No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. Genesis 17:5 (NIV)
My daughter shared with me an interesting fact she noticed on Twitter. If you replace the ‘W’ in ‘What?’ ‘When?’ and ‘Where?’ with a ‘T’ you have the answer. What? That. When? Then. Where? There. As I read this, I remembered the slight change in the name Abram to Abraham. In fact, the change is minor, the only difference being one Hebrew letter: ה (pronounced hey. The letter hey is the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It represents grace.
Abraham’s birth-name ‘Abram’ means ‘exalted father’ but God breathes into it – in Hebrew, He adds an inspirate, the single letter he – and turns it into a word meaning ‘father of a multitude’. Likewise, God also changed the name of Abraham’s wife. In order for Abraham to fulfil his mission, he needed his wife by his side in a similarly spiritual level. Therefore, God changed her name from Sarai, which means ‘princess’, to Sarah meaning the ‘mother of nations’. Her name change from Sarai to Sarah was also accomplished by the adding of a hey as suffix. Abraham’s new name would forever be a reminder of God’s promised to him.
In Genesis 12:2 Abraham was told:
Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing. Genesis 12:2 (NET)
Then a few verses on we read:
No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. Genesis 17:5 (NIV)
Abraham’s new name would forever be a reminder of God’s promise to him. Can you imagine the conversation?
“And your name is?”
“Abraham.”
“Abraham… um… interesting name. ‘Father of a multitude.’ Wow! So how many children do you have?”
“Er… well… er… not that many, in a manner of speaking. That is to say, none… at the moment… actually.”
What is it that God wants to accomplish in my today that is quite beyond all possibility? Take God at His Word and allow the very infusion of His breath to fill your life and accomplish His plans for you. As the old hymn says, “Breathe on me, Breath of God.”