And I will make your descendants to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto your descendants all these countries; and in your descendants shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
Read Chapter 26
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Then he teaches Isaac what it was he promised and the things about which God had given him confirmation. “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.” This, you remember, he had said to the patriarch as well, that his descendants would be so numerous as to be compared with the stars and the sand: “I will give all this land to your descendants,” he said, “and in your descendants will all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Hence the promises made to him I will fulfill in you, “for the reason that your father Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my commands, my judgments and my laws.” See God’s wisdom in stirring up the good man’s thinking, making him more enthusiastic and having the effect of rendering him an imitator of his father. After all, God is saying, if Abraham was judged worthy of such a wonderful promise for obeying my voice, on account of his virtue I am about to fulfill it in you, the child born to him. And if you yourself become an imitator of him and tre...
By our similar faith we have become children of Abraham. For, just as he believed the voice of God and was justified thereby, so have we believed the voice of God (which was spoken again to us by the prophets and the apostles of Christ) and have renounced even to death all worldly things. Thus God promised Abraham a religious and righteous nation of similar faith and a delight to the Father; but it is not you, “in whom there is no faith.” Notice how he makes the same promises to Isaac and Jacob. Here are God’s words to Isaac: “In your seed shall all the nations be blessed.” And to Jacob: “In you and in your seed all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.” But God does not address this blessing to Esau, or to Reuben or to any other but only to them from whom Christ was to come through the Virgin Mary in accordance with the divine plan of our redemption. If you were to think over the blessing of Judah, you would see what I mean. For the seed is divided after Jacob and comes down throu...
