1583 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he brought him forth abroad,.... Out of his tent into the open air, which was done through his call, and at his direction; or by an impulse upon his mind; or this might not be real and local, only vision: and said, look now towards heaven; either with his bodily eyes, or with the eyes of his mind: and tell the stars, if thou be able to number...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he believed in the Lord,.... The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan are, "in the Word of the Lord;'' in the essential Word of the Lord, in Christ the Lord his righteousness; he believed in the promise of God, that he should have a seed, and a very numerous one; he believed that the Messiah would spring from his seed; he believed in him as his...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he said unto him,.... After he had expressed his faith in him, and in his word, and the blessedness of a justifying righteousness came openly upon him, and he was declared a justified person: I [am] the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees; not only called him, but brought him out of it; not out of a furnace there, as the Jews...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?] Not as questioning or doubting whether he should or not; but this he asked for the further confirmation of his faith in the promise, and for the sake of his posterity, that they might more easily and strongly believe that they should inherit the land given and promised to them;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he said unto him, take me an heifer of three years old,.... This, with what follows, is the sign by which Abram might know that he, that is, his seed, should inherit the land of Canaan; for the whole of this is an emblem of the state and condition of his posterity, until they should enter into that land: wherefore he is ordered to "take" out...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he took unto him all these,.... The heifer, goat, ram, turtle, and young pigeon, not to himself, but to the Lord, as he was bid, and offered them before him, as the above Targums paraphrase it; or however he took them for his use, and set them before him, and did with them as he directed him: and divided them in the midst; that is, the three...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses,.... Upon the birds, as Aben Ezra and Ben Melech interpret it, whose carcasses were whole; or rather upon the divided carcasses of the animals, and indeed on both: this is to be understood of birds of prey, as eagles, vultures, kites, crows, c. and are an emblem of the Egyptians chiefly, and other...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And when the sun was going down,.... Just setting, descending below the hemisphere; or "about to enter" (m) into his chamber, as Piscator observes, from whence he went forth in the morning, as a strong man to run his race; which at sunset is finished according to human appearance, and the common apprehensions of men, who have thought it goes under...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he said unto Abram,.... While he was in a deep sleep; this he said to him in a vision of prophecy: know of a surety, or "in knowing thou shall or mayest know" (n); and be assured of it, being now told it by the Lord himself, who foreknows all things that ever come to pass; many of which he acquaints his people with beforehand, nor would he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge,.... It is not said "the land" in which they were strangers, though God did judge, condemn, and punish the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, and drove them out of it, to make way for Israel; but the "nation" they should "serve", meaning the Egyptians, to whom they became servants, and were...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And thou shall go to thy fathers in peace,.... Or die, which is a going the way of all flesh, to a man's long home, out of this world to another, to the world of spirits, to those that are gone before them; which is no inconsiderable proof of the immortality of the soul. Jarchi infers from hence, that Terah, Abram's father, was a penitent, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And in the fourth generation they shall come hither again,.... The seed of Abram were in the land of Canaan before their descent into Egypt; and it is here predicted and promised, that they should come thither again, as they did, in the fourth generation of those that descended thither; for Moses and Aaron were the fourth from Levi, or Eleazar...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And it came to pass, when the sun went down,.... It was going down when the deep sleep fell on Abram, and now it was quite gone or set: and it was dark; which is not always the case as soon as the sun is set, there is a twilight for a while, and if a clear night the stars appear; but, as Aben Ezra observes, this was a dark and cloudy night; so it...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram,.... Which he confirmed by passing between the pieces and accepting his sacrifice: saying, unto thy seed have I given this land; he had given it in his purpose, and he had given the promise of it, and here he renews the grant, and ratifies and confirms it, even the land of Canaan, where Abram now...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites. In this and the following verses ten nations are reckoned as occupying the land of Canaan at this time, whereas only seven are mentioned in the times of Moses and Joshua; and these three are not among them, and seem before those times to have been extinct, or were mixed with the other nations,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Hittites,.... Who had their name from Heth, a son of Canaan, see Genesis 10:15; they dwelt about Hebron, in the south of the land of Canaan: and the Perizzites; these dwelt in the wood country of the land, Joshua 17:15; and seem to have their name from dwelling in villages, and at a distance from towns and cities, and were a boorish and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Amorites,.... The same with the Amorite, Genesis 10:16; they inhabited both on this and the other side Jordan: and the Canaanites; which were a particular tribe or nation that bore the name of their great ancestor Canaan, see Genesis 13:7: and the Girgashites; the same with the Gergesenes in Matthew 8:28; of these see Genesis 10:16: and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Genesis 16 This chapter gives an account of Abram's marrying his maid, at the instance of his wife Sarai, Genesis 16:1, who, upon conceiving, despised her mistress; of which complaint is made to Abram, who leaving his maid to his wife, to deal with her as she pleased, dealt harshly by her, and therefore fled from her, Genesis 16:4;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children,.... She is before said to be barren, and he to be childless, Genesis 11:30; God had promised him a seed, but as yet he had none, which was a trial of his faith; he had been married many years to Sarai his wife, she was his wife when they came out of Ur of the Chaldees, and how long before cannot be...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Sarai said unto Abram, behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing,.... Or, "hath shut me up" (d); that is, her womb, as were the wombs of the house of Abimelech, Genesis 20:18; so that she could not conceive and bear children; she now at this age despaired of having children, perceiving very probably that it ceased to be with her...