And God said unto him, I [am] God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
11. God Almighty ] Heb. El Shaddai. See note on Gen 17:1. The phrases in this verse, “God Almighty,” “be fruitful and multiply,” “company of nations,” are characteristic of P’s style.
a nation, &c.] Cf. the promises in Gen 17:5-6; Gen 17:16. Here the mention of “kings” renews the promise to Sarah in Gen 17:16 (P).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gen 35:11
I am God Almighty
Gods arm sufficient
In like manner God has spoken to Abraham: He had said, I am the Almighty God; walk before Me and be thou upright.
The declaration of almightiness is, according to the sacred narrative, the first declaration of God concerning Himself. A sense of power is one of the first endowments to which we awaken. Almightiness is power without limit. God cannot lie, He cannot be tempted with evil, He cannot act contrary to His own nature, but He can do all that He wills to do.
1. God can create. He can create what He wills, when He pleases, as He will, and for His own pleasure. He has created all things–all matter, all spirit.
2. God can create, and He can make, that is, adapt, fashion, mould, and organise all these materials. We can make, but we cannot create; God can do both.
3. God can control all He makes and creates. God can over-rule; He can create, and make, and control, and He can over-rule. For example, He can permit His image on earth to be broken, and then repair the ruin, and make the ruined image much more glorious than the primitive likeness. This is over-ruling. He can allow sin to enter the world without Himself being chargeable with the entrance of that sin; and He can take it away by an all-sufficient sacrifice. He can suffer all nations to walk for a time in their own ways, and then He can restore them to the paths of righteousness.
4. God can destroy. He can blot out all races and classes of creatures, as He has done on our planet. He can reduce the world to chaos, or burn it with fire, and resolve it into its original elements. He can cause them to fly as vapours through space afterwards. Often has He destroyed cities, and their memorial has perished with them, and perhaps has He destroyed worlds.
5. God can retain His own life from everlasting to everlasting. I am, saith He, that I am. There is no limit put to Gods power by decay or by death, or by any prospect or fear of such dissolution. No plan is contracted, no work is interrupted.
6. Every attribute of God is a power. His infinity is the fulness of power; His eternity the continuance of power; His spirituality the highest kind of power, power inexhaustible and incapable of weariness. There is power in His knowledge. If there is power in our limited information, what power there must be in the knowledge that embraces all things. There is power in His wisdom, power in His love, power in His blessedness, power in the happiness, and power in the peace of God. There is power in Gods own sense of power. There is power in all that constitutes His goodness. God has no weakness, or shadow of impotency; none from the presence of any evil, and none from the absence of any good; no fear, no remorse, no doubt, no hesitance, no suspicion, no imperfection. To God all things are possible. Is anything too hard for Him?
7. God can redeem. Such was the sufficiency of God for this work, that He so loved the world as to give His only Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And in the application of the provisions of this redemption, what do we see? We see men born again; so great is Gods power, that we find in connection with the Christian dispensation, there is new creation–old things passing away, all thing becoming new. This dispensation finds men dead in sin; it leaves them quickened. It finds them grovelling on the earth like wounded worms; and it fits them to fly in the heavens as with the wings of the eagle. Brethren, fear to rebel against this God Almighty. How vain is your resistance and your defiance. What if you set Him at naught! You may judge as to the issue; who will prevail–you, a mortal, dust and ashes, or this God Almighty; (S. Martin.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
A company of nations, tribes, for number and power, equal to so many nations,
shall come out of thy loins, i.e. shall be begotten by thee, as this phrase is taken also in Gen 46:26; 1Ki 8:19; Act 2:30.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And God said unto him, I [am] God Almighty,…. And so able to protect and defend him, and to fulfil all promises made to him, and to supply him with everything he wanted; being, as some choose to render the word, “God all sufficient”, having a sufficiency of all good things in him to communicate to his people:
be fruitful and multiply; which carries in it a promise or prophecy that he should increase and multiply, though not he himself personally, he having but one son born after this, yet in his posterity:
a nation, and a company of nations, shall be of thee; the nation of Israel, called so after his name, and the twelve tribes, which were as so many nations, of which the above nation consisted:
and kings shall come out of thy loins; as Saul, David, Solomon, and, many others, who were kings of Israel and of Judah, and especially the King Messiah; yea, all his posterity were kings and priests, or a kingdom of priests, Ex 19:6.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
11. I am God Almighty. God here, as elsewhere, proclaims his own might, in order that Jacob may the more certainly rely on his faithfulness. He then promises that he will cause Jacob to increase and multiply, not only into one nation, but into a multitude of nations. When he speaks of “a nation,” he no doubt means that the offspring of Jacob should become sufficiently numerous to acquire the body and the name of one great people. But that follows concerning “nations” may appear absurd; for if we wish it to refer to the nations which, by gratuitous adoption, are inserted into the race of Abraham, the form of expression is improper: but if it be understood of sons by naturals descent, then it would be a curse rather shall a blessing, that the Church, the safety of which depends on its unity, should be divided into many distinct nations. But to me it appears that the Lord, in these words, comprehended both these benefits; for when, under Joshua, the people was apportioned into tribes, as if the seed of Abraham was propagated into so many distinct nations; yet the body was not thereby divided; it is called an assembly of nations, for this reason, because in connection with that distinction a sacred unity yet flourished. The language also is not improperly extended to the Gentiles, who, having been before dispersed, are collected into one congregation by the bond of faith; and although they were not born of Jacob according to the flesh; yet, because faith was to them the commencement of a new birth, and the covenant of salvation, which is the seed of spiritual birth, flowed from Jacob, all believers are rightly reckoned among his sons, according to the declaration, I have constituted thee a father of many nations.
And kings shall come out of thy loins. This, in my judgment, ought properly to be referred to David and his posterity; for God did not approve of the kingdom of Saul, and therefore it was not established; and the kingdom of Israel was but a corruption of the legitimate kingdom. I acknowledge truly that, sometimes, those things which have sprung from evil sources are numbered among God’s benefits; but because here the simple and pure benediction of God is spoken of, I willingly understand it of David’s successors only. Finally; Jacob is constituted the lord of the land, as the sole heir of his grandfather Abraham, and of his father Isaac; for the Lord manifestly excludes Esau from the holy family, when he transfers the dominion of the land, by hereditary right, to the posterity of Jacob alone.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) God Almighty.Heb., El-shaddai, the name by which God had entered into the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17:1).
A company.Heb., a congregation of nations. (See Gen. 28:3, where it is a congregation, or church, of peoples.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘And God said to him, “I am El Shaddai (the Almighty God). Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations (goyim) will be from you, and kings will come from your loins. And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, to you will I give it, and to your seed after you will I give the land.” ’
The meaning of ‘El Shaddai’ is not yet apparent to us but the LXX translates it as ‘the Almighty’. God only reveals Himself under this title twice, to Abraham in connection with the greater covenant and to Jacob here, and in both cases there is stress on a change of name for the recipient. To receive a covenant from El Shaddai means a whole new direction in life.
So Jacob is confirmed as the inheritor of the greater covenant. Whenever God is mentioned under the name of El Shaddai it is in relation to many nations, not just to the family tribe. To Abraham in Genesis 17 ‘you shall be the father of a multitude of nations (hamon goyim)’, and Ishmael is a part of that covenant, to Isaac as he blesses Jacob in Gen 28:3 ‘that you may be a company of peoples’ (liqhal ‘amim), and again to Jacob in Gen 48:4 reference is made to ‘a company of peoples’ (liqhal ‘amim). It is in recognition of this fact that Jacob speaks of El Shaddai when he sends his sons back to Egypt to obtain the release of Simeon and entrusts them with Benjamin (Gen 43:14). It is Yahweh as El Shaddai, the sovereign God over the whole world, who has the power to prevail over the great governor of Egypt. This may also be why Isaac used this title of Yahweh when he sent his son into a foreign land.
So Jacob is not just inheriting the promises related to the family tribe but those which relate to God’s worldwide purposes. However, as always, this includes these local promises, thus he will bear both a nation and a company of nations. His direct descendants will be kings and his seed will inherit the promised land.
These promises relate closely to those mentioned by Isaac in 28:3-4 in the context of El Shaddai. To be fruitful and multiply, to be a company of peoples, and to receive the blessing of Abraham in the inheritance of the land. Thus God confirms that he is speaking to him as the God of Isaac.
Less directly they also relate to the promises made when he first came to Bethel, for there too he was promised that he and his seed would receive the land (Gen 28:13), that he would multiply greatly and especially that through him and his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen 28:14).
“Be fruitful and multiply.” This has more the sons of Jacob in mind than Jacob himself. But their sons would be his sons, and their seed his seed. He would proudly look on further generations and finally they would become an innumerable multitude.
“A nation and a company of nations.” His family tribe would become a nation. But this would not be all, for a company of nations would also come from him. And later Israel was to be a company of nations, for it was to include not only his descendants but large numbers of peoples of other nations who joined themselves with Israel (e.g Exo 12:38), and even further on peoples from all nations would gladly form the true Israel, the ‘Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16 with 3:29; Eph 2:11-19).
“Kings shall be descended from you (come from your loins).” Nationhood would result in kingship, and those kings would be his own descendants. Indeed from him would come the greatest King of all.
And he and his seed would inherit the land. We cannot fully appreciate what it meant to a sojourner (alien and non-landowner), a wanderer, a landless person who must trust to the good nature of others and whatever bargains he could arrange and pay for in one way or another, to become the possessor of land. And here the promise to Abraham and Isaac is confirmed to Jacob. He and his seed will one day possess the whole land.
We note here that the promises are unconditional. At these great moments God does not lay down any terms. He is sovereign and will bring about His purposes. The only hint that response is required comes in the reference to Jacob’s change of name to Israel and its significance. But even this was part of God’s sovereign purpose and Jacob was the recipient. And this is recognised especially in the fact that Jacob makes no response as he had done previously at Bethel (28:20-22). This is not a time for man to make his promises and bargains. This is a moment of receiving in awesome silence.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Gen 35:11 And God said unto him, I [am] God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
Ver. 11. I am God Almighty. ] This is hardly persuaded; and yet it is the ground of all true comfort and spiritual security. We are apt to measure things according to our own model, as to think God so powerful as our understanding can reach, &c. But, for a finite creature to believe the infinite all-sufficiency of God, he is not able to do it thoroughly without supernatural grace; nor can he be soundly comforted till he comes to comprehend it. Of his will to do us good we doubt not, till, in some measure, we doubt of his power to help.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
GOD ALMIGHTY = Hebrew. El-Shaddai, GOD the all-bountiful or allsufficient. The title which best accords with the promise here given.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
God Almighty: Gen 17:1, Gen 18:14, Gen 43:14, Gen 48:3, Gen 48:4, Exo 6:3, 2Co 6:18
a nation: Gen 12:2, Gen 13:16, Gen 15:5, Gen 17:5-7, Gen 17:16, Gen 18:18, Gen 22:17, Gen 28:3, Gen 28:4, Gen 28:14, Gen 32:12, Gen 46:3, Gen 48:4, Exo 1:7, Num 1:1 – Num 26:65, 1Sa 1:1 – 2Ch 36:23
Reciprocal: Gen 1:22 – General Gen 17:4 – a father Gen 17:6 – nations Gen 36:31 – before there Gen 46:26 – loins Gen 49:24 – the mighty Gen 49:25 – the Almighty Exo 32:13 – I will multiply 1Ch 16:16 – which he made 1Ch 16:18 – Unto thee Psa 105:9 – General Jer 32:22 – which Heb 7:5 – come Heb 7:10 – General Rev 1:8 – the Almighty