MOB Lesson 10 Genesis 16:1-17:27 - Part 2
Oct/07/07 07:52 Filed in: MOB
Hi Guys,
We are are in the second week of Lesson 10. We will be covering pages 117-119 and questions 7-10. We are going to be covering the conditional covenant with Abram and he is going to get his name changed to Abraham.
Here are some commentary notes from various sources. I hope these are of some value. If you find other information or have a question on this weeks study post it up so we can answer them and share amongst all the MOB groups.
John MacArthur Study Bible
17:11 a sign of the covenant. Circumcision (cutting away the male foreskin) was not entirely new in this period of history, but the special religious and theocratic significance then applied to it was entirely new, thus identifying the circumcised as belonging to the physical and ethnical lineage of Abraham (cf. Acts 7:8; Rom. 4:11). Without divine revelation, the rite would not have had this distinctive significance, thus it remained a theocratic distinctive of Israel (cf. v. 13). There was a health benefit, since disease could be kept in the folds of the foreskin, so that removing it prevented that. Historically, Jewish women have had the lowest rate of cervical cancer. But the symbolism had to do with the need to cut away sin and be cleansed. It was the male organ which most clearly demonstrated the depth of depravity because it carried the seed that produced depraved sinners. Thus, circumcision symbolized the need for a profoundly deep cleansing to reverse the effects of depravity.
17:12 eight days old. This same time frame was repeated in Lev. 12:3.
17:14 shall be cut off from his people. Being cut off from the covenant community meant loss of temporal benefits stemming from being part of the special, chosen, and theocratic nation, even to the point of death by divine judgment.
17:15 Sarai … Sarah. Fittingly, since Sarai (“my princess”) would be the ancestress of the promised nations and kings, God changed her name to Sarah, taking away the limiting personal pronoun “my,” and calling her “princess” (v. 16).
17:16 mother of nations. Cf. 17:5.
17:17 fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart. A proper reaction of adoration over God’s promises was marred by the incredulity of Abraham. He knew he was to be a father (12:2; 15:4), but this was the first mention that his barren, old wife was to be the mother.
17:18 Oh, that Ishmael might live before You! Abraham’s plea for a living son to be the designated beneficiary of God’s promises betrayed just how impossible it was for he and Sarah to have children (cf. Rom. 4:17).
17:19–21 Again, patiently but firmly rejecting Abraham’s alternative solution, God emphatically settled the matter by bracketing His gracious bestowal of much posterity to Ishmael (see 25:12–18) with affirmations that indeed Sarah’s son would be the heir of the “everlasting covenant.” For the first time God named the son.
17:19 call his name Isaac. The name of the promised son meant “he laughs,” an appropriate reminder to Abraham of his initial, faithless reaction to God’s promise.
MacArthur, John Jr: The MacArthur Study Bible. electronic ed. Nashville : Word Pub., 1997, c1997, S. Ge 17:11
Here is some information from J. Vernon McGee
Circumcision is the badge of the covenant. The Israelites did not circumcise themselves in order to become members of the covenant. They did this because they had the covenant from God. Circumcision occupied the same place that good works occupy for the believer today. You do not perform good works in order to be saved; you perform good works because you have been saved. That makes all the difference in the world.
When I went away from home as a boy, although I did get into a lot of trouble, the one thing that kept me from becoming an absolute renegade was the thought of my dad. I said to myself, “Because I’m a son of my father, I won’t do this or enter into that.” I refrained from things because of my dad. Now, I did not become his son because I did not do certain things. I already was his son. But because I was his son, I didn’t do them. The badge of the covenant was circumcision. The thing that put them under the covenant wasn’t circumcision, but circumcision was the badge of it, the evidence of it
And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant [Gen. 17:14].
The fact that there were those who disobeyed (practically the entire nation disobeyed when they came out of the land of Egypt) did not militate against the covenant. That disobedience simply meant that the individual would be put out. However, as far as the nation is concerned, no individual or group could destroy this covenant which God had made with Abraham and his seed after him. It is an everlasting covenant. The man who had broken the covenant was put out, but the covenant stood. That is how marvelous it is.
McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1981, S. 1:74