Hebrews 6:13-15

6:13 Now when God made his promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, 6:14 saying, “Surely I will bless you greatly and multiply your descendants abundantly.” ¹  6:15 And so by persevering, Abraham ²  inherited the promise.

Hebrews 11:13

11:13 These all died in faith without receiving the things promised, ³  but they saw them in the distance and welcomed them and acknowledged that they were strangers and foreigners ⁴  on the earth.

Hebrews 11:17

11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He had received the promises, ⁵  yet he was ready to offer up ⁶  his only son.

Genesis 12:2

12:2 Then I will make you ⁷  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ⁸ 

and I will make your name great, ⁹ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ¹⁰ 

Genesis 12:13

12:13 So tell them ¹¹  you are my sister ¹²  so that it may go well ¹³  for me because of you and my life will be spared ¹⁴  on account of you.”

Genesis 13:14-17

13:14 After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, ¹⁵  “Look ¹⁶  from the place where you stand to the north, south, east, and west. 13:15 I will give all the land that you see to you and your descendants ¹⁷  forever. 13:16 And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone is able to count the dust of the earth, then your descendants also can be counted. ¹⁸  13:17 Get up and ¹⁹  walk throughout ²⁰  the land, ²¹  for I will give it to you.”

Genesis 17:4-8

17:4 “As for me, ²²  this ²³  is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations. 17:5 No longer will your name be ²⁴  Abram. Instead, your name will be Abraham ²⁵  because I will make you ²⁶  the father of a multitude of nations. 17:6 I will make you ²⁷  extremely ²⁸  fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you. ²⁹  17:7 I will confirm ³⁰  my covenant as a perpetual ³¹  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. ³²  17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ³³  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ³⁴  possession. I will be their God.”

Genesis 22:17-18

22:17 I will indeed bless you, ³⁵  and I will greatly multiply ³⁶  your descendants ³⁷  so that they will be as countless as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession ³⁸  of the strongholds ³⁹  of their enemies. 22:18 Because you have obeyed me, ⁴⁰  all the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another ⁴¹  using the name of your descendants.’”

Acts 3:25

3:25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, ⁴²  saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants ⁴³  all the nations ⁴⁴  of the earth will be blessed.’ ⁴⁵ 

Romans 4:13

4:13 For the promise ⁴⁶  to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not fulfilled through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.

Romans 9:4

9:4 who are Israelites. To them belong ⁴⁷  the adoption as sons, ⁴⁸  the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, ⁴⁹  and the promises.

Galatians 3:16

3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. ⁵⁰  Scripture ⁵¹  does not say, “and to the descendants,” ⁵²  referring to many, but “and to your descendant,” ⁵³  referring to one, who is Christ.

[6:14]  ¹ tn Grk “in blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply you,” the Greek form of a Hebrew idiom showing intensity.

[6:15]  ² tn Grk “he”; in the translation the referent (Abraham) has been specified for clarity.

[11:13]  ³ tn Grk “the promises,” referring to the things God promised, not to the pledges themselves.

[11:13]  ⁴ tn Or “sojourners.”

[11:17]  ⁵ tn Here “received the promises” refers to the pledges themselves, not to the things God promised.

[11:17]  ⁶ tn Grk “he was offering up.” The tense of this verb indicates the attempt or readiness to sacrifice Isaac without the actual completion of the deed.

[12:2]  ⁷ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ⁸ sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ⁹ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[12:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “say.”

[12:13]  ¹² sn Tell them you are my sister. Abram’s motives may not be as selfish as they appear. He is aware of the danger to the family. His method of dealing with it is deception with a half truth, for Sarai really was his sister – but the Egyptians would not know that. Abram presumably thought that there would be negotiations for a marriage by anyone interested (as Laban does later for his sister Rebekah), giving him time to react. But the plan backfires because Pharaoh does not take the time to negotiate. There is a good deal of literature on the wife-sister issue. See (among others) E. A. Speiser, “The Wife-Sister Motif in the Patriarchal Narratives,” Oriental and Biblical Studies, 62-81; C. J. Mullo-Weir, “The Alleged Hurrian Wife-Sister Motif in Genesis,” GOT 22 (1967-1970): 14-25.

[12:13]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew verb translated “go well” can encompass a whole range of favorable treatment, but the following clause indicates it means here that Abram’s life will be spared.

[12:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and my life will live.”

[13:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the Lord said to Abram after Lot separated himself from with him.” The disjunctive clause at the beginning of the verse signals a new scene.

[13:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “lift up your eyes and see.”

[13:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “for all the land which you see to you I will give it and to your descendants.”

[13:16]  ¹⁸ tn The translation “can be counted” (potential imperfect) is suggested by the use of יוּכַל (yukhal, “is able”) in the preceding clause.

[13:17]  ¹⁹ tn The connective “and” is not present in the Hebrew text; it has been supplied for purposes of English style.

[13:17]  ²⁰ tn The Hitpael form הִתְהַלֵּךְ (hithallekh) means “to walk about”; it also can carry the ideas of moving about, traversing, going back and forth, or living in an area. It here has the connotation of traversing the land to survey it, to look it over.

[13:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “the land to its length and to its breadth.” This phrase has not been included in the translation because it is somewhat redundant (see the note on the word “throughout” in this verse).

[17:4]  ²² tn Heb “I.”

[17:4]  ²³ tn Heb “is” (הִנֵּה, hinneh).

[17:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “will your name be called.”

[17:5]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn The perfect verbal form is used here in a rhetorical manner to emphasize God’s intention.

[17:6]  ²⁷ tn This verb starts a series of perfect verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive to express God’s intentions.

[17:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition is emphatic.

[17:6]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and I will make you into nations, and kings will come out from you.”

[17:7]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:7]  ³² tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

[17:8]  ³³ 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]  ³⁴ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[22:17]  ³⁵ tn The use of the infinitive absolute before the finite verbal form (either an imperfect or cohortative) emphasizes the certainty of the blessing.

[22:17]  ³⁶ tn Here too the infinitive absolute is used for emphasis before the following finite verb (either an imperfect or cohortative).

[22:17]  ³⁷ tn The Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) occurring here and in v. 18 may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

[22:17]  ³⁸ tn Or “inherit.”

[22:17]  ³⁹ tn Heb “gate,” which here stands for a walled city. To break through the gate complex would be to conquer the city, for the gate complex was the main area of defense (hence the translation “stronghold”).

[22:18]  ⁴⁰ tn In the Hebrew text this causal clause comes at the end of the sentence. The translation alters the word order for stylistic reasons.

[22:18]  ⁴¹ tn Traditionally the verb is taken as passive (“will be blessed”) here, as if Abraham’s descendants were going to be a channel or source of blessing to the nations. But the Hitpael is better understood here as reflexive/reciprocal, “will bless [i.e., pronounce blessings on] themselves/one another” (see also Gen 26:4). Elsewhere the Hitpael of the verb “to bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 12:2 predicts that Abram will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11. Earlier formulations of this promise (see Gen 12:2; 18:18) use the Niphal stem. (See also Gen 28:14.)

[3:25]  ⁴² tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[3:25]  ⁴³ tn Or “in your offspring”; Grk “in your seed.”

[3:25]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “families.” The Greek word πατριά (patria) can indicate persons of succeeding generations who are related by birth (“lineage,” “family”) but it can also indicate a relatively large unit of people who make up a sociopolitical group and who share a presumed biological descent. In many contexts πατριά is very similar to ἔθνος (eqnos) and λαός (laos). In light of the context of the OT quotation, it is better to translate πατριά as “nations” here.

[3:25]  ⁴⁵ sn A quotation from Gen 22:18.

[4:13]  ⁴⁶ sn Although a singular noun, the promise is collective and does not refer only to Gen 12:7, but as D. Moo (Romans 1-8 [WEC], 279) points out, refers to multiple aspects of the promise to Abraham: multiplied descendants (Gen 12:2), possession of the land (Gen 13:15-17), and his becoming the vehicle of blessing to all people (Gen 12:13).

[9:4]  ⁴⁷ tn Grk “of whom.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:4]  ⁴⁸ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).” Although some modern translations remove the filial sense completely and render the term merely “adoption” (cf. NAB, ESV), the retention of this component of meaning was accomplished in the present translation by the phrase “as sons.”

[9:4]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “cultic service.”

[3:16]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “his seed,” a figurative extension of the meaning of σπέρμα (sperma) to refer to descendants (L&N 10.29).

[3:16]  ⁵¹ 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]  ⁵² 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]  ⁵³ tn See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse.