7 Yahweh appeared to Abram, and said, "I will give this land to your seed{or, offspring}." He built an altar there to Yahweh, who appeared to him.
I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God."
Yahweh appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day.
for all the land which you see, I will give to you, and to your offspring forever.
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He doesn't say, "To seeds," as of many, but as of one, "To your seed," which is Christ.
The covenant which he made with Abraham, His oath to Isaac, And confirmed the same to Jacob for a statute; To Israel for an everlasting covenant, Saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan, The lot of your inheritance;" When they were but a few men in number, Yes, very few, and foreigners in it.
to the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first. There Abram called on the name of Yahweh.
Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me:
Jacob called the name of the place Peniel{Peniel means "face of God."}: for, he said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
He built an altar there, and called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there. There Isaac's servants dug a well.
He left from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to Yahweh, and called on the name of Yahweh.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen{TR adds "and being convinced of"} them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Now we, brothers, as Isaac was, are children of promise.
That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as a seed.
It shall be, when Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, great and goodly cities, which you didn't build,
Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their seed after them.
He erected an altar there, and called it El Elohe Israel.{El Elohe Israel means "God, the God of Israel" or "The God of Israel is mighty."}
Behold, Yahweh stood above it, and said, "I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon you lie, to you will I give it, and to your seed.
They came to the place which God had told him of. Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, on the wood.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Genesis 12
Commentary on Genesis 12 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 12
The pedigree and family of Abram we had an account of in the foregoing chapter; here the Holy Ghost enters upon his story, and henceforward Abram and his seed are almost the only subject of the sacred history. In this chapter we have,
Gen 12:1-3
We have here the call by which Abram was removed out of the land of his nativity into the land of promise, which was designed both to try his faith and obedience and also to separate him and set him apart for God, and for special services and favours which were further designed. The circumstances of this call we may be somewhat helped to the knowledge of from Stephen's speech, Acts 7:2, where we are told,
Gen 12:4-5
Here is,
Gen 12:6-9
One would have expected that Abram having had such an extraordinary call to Canaan some great event should have followed upon his arrival there, that he would have been introduced with all possible marks of honour and respect, and that the kings of Canaan should immediately have surrendered their crowns to him, and done him homage. But no; he comes not with observation, little notice is taken of him, for still God will have him to live by faith, and to look upon Canaan, even when he was in it, as a land of promise; therefore observe here,
Gen 12:10-13
Here is,
Gen 12:14-20
Here is,
Lastly, Observe a resemblance between this deliverance of Abram out of Egypt and the deliverance of his seed thence: 430 years after Abram went into Egypt on occasion of a famine they went thither on occasion of a famine also; he was fetched out with great plagues on Pharaoh, so were they; as Abram was dismissed by Pharaoh, and enriched with the spoil of the Egyptians, so were they. For God's care of his people is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.