn Your name will be Abraham. The renaming of Abram was a sign of confirmation to the patriarch. Every time the name was used it would be a reminder of God’s promise. “Abram” means “exalted father,” probably referring to Abram’s father Terah. The name looks to the past; Abram came from noble lineage. The name “Abraham” is a dialectical variant of the name Abram. But its significance is in the wordplay with אַב־הֲמוֹן (’av-hamon, “the father of a multitude,” which sounds like אַבְרָהָם, ’avraham, “Abraham”). The new name would be a reminder of God’s intention to make Abraham the father of a multitude. For a general discussion of renaming, see O. Eissfeldt, “Renaming in the Old Testament,” Words and Meanings, 70-83.

[17:5]  ⁵ tn The perfect verbal form is used here in a rhetorical manner to emphasize God’s intention.

[17:6]  ⁶ tn This verb starts a series of perfect verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive to express God’s intentions.

[17:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition is emphatic.

[17:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “and I will make you into nations, and kings will come out from you.”

[17:7]  ⁹ tn The verb קוּם (qum, “to arise, to stand up”) in the Hiphil verbal stem means “to confirm, to give effect to, to carry out” (i.e., a covenant or oath; see BDB 878-79 s.v. קוּם).

[17:7]  ¹⁰ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

[17:8]  ¹² tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

[17:8]  ¹³ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:9]  ¹⁴ tn The imperfect tense could be translated “you shall keep” as a binding command; but the obligatory nuance (“must”) captures the binding sense better.

[17:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “my covenant.” The Hebrew word בְּרִית (bÿrit) can refer to (1) the agreement itself between two parties (see v. 7), (2) the promise made by one party to another (see vv. 2-3, 7), (3) an obligation placed by one party on another, or (4) a reminder of the agreement. In vv. 9-10 the word refers to a covenantal obligation which God gives to Abraham and his descendants.

[26:42]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[105:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[the] word he commanded.” The text refers here to God’s unconditional covenantal promise to Abraham and the patriarchs, as vv. 10-12 make clear.

[105:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “which.”

[105:10]  ¹⁹ tn Or “eternal covenant.”

[106:45]  ²⁰ tn The Niphal of נָחַם (nakham) refers here to God relenting from a punishment already underway.

[111:5]  ²¹ tn Or “gave,” if the events of the exodus and conquest period (see v. 6, 9) are primarily in view.

[111:5]  ²² tn Heb “those who fear him.”

[111:5]  ²³ tn Or “he remembers his covenant forever” (see Ps 105:8).

[16:8]  ²⁴ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a participle.

[16:8]  ²⁵ tn See similar use of this term in Ezek 23:17; Prov 7:16; Song of Songs 4:10; 7:13.

[16:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “wing” or “skirt.” The gesture symbolized acquiring a woman in early Arabia (similarly, see Deut 22:30; Ruth 3:9).

[16:60]  ²⁷ tn Or “eternal.”

[3:15]  ²⁸ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:11.

[3:15]  ²⁹ tn Grk “I speak according to man,” referring to the illustration that follows.

[3:15]  ³⁰ tn The same Greek word, διαθήκη (diaqhkh), can mean either “covenant” or “will,” but in this context the former is preferred here because Paul is discussing in vv. 16-18 the Abrahamic covenant.

[3:15]  ³¹ tn Or “has been put into effect.”

[3:16]  ³² tn Grk “his seed,” a figurative extension of the meaning of σπέρμα (sperma) to refer to descendants (L&N 10.29).

[3:16]  ³³ tn Grk “It”; the referent (the scripture) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The understood subject of the verb λέγει (legei) could also be “He” (referring to God) as the one who spoke the promise to Abraham.

[3:16]  ³⁴ tn Grk “to seeds.” See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse. Here the term is plural; the use of the singular in the OT text cited later in this verse is crucial to Paul’s argument.

[3:16]  ³⁵ tn See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse.

[3:17]  ³⁶ tc Most mss (D F G I 0176 0278 Ï it sy) read “ratified by God in Christ” whereas the omission of “in Christ” is the reading in Ì⁴⁶ א A B C P Ψ 6 33 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 pc co. The shorter reading is strongly supported by the ms evidence, and it is probable that a copyist inserted the words as an interpretive gloss. However, this form of the “in Christ” expression is somewhat atypical in the corpus Paulinum (εἰς Χριστόν [ei" Criston] rather than ἐν Χριστῷ [en Cristw]), a fact which tempers one’s certainty about the shorter reading. Nevertheless, the expression is used more in Galatians than in any other of Paul’s letters (Gal 2:16; 3:24, 27), and may have been suggested by such texts to early copyists.