Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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(3.) God's promises are sure and satisfying to all those who conscientiously observe and obey his precepts; and those who, in compliance with God's call, leave or lose anything that is dear to them, shall be sure of something else abundantly better in lieu of it. Abram had left the land of his nativity: "Well," says God, "I will give thee this land," Mt 19:29.
(4.) God reveals himself and his favours to his people by degrees; before he had promised to show him this land, now to give it to him: as grace is growing, so is comfort.
(5.) It is comfortable to have land of God's giving, not by providence only, but by promise.
(6.) Mercies to the children are mercies to the parents. "I will give it, not to thee, but to thy seed;" it is a grant in reversion to his seed, which yet, it should seem, Abram understood also as a grant to himself of a better land in reversion, of which this was a type; for he looked for a heavenly country, Heb 11:16.
8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-
el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.
Abram attended on God in his instituted ordinances. He built an altar unto the Lord who appeared to him, and called on the name of the Lord, Ge 12:7, 8. Now consider this,
(1.) As done upon a special occasion. When God appeared to him, then and there he built an altar, with an eye to the God who appeared to him. Thus he returned God's visit, and kept up his correspondence with heaven, as one that resolved it should not fail on his side; thus he acknowledged, with thankfulness, God's kindness to him in making him that gracious visit and promise; and thus he testified his confidence in and dependence upon the word which God had spoken. Note, An active believer can heartily bless God for a promise the performance of which he does not yet see, and build an