Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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2. That Canaan should be their everlasting possession, Ge 17:8. God had before promised this land to Abraham and his seed, Ge 15:18. But here, where it is promised for an everlasting possession, surely it must be looked upon as a type of heaven's happiness, that everlasting rest which remains for the people of God, Heb 4:9. This is that better country to which Abraham had an eye, and the grant of which was that which answered to the vast extent and compass of that promise, that God would be to them a God; so that, if God had not prepared and designed this, he would have been ashamed to be called their God, Heb 11:16. As the land of Canaan was secured to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, so heaven is secured to all his spiritual seed, by a covenant, and for a possession, truly everlasting. The offer of this eternal life is made in the word, and confirmed by the sacraments, to all that are under the external administration of the covenant; and the earnest of it is given to all believers, Eph 1:14. Canaan is here said to be the land wherein Abraham was a stranger; and the heavenly Canaan is a land to which we are strangers, for it does not yet appear what we shall be.
9 And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant
therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.
10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and
thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
The token of the covenant, and that is circumcision, for the sake of which the covenant is itself called the covenant of circumcision, Ac 7:8. It is here said to be the covenant which Abraham and his seed must keep, as a copy or counterpart, Ge 17:9, 10. It is called a sign and seal (Ro 4:11), for it was,
1. A confirmation to Abraham and his seed of those promises which were God's part of the covenant, assuring them that they should be fulfilled, that in due time Canaan would be theirs: and the continuance of this ordinance, after Canaan was theirs, intimates that these promises looked further to another Canaan, which they must still be in expectation of. See Heb 4:8.