1 Chronicles 1:27 Abram; the same is Abraham. F.W. Robertson has some suggestive remarks on the significance of ancient names in his sermon on 'Jacob's Wrestling' (vol. 1. pp. 41, 42). He recognizes in the Hebrew history three periods in which names and words bore very different characters. We deal with the first of these periods, when "names meant truths, and words were the symbols of realities. The characteristics of the names given then were simplicity and sincerity. They were drawn from a few simple sources: either from some characteristic of the individual, as Jacob, the 'supplanter;' or from the idea of family, as Benjamin, 'son of my right hand;' or from the conception of the tribe or nation, then gradually consolidating itself; or, lastly, from the religious idea of God." Scripture attaches significance to names, and the precise name indicates the minuteness of the Divine knowledge and the tenderness of the Divine care: "I have called thee by name," "I will give him a new name," etc. So a change of a man's name may seal to him the fact of new, more important, and more tender Divine relations. Explain the precise force of the two names, Ab-ram and Ab-ra-ham, and give details of the occasion chosen for changing the names (Genesis 17.). Then illustrate and enforce these three points - I. THE DIVINE INTEREST IN A MAN'S LIFE. This is so minutely detailed in such lives as these of Abraham and Jacob, that we may each gain the impression of its being the fact concerning ourselves. We are under the eye and in the hand. II. THE DIVINE RECOGNITION OF A MAN'S VIRTUE. Illustrate by the reason given for God's telling Abraham of his proposed judgment on Sodom; by David's appeal, "Judge me according to my integrity;" and Christ's address to the Church at Ephesus, "I know thy works" (Revelation 2:2). III. THE DIVINE COMMUNICATION OF DIVINE APPROBATiON. We indeed may not look to get a change of name, and yet we, too, may be quite sure that our progress in the Divine life has all its stages noticed and marked by God, and, it may be, sealed with a now "unknown name." We want to see the stages of our spiritual growth; it is enough that we learn from Abraham's double name how God watches them, and surely marks them down ready for the by-and-by. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Abram; the same is Abraham. |
    |