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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Genesis 13:15 - 13:15
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To thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever - This land was given to Abram, that it might lineally and legally descend to his posterity; and though Abram himself cannot be said to have possessed it, Act 7:5, yet it was the gift of God to him in behalf of his seed; and this was always the design of God, not that Abram himself should possess it, but that his posterity should, till the manifestation of Christ in the flesh. And this is chiefly what is to be understood by the words for ever, אד עולם ad olam, to the end of the present dispensation, and the commencement of the new. עולם olam means either Eternity, which implies the termination of all time or duration, such as is measured by the celestial luminaries: or a hidden, unknown period, such as includes a completion or final termination of a particular era, dispensation, etc.; therefore the first is its proper meaning, the latter its accommodated meaning. See the note on Gen 17:7. See the note on Gen 21:33.