Abram Becomes Abraham: A New Name at Ninety-Nine (Genesis 17)

A ninety-nine-year-old man is lying face down in the dirt, and God is telling him he is about to become the father of nations.

Thirteen years have passed since God last spoke a recorded word to Abram. He still has no child by Sarai. He has one son, Ishmael, born of a plan that ran ahead of the promise. Into that long silence the LORD appears and says, "I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless" (Genesis 17:1).

God Almighty is El Shaddai, and this is the first time the Bible uses the name. He announces who He is before He asks for anything, the God with the power to do what He is about to say. Then the promise: "I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly" (Genesis 17:2). Abram answers with his whole body. "Then Abram fell facedown" (Genesis 17:3).

Then God renames him. "No longer will you be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations" (Genesis 17:5). Abram means exalted father. Abraham means father of a multitude. God changes his name into a promise that is not yet true. He is childless by his wife, ninety-nine years old, and from that morning every person who says his name says father of a multitude over him. He carries the promise in the sound of his own name, years before he carries the son.

Then comes the centre of it. The covenant is "to be your God and the God of your descendants after you" (Genesis 17:7). Land and children are part of what God promises here, and this is the heart under all of it. God binds Himself to be their God, to be known by this man and by everyone who comes after him. Knowing God is the covenant itself.

And God gives a sign to keep it. Every male is to be circumcised, "a sign of the covenant between Me and you" (Genesis 17:11). A permanent mark, cut into the body, on the very part of the body the promise of offspring depends on, so that generation after generation no one could forget whose they were or what God had said. The covenant recorded where it could not be misplaced.

Paul looks back at this day and says Abraham was counted righteous by faith before he was ever circumcised, so that he could become "the father of all who believe" (Romans 4:11). The multitude God named him for turned out to include us. And the deepest mark was always inward: God promised through Moses to circumcise the heart (Deuteronomy 30:6), and Paul says that is exactly what happens to us in Christ (Colossians 2:11).

Here is the lift. Abraham received a brand-new name built on nothing but a promise from God, and then he spent the rest of his life walking before the God who spoke it. That is what a real promise from God is for. It is an identity to live inside for years, while you wait for it to come true. So when God says something to you, write it down in words you can return to, and let it start telling you who you are today, long before you can see it.

Where has God spoken to you, and are you living as though what He said is already true?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: why El Shaddai arrives here of all places, the single letter God folded into Abram's name and Sarai's, what walking before God asked of Abraham that walking with God asked of Noah, and why the covenant sign was cut into the body. Read it here.