Latest / Reformed Thinking / Before the Impossible: El Shaddai and the Everlasting Covenant (Genesis 17:1–8)

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Before the Impossible: El Shaddai and the Everlasting Covenant (Genesis 17:1–8) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking, the deep dive where we take the
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  source material and extract the insights you need to gain a
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  clearer picture of God's self revelation.
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  Today we're looking at Genesis 17, specifically verses one
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  through 8. It's a really critical piece of
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  Scripture that gets right to the heart of God's power versus
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  human weakness. And our mission today is to get
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  under the skin of this passage. We want to pull out the main
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  theological ideas looking at God's self disclosure as El
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  Shaddai and you know, the very nature of this covenant he
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  establishes. Yeah, at its core, this is all
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  about how God steps in when human plans and resources have
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  just completely run out. What picture of faithfulness and
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  obedience really comes into view when God finally speaks well
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  after a very long silence? It's a complete divine takeover,
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  you could say. Yeah, this passage is a dramatic
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  renewal of the and it shows that God binds himself to his word,
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  and he's going to fulfill it entirely by his own sufficiency.
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  The light he demands is only possible because of the light he
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  provides. I like that.
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  And the setup is just incredible.
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  Let's start there with the timeline.
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  Genesis 16 ends, Ishmael is born.
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  This this product of human planning.
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  Then Genesis 17 opens and boom, 13 years have gone by.
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  That silence isn't just a detail, it's an interpretive
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  key. I think it's where the contrast
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  between God's way and our way gets really sharp.
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  That 13 year gap holds so much spiritual weight it's almost
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  deafening when you read the text straight through.
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  You get this spectacular promise in Genesis 15, then the
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  immediate kind of pragmatic failure of Genesis 16, and then
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  nothing. Yeah, for more than a decade,
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  there's just silence from the Lord who'd have been speaking so
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  directly. And I've seen it argued that the
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  silence itself is part of the message.
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  God is letting the solution that Abraham and Zorai came up with,
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  the Ishmael solution, just mature.
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  He's letting it run its course. And we have to remember what
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  that failure in Genesis 16 was really about.
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  This wasn't, you know, some act of deep malice.
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  They were acting out of what was culturally normal, pragmatic
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  wisdom. It was the sensible thing to do.
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  It was. They have a divine promise for a
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  seed. Soraya's barren.
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  So the logical, socially acceptable next step is to use
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  Hagar the slave woman to produce an heir.
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  It's human reason trying to give a divine word a helping hand.
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  Hedging their bets, maybe If God seems to be moving too slowly,
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  let's let's help him along. And look at the result.
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  The immediate fruit of that help was relational chaos.
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  Conflict between Soraya and Hagar.
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  Contempt. Hagar runs away.
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  Pragmatism didn't bring peace, it brought fracture and doubt.
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  Followed by 13 years of silence. Right.
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  And during that time, God let's Abram live with Ishmael, the
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  living symbol of his lapse in faith.
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  You have to put yourself in Abraham's shoes.
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  Ishmael is 13. He's not a baby anymore.
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  He's a young man. He looks like the heir.
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  He probably acts like the heir. Every single day.
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  Every day Abram sees the physical result of the choice he
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  made to trust what he could see and do instead of what God
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  guaranteed. And that's the whole point of
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  the long wait. God allowed the solution of the
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  flesh to become completely plausible from a human
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  perspective. Ishmael was a fact on the
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  ground. Abram had, for all intents and
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  purposes, accepted him as the promised heir.
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  So when God finally speaks again in Genesis 17, he's not just
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  overcoming doubt. He's got to demolish a
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  plausible, established alternative.
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  He. Waited until the human scheme
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  was at its peak so that when he finally intervened there would
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  be absolutely no confusion about who gets the credit.
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  Which makes the timing in verse one when Abram was 99 years old
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  so pointed. The text is very specific about
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  that number. It's not random.
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  He's 99, Sir, I is about to turn 90.
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  Every conceivable human resource is now officially spent.
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  The pragmatic solution didn't work out, and now the biological
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  window has slammed shut. His body, as Paul puts it in
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  Romans, is as good as dead. The ability to father a child is
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  gone, so God is making sure the covenant is re established, you
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  might say over the grave of human potential.
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  That's a powerful way to put it. It's the whole point.
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  God waits until Abraham's own body is preaching the sermon.
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  This cannot happen unless God does it.
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  If God had spoken when Abram was, say, 80, Abram might have
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  thought he still had something to contribute.
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  A little bit of strength left. Right, but by waiting until 99,
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  God just removes any lingering illusion of self-sufficiency.
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  It's the end of human vitality is the bankruptcy of the flesh.
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  I think for anyone listening, this connects to those times we
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  feel like we're just waiting in the dark.
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  It feels like a delay from God is a denial.
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  And this text shows us that's not the case.
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  The delay is a classroom for faith.
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  God is teaching Abram, and by extension to us, that covenant
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  life is sustained only by faith in His promise, not by our plans
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  or our natural abilities. He's not punishing him with
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  silence, he's preparing him. Preparing him for a revelation
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  of his own character that you can only truly appreciate when
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  everything else has failed. God is about to draw a very
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  sharp line between what man can produce Ishmael and what only
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  God can accomplish, Isaac. And what a way to break that
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  silence. After 13 years of Abraham living
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  with his failure, God appears. The silence is just shattered by
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  this incredible revelation in verse one.
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  I am God Almighty. The Hebrew is El Shaddai.
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  This is a theological missile aimed right at Abram's
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  exhausted, pragmatic heart. Abram's completely spent and God
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  shows up and says I am the all sufficient one.
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  The. Timing is just perfect.
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  God reveals himself not as the God who you know needs a little
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  help, but as the one who is entirely self-sufficient.
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  He doesn't need our strategies. It is the ultimate antidote to
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  the pragmatism of Genesis 16. The promise doesn't depend on
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  biology or human maneuvering. It depends completely on God's
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  sovereign, irresistible power. Let's really dig into the weight
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  of that name, El Shaddai. OK so we know El is the general
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  term for God denoting strength or might, but Shaddai has a very
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  specific feel to it, especially in this period of the
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  patriarchs. The details here are really key.
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  El Shaddai is the main name God uses for himself with the
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  patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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  Exodus 6.3 confirms this later when God says he was not known
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  to them by his covenant name Yahweh.
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  So this name belongs to the era of the promise before the
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  Exodus. Why that distinction?
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  Why else should I hear and Yahweh for Moses?
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  El Shaddai is tailored for the situation.
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  It's about demonstrating the sheer physical creative power
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  needed to get the covenant off the ground.
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  It's about impossible acts, creating life from a dead womb,
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  multiplying one family into a whole nation.
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  It's the God who sets the physical stage.
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  Exactly. Yahweh, which is revealed later,
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  is more about redemptive relational faithfulness, the God
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  who keeps His promises throughout history.
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  But right here, Abram just needs to be convinced of God's raw
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  power to create the outcome from nothing.
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  And the origin of the word Shaddai, there are a couple of
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  possibilities there, right? Yes.
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  The first idea links it to the Akkadian word shaddu, which
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  means mountain, and that paints a picture of God as this
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  immovable sovereign power, you know, a rock of stability,
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  right? But the second one, which I
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  think is more compelling right here, traces Shaddai to the
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  Hebrew root Shaddai. Which means to overpower or to
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  shatter. Exactly.
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  So if you go with Shaddad, then El Shaddai really means the God
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  who overpowers, and that fits this story perfectly.
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  He's the God who shatters the laws of nature.
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  He overpowers barrenness. He overpowers old age.
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  He overpowers the skepticism and pragmatism that led to the whole
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  Ishmael mess in the 1st place. The God of the covenant is the
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  God who does the impossible. Which would have been a radical
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  idea for Abram coming from that ancient Near East context.
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  It's a direct challenge to all the regional gods.
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  Abram was surrounded by religions where the gods were
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  limited. They were capricious.
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  They needed human rituals and sacrifices to get them to act.
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  El Shaddai declares God's total self-sufficiency.
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  He needs nothing. He has all life and power in
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  himself. He didn't need Abraham's help
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  with Hagar. Not at all.
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  The moment Abram thought God needed help, he stopped relying
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  on the all sufficient 1. So if we bring that into our
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  world, the revelation of El Shaddai is a direct
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  confrontation to what you might call our functional atheism.
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  That's a good way to put it. It's where we say we believe God
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  is sovereign. But as soon as a crisis hits
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  financial, relational, whatever, we immediately default to
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  worldly strategies. We cut corners.
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  We compromise. Because we don't really believe
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  God is sufficient to handle it otherwise.
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  That's what our actions say. To really believe in this name,
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  El Shaddai, means accepting that God is capable of the impossible
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  in my circumstances right now. We should probably pause here on
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  the critique of the prosperity gospel, because that's a common
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  misapplication of this name, isn't it?
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  It is, and it's a serious one. The modern error twists should I
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  to mean that God's sufficiency is mainly for our material
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  comfort and wealth. But Genesis 17 shows us that the
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  sufficiency of El Shaddai is first and foremost covenantal
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  and redemptive. The power is for salvation, not
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  for comfort. Precisely the context here is
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  Abraham being as good as dead. The covenant requires an air,
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  and the physical means to get one is gone.
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  The power of the Almighty shows up to overcome that biological
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  impossibility to keep the promised line going, the line
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  that leads to the Messiah. So if you take away the context
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  of death and life, you miss the whole point of God's power here.
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  You do, and of course the greatest display of the God who
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  overcomes death is the resurrection of Jesus.
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  It's the Direct Line. When Jesus was in the tomb,
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  every human plan had failed, just like Abram's body had
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  failed. Hope was gone.
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  And the father El Shaddai applied his creative life giving
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  power and shattered the chains of death.
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  Romans 4 links Abraham's faith, faith in the one who gives life
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  to the dead directly to our faith in the resurrected Christ.
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  So the revelation of the overpower is really the
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  foundation of the gospel. When we can do absolutely
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  nothing to save ourselves, God is sufficiently mighty to do it
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  all. OK, so the flow here is so
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  important. God reveals his absolute power
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  and then immediately he issues a command.
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  I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless.
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  Yes, the grace comes first, but it demands a response.
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  This shows us that the covenant, while it's established by God's
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  grace alone, it's not, you know, a license to live however you
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  want. It calls for an internal
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  reorientation. The command is the practical
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  application of the name El Shaddai.
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  If God is sufficient, then how should Abram live his daily
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  life? It requires a totally new way of
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  living, one that rejects the kind of scheming that defined
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  Genesis 16. Let's breakdown that command,
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  starting with walk before me. The Hebrew verb is hyphylic.
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  And that's the specific form of the verb, right?
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  It's the hit pale stem which suggests A continuous habitual
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  action, a lifestyle. It's not about one single act of
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  piety, but the whole direction of your life, day in and day
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  out. And the direction is before me
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  or left and I which literally means to my face.
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  This is that idea of quorum deal, living before the face of
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  God. It's a call to total
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  transparency. For 13 years, Abram had been
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  looking at Ishmael, looking at his circumstances, looking at
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  cultural norms. Now God says reorient, live with
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  a constant awareness that El Shaddai sees every thought,
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  every motive. That means no more dark corners
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  where the Ishmael schemes can grow.
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  Exactly. You can't compartmentalize if
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  you're running a business living left, and I means you can't cook
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  the books when things get tight because you trust El Shaddai is
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  sufficient to provide. In your family it means you
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  don't manipulate things for your kids advantage because you
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  believe God's plan doesn't need your dishonesty to work.
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  It drags every part of your life out of the shadows and into the
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  light of God's presence. Then you get the second part.
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  Be blameless. The Hebrew is Tamim.
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  Why is it so important we don't read that as sinless perfection?
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  Well, for one, because God already declared Abram righteous
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  by faith back in Genesis 15, so Tamim can't be a condition to
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  get God's favor. It has to be the result of it.
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  And we know Abraham isn't sinless going forward either,
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  right? The word Tamim means wholeness,
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  completeness, or integrity. And undivided heart.
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  That's the key. It was used for sacrificial
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  animals. A lamb had to be tummy without
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  blemish, whole sound. For a person, it means a heart
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  that is singular in its devotion.
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  Abraham's sin with Hagar was a fragmentation of his faith.
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  It was a divided mind. He was trying to hold on to
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  God's promise with one hand and manufacture results with the
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  other. To meme demands single hearted
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  reliance. If your heart is wholly focused
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  on El Shaddai, you won't need to resort to worldly schemes.
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  So we get that classic theological pattern.
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  The indicative comes before the imperative.
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  Yes, and this is core reform teaching.
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  God doesn't say become blameless and then I'll be God almighty to
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  you. He says I am God almighty,
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  therefore walk blamelessly. The command is grounded in the
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  reality of who God is. It is.
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  I think we forget that so much of our sin comes from fear.
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  It comes from a functional denial of God's sufficiency.
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  We compromise because we're afraid that if we do the right
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  thing, we'll lose out. If Abraham had truly believed El
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  Shaddai could bring a child from a dead womb, there would have
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  been no need for Hagar. Compromise is a failure to trust
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  God's power. So help us understand the third
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  use of the law here. If this command doesn't save
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  him, why is it necessary? The command functions as a guide
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  for the believer who is already saved by grace.
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  It's not a ladder you climb to earn salvation.
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  It's the rule of gratitude that shapes your new life.
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  Because God has graciously done everything.
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  Our response is a life of integrity that shows we value
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  His ways over the world's ways. Grace produces gratitude, which
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  produces obedience. And of course the only one
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  whoever fulfilled this perfectly is Christ.
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  We are always double minded to some degree, but Jesus walked
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  before God with absolute unblemished integrity.
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  Perfect time on our behalf. After the command, God
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  immediately restates the covenant guarantee verse 2.
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  I will make my covenant between me and you and will multiply you
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  greatly. The divine initiative is just so
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  strong here. The grammar is relentlessly God
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  centered. It's I will, I will.
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  This is God correcting the error of Genesis 16.
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  The covenant is his project. It's a divine establishment, not
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  a human construction project. And there's a shift in the
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  covenant language from Genesis 15.
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  Right, so there is. In Genesis 15 the verb was
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  carrot to cut which points to that solemn oath ceremony with
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  the split animals. It was a self melodicory oath.
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  But here in Genesis 17, the verb is Nathan.
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  Which means to give or to set. It frames the covenant as a
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  gracious, unilateral donation from God.
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  So it's not a contract between 2 equals.
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  Not at all. It's what scholars call a royal
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  grant. A great king unilaterally grants
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  land or status to a loyal subject out of his own goodwill.
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  The king guarantees it all by using Nathan.
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  God is saying this is a gift guaranteed by my power as El
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  Shaddai. And Abram's response in verse 3
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  is just total submission. Abram fell on his face.
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  It's the collapse of human energy.
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  When Abram was standing up, he had plans on his face.
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  All those Ishmael schemes are gone.
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  It's the only proper posture for a creature before the all
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  sufficient Creator. And it's from that position in
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  the dust that God speaks this creative word over him.
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  He commands Abram to see his life not through his own
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  limitations, but through the reality God is decreeing.
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  Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a
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  multitude of nations. That word, behold, is like a
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  spotlight forcing Abram to look past his 99 years, past his
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  barren wife, and to fix his gaze only on God's declaration.
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  Faith is submitting to God's definition of reality over your
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  own. Precisely which leads to the
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  name change in verse 5. Abram, which means exalted
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  Father, is renamed Abraham, father of a multitude.
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  And this is more than just a new nickname.
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  It's what we call performative speech.
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  God is authoritatively declaring what He will make him to be.
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  Think about how absurd that name sounded.
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  He still has no legitimate son. God isn't waiting for Abraham to
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  produce a multitude. He's creating the multitude
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  through the name itself. And the grammar is so certain.
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  I have made you a father, a past tense verb for a future reality.
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  It's as good as done because it's grounded in God's decree.
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  God's name for you replaces your own self definition.
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  Abraham's reality is now defined by God's power, not by what he
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  sees in the mirror. Then the promise just explodes
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  in verse 6. Fruitfulness, nations, even
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  kings, I will make you. Exceedingly fruitful Nations
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  shall come from you, and kings shall come from you.
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  The horizon just blows wide open.
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  There's isn't just about 1 sun anymore.
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  It's about nationhood or royal dynasty.
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  The phrase hemongoyam multitude of nations points to a
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  proliferation that will eventually include nations
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  beyond just Israel. And the mention of kings is
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  setting up a whole trajectory for the Old Testament.
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  A Kingdom trajectory. It's establishing A divinely
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  ordained royal line that will run through David all the way to
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  the ultimate king of kings. Abraham is being drafted into
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  this grand cosmic drama of redemption.
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  And again, this stands against that prosperity gospel reading.
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  The fruitfulness here is not about personal wealth.
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  Absolutely not. These are specific redemptive
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  historical gifts. They aren't things Abraham
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  earns. Twisting El Shaddai to mean God
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  of my bank account rips the name completely out of its context.
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  God's power here is for establishing a Kingdom, not for
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  padding an individual's comfort. So the climax of this whole
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  section comes in verse 7, where God calls it an everlasting
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  covenant. Barrett Olam.
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  That word, olam, everlasting, is absolutely central.
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  It means this is a permanent arrangement.
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  It's irrevocable. It does not depend on human
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  faithfulness. Given how often Abraham and his
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  descendants will falter, it's a good thing it doesn't.
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  And the implications of that word everlasting are huge for
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  our systematic theology. They are.
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  If this original Barrett Olam can be broken, then the New
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  Covenant, also called everlasting, has no security.
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  Our assurance of salvation, our belief in everlasting life, it
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  all depends on the integrity of God's promise right here.
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  His faithfulness outlasts all our failures.
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  But even more than the permanence, the greatest promise
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  of all is God himself. That's the ultimate goal,
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  Communion, not a commodity. The absolute peak of the promise
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  is to be God to you, into your offspring, after you.
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  This is the covenant formula, the very heart of the entire
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  Bible. God isn't just giving Abraham
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  things, he's giving him himself. The land, the descendants, the
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  kings, they're all means to an end.
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  The end is God dwelling with his people.
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  So when he restates the land grant in verse 8, all the land
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  of can for an everlasting possession, how should we in the
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  Reformed tradition frame that? We affirm the real historical
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  promise of that specific geography to national Israel,
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  but we also see that the land serves as a stage and as a type.
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  It's the place where God's people are meant to live.
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  Corumdeo at rest in him. So the promise stretches forward
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  into the New Testament language of inheritance and rest.
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  Yes, the specific geography is real, but the ultimate spiritual
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  horizon is a renewed creation. The land is like a down payment.
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  And the already not yet tension in Abraham's own life is a
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  perfect picture of this. He has the title deed to the
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  whole land, but in reality he owns a single burial plot.
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  Right. He's a sojourner in a tent.
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  He holds the promise by faith, teaching us that God's Word is
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  more solid and more real than the ground under our feet.
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  He had the guarantee of a final resting place, but not the
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  present comfort of possession. That's the life of faith.
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  And notice how verse 8 ends right back where it needs to be.
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  And I will be their God. Land without God is a hollow
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  inheritance. The true substance of the
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  promise is God Himself. This passage, Genesis 17.1
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  through 8, it really is a fountainhead.
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  The promises made here flow out through the rest of the biblical
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  story. Let's trace a few of those,
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  starting with the seed. All right, so the seed promise
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  first has to be narrowed before it can expand.
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  God sovereignly chooses Isaac over Ishmael, then Jacob over
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  Esau. He's making clear that the
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  covenant line moves forward by His grace and His choice, not by
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  natural birthright. Excluding all human attempts to
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  secure the promise? And then how does it expand?
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  It expands in two ways. Physically, the one seed becomes
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  the nation of Israel, and then theologically that promise of a
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  multitude of nations. Alan Goyim points to the
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  inclusion of the Gentiles. Which Paul picks up in
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  Galatians, arguing that Christ is the single ultimate seed of
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  Abraham. Yes.
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  So the inclusion of the Gentiles isn't a backup plan.
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  It was built into the covenant from the beginning.
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  Through union with Christ the Seed, all the families of the
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  earth are blessed. OK, second trajectory.
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  Kingship, kings shall come from you.
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  This really steers the Old Testament narrative toward
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  David. It does.
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  It sets up the expectation for a divinely appointed king.
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  That promise gets formalized later in the Davidic covenant,
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  and even when Israel's kings fail, and they fail
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  spectacularly. Repeatedly.
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  The prophets don't throw out the promise, they just purify the
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  expectation. They start looking for the
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  perfect king. For the Messiah.
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  The one who actually walked him who will fulfill the Covenant
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  perfectly and rule the nations. Jesus eternal reign is the
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  ultimate fulfillment of that royal decree made to Abraham.
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  And the land promise, we talked about it being a type.
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  Where does the New Testament take that idea of everlasting
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  possession? The New Testament takes that
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  concrete historical promise and stretches it toward its final
• 21:24
  eschatological fulfillment. It talks about believers
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  inheriting a better country, a heavenly one.
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  Canaan becomes a model of the ultimate Sabbath rest that
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  remains for the people of God. So the final home isn't just a
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  piece of geography. No, it's a renewed creation.
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  It's a cosmic restoration where God dwells with his people in
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  perfect holiness and peace. That's the consummation of
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  Genesis 17. And all of these promises, seed,
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  Kingdom, land, relationship, they are all secured by El
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  Shaddai and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
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  He is the fulfillment. He is the miraculous Son born
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  not by human will, but by God's sovereign grace.
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  And He is the only one who perfectly walked before God with
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  that absolute, unblemished integrity, offering himself to
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  ratify the covenant for good. So we come full circle.
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  We started in this 13 year silence of despair, and we end
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  with the sufficiency of God's name revealed only after human
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  capacity had completely collapsed.
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  That's the great lesson here. Covenant grace is all about
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  God's. I will.
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  The sufficiency of El Shaddai and covenant life is our
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  response. The single hearted integrity of
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  walking Coromdeo. The two are inseparable.
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  And that really forces us to ask ourselves where we've gotten
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  tired of waiting on God. When you're facing pressure, are
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  you turning to the overpowering God, or are you immediately
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  reaching for the shortcuts of the flesh?
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  When we compromise our integrity at work, when we get into
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  political maneuvering out of fear, we are basically saying
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  that El Shaddai isn't capable of getting the job done.
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  If we stick to what is right, we're choosing our strategy over
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  his sufficiency. The world tells you define
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  yourself, secure yourself, guarantee your own outcomes, but
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  the Almighty says receive my name, trust my word, walk before
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  my face. Since God commits himself to
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  doing the impossible, bringing life from death, what self-made
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  Ishmael scheme might you be called to abandon today and rest
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  instead in the single hearted sufficiency of El Shaddai?
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  And remember, He doesn't just promise sufficiency in general,
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  He promises to be our God. He places His omnipotence at the
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  service of His covenant promises to you, ensuring you belong to
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  Him forever. We hope this deep dive into
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  Genesis 17 has given you a lot lot to think about.
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  Until next time, keep thinking.