Genesis 13:15

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:14-18 Those are best prepared for the visits of Divine grace, whose spirits are calm, and not ruffled with passion. God will abundantly make up in spiritual peace, what we lose for preserving neighbourly peace. When our relations are separated from us, yet God is not. Observe also the promises with which God now comforted and enriched Abram. Of two things he assures him; a good land, and a numerous issue to enjoy it. The prospects seen by faith are more rich and beautiful than those we see around us. God bade him walk through the land, not to think of fixing in it, but expect to be always unsettled, and walking through it to a better Canaan. He built an altar, in token of his thankfulness to God. When God meets us with gracious promises, he expects that we should attend him with humble praises. In outward difficulties, it is very profitable for the true believer to mediate on the glorious inheritance which the Lord has for him at the last.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The man chosen of God now stands alone. He has evinced an humble and self-renouncing spirit. This presents a suitable occasion for the Lord to draw near and speak to His servant. His works are re-assuring. The Lord was not yet done with showing him the land. He therefore calls upon him to look northward and southward and eastward and westward. He then promises again to give all the land which he saw, as far as his eye could reach, to him and to his seed forever. Abram is here regarded as the head of a chosen seed, and hence, the bestowment of this fair territory on the race is an actual grant of it to the head of the race. The term "forever," for a perpetual possession, means as long as the order of things to which it belongs lasts. The holder of a promise has his duties to perform, and the neglect of these really cancels the obligation to perpetuate the covenant. This is a plain point of equity between parties to a covenant, and regulates all that depends on the personal acts of the covenanter. Thirdly, He announces that He will make his seed "as the dust of the earth." This multitude of seed, even when we take the ordinary sense which the form of expression bears in popular use, far transcends the productive powers of the promised land in its utmost extent. Yet to Abram, who was accustomed to the petty tribes that then roved over the pastures of Mesopotamia and Palestine, this disproportion would not be apparent. A people who should fill the land of Canaan, would seem to him innumerable. But we see that the promise begins already to enlarge itself beyond the bounds of the natural seed of Abram. He is again enjoined to walk over his inheritance, and contemplate it in all its length and breadth, with the reiterated assurance that it will be his.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14, 15. Lift up now thine eyes … all the land which thou seest—So extensive a survey of the country, in all directions, can be obtained from no other point in the neighborhood; and those plains and hills, then lying desolate before the eyes of the solitary patriarch, were to be peopled with a mighty nation "like the dust of the earth in number," as they were in Solomon's time (1Ki 4:20).Object. Abram could see but a little part of the land.

Answ.

1. He might now possibly be upon a mountain, from whence he might have a large prospect every way.

2. He gave him all that he saw, but not only that, but also the rest of the land, and therefore he bids him walk through and view the whole land, Genesis 13:17.

Quest. How was the land given to Abram, when it is expressly said: He, i.e. God, gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on, Acts 7:5.

Answ.

1. God gave Abram the right to it, though not the actual possession of it, until the time that God appointed; as God gave the right of the kingdom to David, but not the possession till Saul’s death.

2. God explains himself, To thee and to thy seed, i.e. to thee, that is, to thy seed, and that for thy sake; the particle and being put oft for that is, as 1 Chronicles 21:12, compared with 2 Samuel 24:13 Ephesians 1:3, and in many other plaecs, as we shall see.

Quest. How was this for ever, when after some hundreds of years they were turned out of it?

Answer.

1. This promise was made to them upon condition of their obedience, which is oft expressed in other places, as Leviticus 18:26 Deu 4:25,26 Isa 48:18,19.

2. The word olam, rendered for ever, doth not always signify eternity, but a long continuance, as is evident from Genesis 17:13 48:4 Exodus 21:6 Psalm 132:14, and many other places of Scripture; and in particular, when it is applied to the Jewish rites and privileges, it commonly signifies no more than during the standing of that commonwealth, or until the coming of the Messias; and so it may here be understood.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it,.... Not only so much of it as his eye could reach, but all of it, as far as it went, which way soever he looked; and this he gave him to sojourn in now where he pleased, and for his posterity to dwell in hereafter; he gave him the title to it now, and to them the possession of it for future times:

and to thy seed for ever; the meaning is, that he gave it to his posterity to be enjoyed by them until the Messiah came, when a new world would begin; and which Abram in person shall enjoy, with all his spiritual seed, after the resurrection, when that part of the earth will be renewed, as the rest; and where particularly Christ will make his personal appearance and residence, the principal seed of Abram, and will reign a thousand years; see Gill on Matthew 22:32; besides, this may be typical of the heavenly Canaan given to Abram, and all his spiritual seed, and which shall be enjoyed by them for evermore.

Geneva Study Bible

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for {l} ever.

(l) Meaning a long time, and till the coming of Christ as in Ex 12:14,21:6, De 15:17 and spiritually this refers to the true children of Abram born according to the promise, and not according to the flesh, which are heirs of the true land of Canaan.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever] The gift to Abram is one of promise and prediction. The gift to his “seed” was to be fulfilled in history. If the words “for ever” are to have their fullest meaning, the land is a pledge symbolic of God’s mercy and goodness towards the people. Their expansion and discipline will be in Palestine. The land and the people will be identified.

Genesis 13:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After Lot's departure, Jehovah repeated to Abram (by a mental, inward assurance, as we may infer from the fact that אמר "said" is not accompanied by ויּרא "he appeared") His promise that He would give the land to him and to his seed in its whole extent, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, and would make his seed innumerable like the dust of the earth. From this we may see that the separation of Lot was in accordance with the will of God, as Lot had no share in the promise of God; though God afterwards saved him from destruction for Abram's sake. The possession of the land is promised עולם עד "for ever." The promise of God is unchangeable. As the seed of Abraham was to exist before God for ever, so Canaan was to be its everlasting possession. But this applied not to the lineal posterity of Abram, to his seed according to the flesh, but to the true spiritual seed, which embraced the promise in faith, and held it in a pure believing heart. The promise, therefore, neither precluded the expulsion of the unbelieving seed from the land of Canaan, nor guarantees to existing Jews a return to the earthly Palestine after their conversion to Christ. For as Calvin justly says, "quam terra in saeculum promittitur, non simpliciter notatur perpetuitas; sed quae finem accepit in Christo." Through Christ the promise has been exalted from its temporal form to its true essence; through Him the whole earth becomes Canaan (vid., Genesis 17:8). That Abram might appropriate this renewed and now more fully expanded promise, Jehovah directed him to walk through the land in the length of it and the breadth of it. In doing this he came in his "tenting," i.e., his wandering through the land, to Hebron, where he settled by the terebinth of the Amorite Mamre (Genesis 14:13), and built an altar to Jehovah. The term ישׁב (set himself, settled down, sat, dwelt) denotes that Abram made this place the central point of his subsequent stay in Canaan (cf. Genesis 14:13; Genesis 18:1, and Genesis 23). On Hebron, see Genesis 23:2.