Genesis 17

New Names and the Token of the Covenant

Thirteen years after Ishmael’s birth the Lord appears to Abram as God Almighty. He renames Abram and Sarai, gives circumcision as the token of the covenant, and promises that Sarah herself will bear the son, Isaac, with whom the covenant will continue.

Genesis chaptersChapter 17 of 50

Abram is ninety-nine (verse 1), thirteen years after Ishmael’s birth (16:16) and a year before Isaac’s (17:21; 21:5). The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Thirteen years pass in silence between the end of chapter 16 and this chapter: Abram was eighty-six when Ishmael was born (Gen. 16:16), and he is now ninety-nine.

Thirteen years pass in silence between the end of chapter 16 and this chapter: Abram was eighty-six when Ishmael was born (Gen. 16:16), and he is now ninety-nine. Genesis 17 is the third of four covenant scenes in his life. God promised a covenant relationship when Abram set out for Canaan (Gen. 12:1–3), formally initiated it in the ceremony between the divided animals (Gen. 15:9–18), expands it here, and confirms it by oath after the offering of Isaac (Gen. 22:16–18). Read in order, they show God renewing and advancing the covenant after each test in Abraham’s life; some biblical scholars instead take them as separate traditions of one event. Latter-day Saints also have the promises gathered into one passage of the Book of Abraham (Abr. 2:6–11).

What is new in chapter 17 is what the covenant gives and what it asks: new names for Abram and Sarai, a token in the flesh for every male of the household, and the promise that the heir will be Sarah’s own son, born within the year. Stephen sums up the chapter in a line: God “gave him the covenant of circumcision” (Acts 7:8). Paul builds his argument about faith on it (Rom. 4:9–22), and Joseph Smith’s revision of the chapter gives a reason for circumcision that bears on the baptism of children (see the note on verse 12).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 17 is a covenant with two sides, and the chapter is laid out by who is being spoken of.

Genesis 17 is a covenant with two sides, and the chapter is laid out by who is being spoken of. God begins, “As for me” (Hebrew ’ani, verse 4), and says what He will do: make Abram a father of many nations, give him a new name, be God to him and to his seed, and give them the land. Then He turns to Abraham: “Thou shalt keep my covenant” (verse 9, where the Hebrew opens ve’attah, “and as for you”), and gives the token. Then “As for Sarai thy wife” (verse 15), and “as for Ishmael” (verse 20). The word covenant (berit) comes thirteen times in the chapter, and four times something is called “everlasting” (verses 7, 8, 13, 19).

The chapter is also about names. God names Himself (verse 1), renames Abram and Sarai (verses 5, 15), and names the son before he is conceived (verse 19). Each name is a promise spoken before the fact: “a father of many nations have I made thee” is in the past tense, said when Abram had one son, and that son not the heir. The chapter ends with Abraham keeping his side of the covenant “in the selfsame day” (verses 23–27).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–8

God’s side of the covenant

In plain words

When Abram was ninety-nine, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be whole. I will set my covenant between me and you, and I will make you very many.”

Abram fell on his face, and God spoke with him: “As for me, my covenant is with you: you will be the father of many nations. You will no longer be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, because I have made you the father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful. Nations will come from you, and kings. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you, through all their generations, as an everlasting covenant: to be your God and the God of your descendants. I will give you and your descendants the land where you now live as a foreigner, all the land of Canaan, as a possession for ever, and I will be their God.”

1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.

Language #

El Shaddai, God Almighty

The name God gives Himself here is El Shaddai, and no one is sure what Shaddai originally meant.

The name God gives Himself here is El Shaddai, and no one is sure what Shaddai originally meant. “Almighty” is one old explanation; others are “the (self-)sufficient one,” which the rabbis proposed, and a link with Assyrian šadû, “mountain.”

In context the name fits what follows. In one reading it presents the covenant God as “possessing the power to realize His promises, even when the order of nature presented no prospect of their fulfilment.” Abram is ninety-nine and Sarai is barren. Paul makes the same point about this promise: Abraham “considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb” (Rom. 4:19). The name comes back when the covenant passes to Jacob, with the same pattern of a new name and the same promises: “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” (Gen. 35:11; compare Gen. 28:3; Gen. 48:3–4).

A careful reader may ask why the verse says “the LORD appeared” when Ex. 6:3 seems to say that the patriarchs knew God as “God Almighty” but not by the name Jehovah. Joseph Smith’s revision of Exodus turns that line into a question: “I am the Lord God Almighty; the Lord Jehovah. And was not my name known unto them?” (see also the note on Gen. 22:14).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Language #

Walk uprightly before me

The commandment comes before the covenant is even described. Tamim, “perfect,” means whole, sound, “having integrity,” and it is the word used of Noah (see the note on Gen. 6:9).

The commandment comes before the covenant is even described. Tamim, “perfect,” means whole, sound, “having integrity,” and it is the word used of Noah (see the note on Gen. 6:9). “Walk before me” (hithallekh lefanai) is a life lived in God’s sight. In Joseph Smith’s revision the sentence is plainly a commandment: “I the almighty God give unto thee a commandment that thou shalt walk uprightly before [me] and be perfect.”

In the Church’s reading, this is Abraham’s part of the covenant; the promises that follow are the Lord’s part, and they “constitute what is known as the Abrahamic covenant.” The commandment comes again in Deut. 18:13, Matt. 5:48, and 3 Ne. 12:48; it “has been given to the Saints in all ages.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Old Testament Revision 1, The Joseph Smith Papers. Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.

3 And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,

4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.

5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

Language #

Abram becomes Abraham

Abram means “exalted father,” and the verse explains Abraham as “a father of many nations” (Hebrew av hamon goyim, “father of a multitude of nations”).

Abram means “exalted father,” and the verse explains Abraham as “a father of many nations” (Hebrew av hamon goyim, “father of a multitude of nations”). The explanation is a play on sound rather than a derivation. The -ham of the new name echoes hamon, “multitude,” but the two names are probably forms of one name, and the verse’s explanation “has elements of folk etymology to it.” The meaning lies in the giving: the new name “symbolizes the covenant relationship between the Lord and Abraham.”

Notice the tense. “A father of many nations have I made thee” (netattikha) is past tense, spoken as if already done. Paul quotes this line and draws out the point: God “quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17). For Paul the father of many nations is “the father of all them that believe” (Rom. 4:11; see the note on verse 12).

Sources: “Abraham”, Bible Dictionary. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.

7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

Latter-day Prophets #

The everlasting covenant

Latter-day prophets identify this “everlasting covenant” (berit ‘olam) with the gospel covenant itself.

Latter-day prophets identify this “everlasting covenant” (berit ‘olam) with the gospel covenant itself. President Nelson: “‘The new and everlasting covenant’ (Doctrine and Covenants 132:6) and the Abrahamic covenant are essentially the same—two ways of phrasing the covenant God made with mortal men and women at different times.” He explained the two adjectives: “everlasting” because the covenant “existed even before the foundation of the world” and “does not change,” and “new” whenever the Lord renews or restores it.

Chapter 17 is one such renewal, and the Restoration is another. The Lord told Joseph Smith, “This promise is yours also, because ye are of Abraham” (D&C 132:31), and in the Kirtland Temple Elias “committed the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham” (D&C 110:12). The heart of the covenant is the line that closes verses 7 and 8: “to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee… and I will be their God.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant”, Liahona, Oct. 2022. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

Latter-day Prophets #

A possession Abraham never held

The land is promised “for an everlasting possession” to a man who, the same verse says, lives in it as a foreigner.

The land is promised “for an everlasting possession” to a man who, the same verse says, lives in it as a foreigner. The Hebrew calls it “the land of thy sojournings” (erets megurekha), from a noun for a “sojourning-place.” Abraham never owned more of it than a field with a burial cave (Gen. 23:17–20; see also the note on Gen. 12:6), and Hebrews says that the patriarchs “all died in faith, not having received the promises” (Heb. 11:13).

So what did the promise mean? President Joseph Fielding Smith answered that it looks beyond mortality: “the time would eventually come, after the resurrection from the dead, when Abraham and his children who have been faithful in the keeping of the commandments of the Lord, should possess that land.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 9–14

Abraham’s side, and the token

In plain words

God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, through all their generations. This is my covenant, which you are to keep: every male among you is to be circumcised. Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. Every male among you is to be circumcised at eight days old, in every generation, including slaves born in your house and those bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. They must be circumcised, and my covenant will be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

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.

11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

Imagery #

Why circumcision?

A token (’ot, “sign”) is the visible pledge of a covenant. The rainbow was the token of God’s covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:12–13), and the Sabbath would be the sign of the covenant…

A token (’ot, “sign”) is the visible pledge of a covenant. The rainbow was the token of God’s covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:12–13), and the Sabbath would be the sign of the covenant at Sinai (Ex. 31:13). Unlike an oath, a sign is something “repeated in subsequent generations to confirm the existence of the covenant.” Circumcision was not unique to Israel; it “was practiced in Egypt and also by nations with whom Israel had not come in contact.” For Abraham’s house it meant something more: it “symbolized some aspects of separation or dedication (1) to God… (2) from the world… (3) from sin.”

Why this part of the body? The promises of chapter 17 are about seed: nations, kings, a son. The sign is placed on the organ by which seed is given, so that Abraham’s token “reminded him of how the fruit of his loins would bless the nations.” One Latter-day Saint reading adds that it placed “the act of sexual intimacy in the realm of the sacred,” as “part of the covenantal relationship with God.”

Paul notices the order of events. Abraham was counted righteous for his faith in chapter 15 (Gen. 15:6) and was circumcised only in chapter 17, so “he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised” (Rom. 4:11). The law had already said what the sign pointed to: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart” (Deut. 10:16; compare Jer. 4:4).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Shon D. Hopkin, “The Covenant among Covenants: The Abrahamic Covenant and Biblical Covenant Making”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 223–50. “Circumcision”, Bible Dictionary. Scripture Central, “Why Did Abraham and Sarah Receive New Names and Tokens?”, KnoWhy #630, Feb. 23, 2022. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

Related Scriptures #

Why the eighth day?

Genesis gives no reason for the eighth day. Joseph Smith’s revision of this chapter gives one, and with it an answer to a question about children.

Genesis gives no reason for the eighth day. Joseph Smith’s revision of this chapter gives one, and with it an answer to a question about children. In it God first tells Abram that His people “have not observed mine anointing, and the burial, or baptism wherewith I commanded them; But have turned from the commandment, and taken unto themselves the washing of children, and the blood of sprinkling; And have said that the blood of the righteous Abel was shed for sins; and have not known wherein they are accountable before me” (JST Gen. 17:5–7). Then: “I will establish a covenant of circumcision with thee… that thou mayest know forever that children are not accountable before me until they are eight years old” (JST Gen. 17:11). In the Church’s reading, the token “signified that children were not accountable until they were eight years old”: a boy born into the covenant “need not be baptized until he became accountable before the Lord.”

This is where the Latter-day Saints first learned the age of accountability. Joseph Smith translated the passage in the spring of 1831; the revelation that sets the age of baptism at eight came that November (D&C 68:25–27). Mormon had taught that “little children need no repentance, neither baptism” (Moro. 8:11), but he had not named an age.

Sources: Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17, Gospel Library. Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Scripture Central, “How Did the Joseph Smith Translation Serve as a Springboard for Many Revelations?”, KnoWhy #800, July 8, 2025. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Context #

Not of thy seed

The token was given to more than Abraham’s descendants. Every male of the household received it, including slaves born in the house and those “bought with money of any stranger,…

The token was given to more than Abraham’s descendants. Every male of the household received it, including slaves born in the house and those “bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.” Those who received it “thenceforth enjoyed the privileges and undertook the responsibilities of the covenant.” In one reading, by receiving the sign “these strangers were received into the fellowship of the covenant, and reckoned as part of the promised seed,” which shows that “the seed of Abraham was not to be restricted to his lineal descendants.”

The Restoration teaches the same of the covenant today. The Lord told Abraham that “as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed” (Abr. 2:10), and President Russell M. Nelson teaches that “we can become heirs to the covenant either by birth or by adoption.”

Sources: “Circumcision”, Bible Dictionary. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant”, Liahona, Oct. 2022. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

Related Scriptures #

Everlasting, yet no longer required

If the covenant in the flesh is everlasting, why are Latter-day Saints not circumcised?

If the covenant in the flesh is everlasting, why are Latter-day Saints not circumcised? Because the covenant and its token are not the same thing. At the council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–29) the apostles, “acting under the guidance of the Spirit, declared that circumcision was not obligatory for gentile converts,” and the larger question behind the dispute was “continued observance of the law of Moses by members of the Church.” The Church teaches that “circumcision as a token of the Abrahamic covenant was no longer required after Jesus Christ’s mortal ministry.”

The Savior’s own words to Mormon give the reason: the law of circumcision is done away in Him (Moro. 8:8; see “Seeing Christ in Genesis 17,” below).

Sources: Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). “Circumcision”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

Language #

Cut off

A man who refuses the cut is himself cut off. The verb is karat, “cut,” the verb of covenant-making: Hebrew speaks of “cutting” a covenant, from the cutting up of the sacrificial…

A man who refuses the cut is himself cut off. The verb is karat, “cut,” the verb of covenant-making: Hebrew speaks of “cutting” a covenant, from the cutting up of the sacrificial animal (see the note on Gen. 15:18). The cutting of the animal in the covenant ceremony “symbolically enacted what would happen to the party who failed to keep the covenant,” and here the passive of the same verb (venikhretah, “shall be cut off”) names that fate.

What the penalty meant in practice is not certain. The phrase became a standing formula in the law of Moses, and it is read two ways: as cut off “by death penalty,” or as an “excommunication formula,” removal from the covenant people. The verse gives the reason in its last words: “he hath broken my covenant.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Matthew L. Bowen, “Cut Off from the Face and Presence: Alma’s Use of Hebraistic Idioms to Teach the Fall”, Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 157–69.

Verses 15–22

Sarah, Isaac, and Ishmael

In plain words

God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, do not call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will become nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a man a hundred years old have a child? Can Sarah, who is ninety, give birth?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live before you!”

God said, “Sarah your wife will indeed bear you a son, and you are to name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I have blessed him; I will make him fruitful and very numerous. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.” When He had finished speaking with him, God went up from Abraham.

15 And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.

16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.

Language #

Sarah’s own promise

Sarai’s new name hardly changes its meaning. Sarah means “princess,” and Sarai is “more probably… another form of Sarah.”

Sarai’s new name hardly changes its meaning. Sarah means “princess,” and Sarai is “more probably… another form of Sarah.” The change is “probably not even a change in the root of the name,” but it still marks “a new covenant identity.” What is new is that Abraham’s promises are now given to Sarah in the same words. Of Abraham, God said, “I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee” (verse 6). Of Sarah He says, “kings of people shall be of her,” and the Hebrew behind “a mother of nations” says that she herself will “become” nations. The heir must be her son, not Ishmael (verses 19, 21).

“The Abrahamic covenant is not possible without Sarah,” and “the blessings of Abraham are fundamentally the blessings of Sarah.” In one reading, the son himself was God’s sign of the covenant to Sarah, as circumcision was to Abraham. Hebrews credits her faith: “Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed… because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11), and Isaiah calls Israel to “look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you” (Isa. 51:2).

Sources: “Sarah or Sarai”, Bible Dictionary. Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Scripture Central, “Why Did Abraham and Sarah Receive New Names and Tokens?”, KnoWhy #630, Feb. 23, 2022. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

17 Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?

Language #

Laughter or joy?

Abraham’s laughter puzzles readers, because when Sarah laughs at the same promise the Lord asks, “Wherefore did Sarah laugh?”

Abraham’s laughter puzzles readers, because when Sarah laughs at the same promise the Lord asks, “Wherefore did Sarah laugh?” (Gen. 18:13). The Hebrew verb is the same in both places, tsachaq, “laugh,” and the footnote in the Church’s edition gives “rejoiced” as another sense of it. Joseph Smith’s revision reads it that way: “Then Abraham fell on his face and rejoiced, and said in his heart, There shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old, and Sarah that is ninety years old shall bear.” The questions have become a statement of faith.

He was not the first to read the verse this way. Targum Onkelos, an ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Bible, renders it “And Abraham fell upon his face and rejoiced,” but in the next chapter says plainly, “Sarah laughed within herself.” Paul’s summary of Abraham at this moment points the same way: “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Rom. 4:20).

The laugh gives the boy his name. God answers, “thou shalt call his name Isaac” (verse 19): Yitschaq, “he laughs,” a play on Abraham’s laughter here and Sarah’s in the next chapter. When the child is born, Sarah says, “God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me” (Gen. 21:6).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17, Gospel Library. J. W. Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, with the Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum: Genesis and Exodus, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862; scan on the Internet Archive. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

18 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!

19 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

Language #

A prayer for Ishmael

Abraham answers the promise of Isaac with a prayer for the son he already has: “O that Ishmael might live before thee!”

Abraham answers the promise of Isaac with a prayer for the son he already has: “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” (verse 18). Joseph Smith’s revision makes it a prayer for the way Ishmael would live: “Oh that Ishmael might live uprightly before thee!”

God’s answer plays on the boy’s name, which means “God hears” (see the note on Gen. 16:11): “as for Ishmael, I have heard thee” (shema‘tikha). The prayer is granted. Ishmael is blessed, will be fruitful, will be the father of “twelve princes,” and will become “a great nation,” and a later chapter records “twelve princes according to their nations” (Gen. 25:16). “Abraham loved both Ishmael and Isaac,” but “God made it clear that the everlasting covenant would be established through Isaac” (verses 19, 21).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17, Gospel Library. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant”, Liahona, Oct. 2022. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

21 But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.

22 And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.

Verses 23–27

The same day

In plain words

That very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and every male in his household, those born in the house and those bought with money, and circumcised them, as God had told him. Abraham was ninety-nine when he was circumcised, and his son Ishmael was thirteen. Abraham and Ishmael were circumcised on the same day, and all the men of his household with them.

23 And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto him.

24 And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

26 In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son.

27 And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 17

The covenant of chapter 17 promises kings from Abraham and from Sarah (verses 6, 16), and among the promises to Abraham was that “Jesus Christ would be born through his lineage.” Matthew opens his Gospel with that lineage: “Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). President Nelson places Christ at the center of the covenant: “The fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant becomes feasible because of the Atonement of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is at the center of the Abrahamic covenant.”

The token points to Him too. The words of Christ given to Mormon join this chapter’s two subjects, children and circumcision: “little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me” (Moro. 8:8). Paul names what the cut in the flesh gives way to: “the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (Col. 2:11).

Worth exploring next

Paul reads Genesis 17. Rom. 4:1–25: faith before the sign, and the father of many nations.
Circumcision of the heart. Deut. 10:16; Deut. 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Rom. 2:28–29.
Little children and the age of accountability. Moro. 8:5–24; D&C 68:25–28; D&C 29:46–47.
Another new name. Jacob becomes Israel, and God Almighty repeats the promises of this chapter to him (Gen. 32:28; Gen. 35:9–12).
The covenants of Genesis together. “The Covenant among Covenants” (BYU Religious Studies Center) follows the covenants of the patriarchs down to the Exodus.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17, Gospel Library.
Old Testament Revision 1, The Joseph Smith Papers.
“Abraham”, Bible Dictionary.
“Sarah or Sarai”, Bible Dictionary.
“Circumcision”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant”, Liahona, Oct. 2022.
Scripture Central, “Why Did Abraham and Sarah Receive New Names and Tokens?”, KnoWhy #630, Feb. 23, 2022.
Scripture Central, “How Did the Joseph Smith Translation Serve as a Springboard for Many Revelations?”, KnoWhy #800, July 8, 2025.
Shon D. Hopkin, “The Covenant among Covenants: The Abrahamic Covenant and Biblical Covenant Making”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 223–50.
Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310.
Matthew L. Bowen, “Cut Off from the Face and Presence: Alma’s Use of Hebraistic Idioms to Teach the Fall”, Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 157–69.
J. W. Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, with the Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum: Genesis and Exodus, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862; scan on the Internet Archive.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

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