Genesis 17:4 Cross References

Genesis 17:4

4: "This is my covenant with you: I will make you the father of not just one nation, but a multitude of nations!

Then God said, "I am God Almighty. Multiply and fill the earth! Become a great nation, even many nations. Kings will be among your descendants!

I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others.

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians--you are one in Christ Jesus.
And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and now all the promises God gave to him belong to you.

After the plague had ended, the LORD said to Moses and to Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest,
"Take a census of all the men of Israel who are twenty years old or older, to find out how many of each family are of military age."
At that time the entire nation of Israel was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho. So Moses and Eleazar the priest issued these census instructions to the leaders of Israel:
"Count all the men of Israel twenty years old and older, just as the LORD commanded Moses." This is the census record of all the descendants of Israel who came out of Egypt.
These were the clans descended from Reuben, Jacob's oldest son: The Hanochite clan, named after its ancestor Hanoch. The Palluite clan, named after its ancestor Pallu.

One day in midspring, during the second year after Israel's departure from Egypt, the LORD spoke to Moses in the Tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai. He said,
"Take a census of the whole community of Israel by their clans and families. List the names of all the men
twenty years old or older who are able to go to war. You and Aaron are to direct the project,
assisted by one family leader from each tribe."
These are the tribes and the names of the leaders chosen for the task: Reuben....................... Elizur son of Shedeur

I will bless you richly. I will multiply your descendants into countless millions, like the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. They will conquer their enemies,

This is the history of the descendants of Esau (also known as Edom).
Esau married two young women from Canaan: Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite; and Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite.
He also married his cousin Basemath, who was the daughter of Ishmael and the sister of Nebaioth.
Esau and Adah had a son named Eliphaz. Esau and Basemath had a son named Reuel.
Esau and Oholibamah had sons named Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. All these sons were born to Esau in the land of Canaan.

Now Abraham married again. Keturah was his new wife,
and she bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.
Jokshan's two sons were Sheba and Dedan. Dedan's descendants were the Asshurites, Letushites, and Leummites.
Midian's sons were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. These were all descendants of Abraham through Keturah.
Abraham left everything he owned to his son Isaac.

But you promised to treat me kindly and to multiply my descendants until they become as numerous as the sands along the seashore--too many to count."

The circumcision ceremony was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous--even before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are made right with God by faith.
And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised.
It is clear, then, that God's promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was not based on obedience to God's law, but on the new relationship with God that comes by faith.
So if you claim that God's promise is for those who obey God's law and think they are "good enough" in God's sight, then you are saying that faith is useless. And in that case, the promise is also meaningless.
But the law brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!)

And I am going to give you so many descendants that, like dust, they cannot be counted!

But his father refused. "I know what I'm doing, my son," he said. "Manasseh, too, will become a great people, but his younger brother will become even greater. His descendants will become a multitude of nations!"

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