Three Names: The Church in the Days of Abram (5), Genesis 17

It has been 13 years in Abram’s life since the last time we read about him. At that point, Abram and his family had just been recovering from the consequences of a great mistake, Abram having taken Hagar, his wife’s handmaid, as a second wife so that he could have a son. It seems that Abram didn’t even understand that it had been a mistake. He and Sarai and Hagar and Ishmael had all felt the pain of the consequences, but they thought what had happened was just part of the status quo, that God was still going to bring his promises to pass through the son of the handmaid, Ishmael.

Let’s read the passage from Genesis chapter 17.

The first name: Almighty God

We find, as we read the Bible, that God has several names to help us understand, and to remind us, of who he is. We usually hear of him with his generic name, God, or Elohim, as in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heaven and the earth.” In Genesis chapter 2, Moses calls him Yahweh God, translated by the KJV as “Lord God,” probably to draw our attention immediately to just which God we are talking about in the work of creation. Before the fall, when Adam speaks of God he uses the name Elohim, and when the Devil speaks to Adam and Eve about God, he uses the name Elohim. But the use of God’s name, Yahweh, was not unknown to the patriarchs, although it did not have all the fullness of meaning to them that it eventually had to Moses (Exodus 6:3, “And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH (Yahweh) was I not known to them”). In Ex 3:13-15 God connects his name Yahweh (יהוה) with the verb hayah (הָיָה), “to be,” which was not previously done.

It is interesting that in the short space of a few verses we have two new names for God. Hagar, in chapter 16, v. 13, “And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me.”

And here in chapter 17, v. 1 God reveals himself for the first time as El Shaddai, the Almighty God. This name, if she had remembered it, would provide an answer to the question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” which comes up in the next chapter when Sarah thinks it is impossible for God to giver her children.

The second name: Abraham

We come to verse 4. Here we begin to learn that Abram is to become a father of many nations, or rather, a “loud tumult of nations.” The Hebrew description is much more picturesque than the English word “many.” And since God apparently didn’t want us to have to use three words to refer to Abraham from now on, He modifies Abram’s name by the addition of a letter “H” in the middle.

The Hebrew word that we translate as “many” is hamon, הֲמ֥וֹן, beginning with an “H,” so that if we say horde, the English word also begins with an “H” and it gives the right sense of the word. This simple change adds the notion of plurality to the Abram’s name, and he is now an “exalted, numerous father.”

The third name: Sarah

Sarai’s name is also changed. Genesis 17:15 “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.” She get’s an “H” added to her name, at the end, just as Abraham had gotten an “H” added to his name in the middle. The single letter carries with it the same meaning in both cases, meaning “numerous.” Sarah is now the princess of a multitude. Abram would become not just an exalted father, but an exalted father of many.

In a certain sense, Sarai’s change of name is more significant than Abraham’s. It is only by the change in the name of Sarai that we understand that God intends to bring his promises to pass through the line of Abraham’s only legitimate wife. Up until now, we might still have thought that these promises would all come upon Ishmael. Even after this announcement of a child through Sarah, we find Abraham in v. 18 saying, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!”

A return to the right path

This is a common way with us, when we commit sin and stray from the path, we tend to want to think of it as God’s path nonetheless. God here brings Abraham and Sarah back into the way, and sets the course of the fulfillment of his covenant promises despite their earlier disobedience and lack of faith.

This is a comfort. We have an Almighty God who bears patiently with us and steadily brings to pass his great plan. We need to put our trust more and more in him, remembering what a gracious, self-revealing, and powerful God we serve.