Genesis 17:4
And God said to him: I AM, and my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
Open Genesis 17:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dixitque ei Deus : Ego sum, et pactum meum tecum, erisque pater multarum gentium.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ ἐγώ, ἰδοὺ ἡ διαθήκη μου μετὰ σοῦ· καὶ ἔσῃ πατὴρ πλήθους ἐθνῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אֲנִ֕י הִנֵּ֥ה בְרִיתִ֖י אִתָּ֑ךְ וְהָיִ֕יתָ לְאַ֖ב הֲמ֥וֹן גּוֹיִֽם
Haydock's commentary
I am unchangeable, and faithful to my promises, the only God. (Du Hamel)
Nations. Jews, Saracens or Arabs, Idumeans, and, by faith, of all nations who shall believe in Christ, the King of kings. (Calmet)
The true Church will never then be reduced to a few unknown believers, as the Donatists and Protestants assert. (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On the Catechising of the Uninstructed, Of the Six Ages of the World
39. “Five ages of the world, accordingly, having been now completed (there has entered the sixth). Of these ages the first is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood. Then the second extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called the father indeed of all nations which should follow the example of his faith, but who at the same time in the way of natural descent from his own flesh was the father of the destined people of the Jews; which people, previous to the entrance of the Gentiles into the Christian faith, was the one people among all the nations of all lands that worshipped the one true God: from which people also Christ the Saviour was decreed to come according to the flesh. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXVIII
16. It may also be required, when it hath not been said, if ye sleep in the lots, but “in the midst of the lots;” what this is, “in the midst of the lots.” Which expression indeed, if more exactly it were translated from the Greek, would signify, “in the midst between the lots,” which is in no one of the interpreters I have read: therefore I suppose, that what hath been said signifieth much the same, to wit the expression, “in the midst of the lots.” Hence therefore what seemeth to me I will explain. Ofttimes this word is wont to be used for uniting and pacifying one thing and another, that they may not mutually disagree: as when God is establishing His covenant between Himself and His people, this word the Scripture useth; for instead of that expression which is in Latin between Me and you, the Greek hath, in the midst of Me and you. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).