The birth of a nation

Some nations don’t know exactly how or when they originated. The Jews have no such problem. God wanted a chosen nation, a peculiar nation, a holy nation through whom He could demonstrate Himself to the world. Out of all the people on the face of the earth, He spoke to one man – Abraham, who lived in Ur of the Chaldees.

Abraham originally called himself Abram, which means “Exalted father.” God later changed his name to Abraham, which means “Father of a multitude.” “Get out of your country,” God told him, “from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.” Abraham obeyed.

God made a covenant with Abraham. Cutting a covenant is something that sounds strange to Western ears, but it would have been well understood at the time - some four thousand years ago - and in the place where Abraham was. It was a binding agreement between two parties. 

God told Abraham he would bless him, and make his name great. The nation that came from Abraham would be a great nation. “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered,” He said (Genesis 13:16).

God promised that Abraham would have a son by his wife Sarah. They were both old, and in addition, Sarah was barren – but true to God’s promise, she gave birth to a son, Isaac. Abraham eventually had a number of sons, but the covenant would be confirmed, God said, through Isaac.

Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob, but the covenant would be confirmed, God said, through Jacob. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, and Israel’s 12 sons became fathers of the 12 tribes. A Jew then is someone who is descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The covenant is described in the Bible in considerable detail in a number of chapters beginning in Genesis chapter 12. Chapter 17 mentions three times that this is an everlasting covenant. If everlasting means what it says, then God’s covenant with Abraham still stands.

God confirmed the eternal nature of the covenant, for instance, in Psalm 105:

O seed of Abraham his servant,

You children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth.

He has remembered his covenant for ever,

The word which he commanded, for a thousand generations,

The covenant which he made with Abraham,

And his oath to Isaac,

And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute,

To Israel for an everlasting covenant,

Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan

As the allotment of your inheritance,”

When they were but few in number,

Indeed very few, and strangers in it.

When they went from one nation to another,

From one kingdom to another people,

He permitted no one to do them wrong;

Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes,

Saying, “Do not touch my anointed ones,

And do my prophets no harm.”

Psalm 105:6 – 15.