Genesis 17:1,2 “Abram became ninety-nine years old, and the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am your God. Be pleasing in My presence and be blameless, 2and I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will increase you very much.”
Abram was now 99 years old. He was 86 when Ismael was born. Ishmael would be 13 years old. We can probably add another year from the time of the promise to the birth of Ismael. So, God appears to Abram fourteen years later to reiterate the covenant. And notice that it is a conditional covenant. A lot of teachings say that God’s covenant with Abram is a one-sided covenant with no action required on the part of Abram. But God tells Abram to be pleasing in His presence and to be blameless. That’s Abram’s part of the covenant, to live in obedience.
What would happen if Abram didn’t obey? God promises to increase Abram abundantly based on the condition that Abram lives obediently. The converse would be that God would not increase Abram if he disobeyed. But asking that question is not necessary. God knew the heart of Abram, which is why He keeps testing it. And God changed Abram’s name to Abraham because he would be the father of many nations. So, in reiterating the covenant to Abram, now Abraham, God adds the condition onto the offspring of Abraham.
Genesis17:7 “And I will set up My covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you, for their generations, as an ongoing covenant, to be your God and your offspring’s God after you.”
The condition of obedience is not just for Abraham but for his offspring as well. Now the question of what happens with disobedience is answered. The sign of the covenant will be circumcision.
The end of Genesis 17:13 says, “and My covenant will be upon your flesh as an ongoing covenant.” And verse 14 continues, “And an uncircumcised male who does not have the flesh of his foreskin circumcised on the eighth day, that soul will be utterly destroyed from his family because he has rejected My covenant.”
Verse 14 answers the question of disobedience. Part of the covenant means circumcising a son on the eighth day. Not doing so would be disobedience and is the same as choosing not to be in covenant with God. The confusing thing is who is doing the choosing, the parents or the son? First, let’s look at what verse 14 is saying.
The Hebrew word is kāraṯ and means ‘to cut off.’ The LXX uses the word destroy, but it does not mean to put to death. It simply means the uncircumcised are not a part of the covenant or not a part of God’s family. They would be cast out and cannot participate in certain things. We will see these things when we get to the Law of Moses.
Regardless, the question is, why would God say the uncircumcised (child) is to be cut off when at the age of eight, the child didn’t choose, the parents did? Here is an example of misdirection. We tend to look at the child (the uncircumcised) as the one being punished when it’s the parents who are being disobedient. By not circumcising the son on the eighth day, the parents are choosing not to be in covenant with God. The father may be circumcised, but his disobedience shows his circumcision to be for nothing. And if the father is choosing to be out of covenant with God, then the way he raises his son will probably be in rejecting the covenant with God. The focus should be on the parents for not circumcising their eight-day-old son. When the child is older and wants to join in covenant with God, he can always get circumcised at that point.
After the covenant of circumcision, God changes Sarai’s name to Sarah. Abraham is told that in one year, Sarah would have the child of promise. Abraham laughs and tells God to let Ishmael be the child of his inheritance. God assures Abraham that Ishmael will bring forth twelve nations, but the nations of promise to Abraham will come through the son that Sarah will bear. And that son’s name will be Isaac.
After hearing this, Abraham circumcised every male in his household.