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Genesis 17:5

The New Testament’s use of Genesis

4 places · 3 kinds of echo

The source

Neither will your name any more be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

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Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.

Quotation1

A formal citation — high verbal volume, often introduced by a saying-formula.

Rom 4:17-22

Quoted verbatim with the introductory formula 'As it is written' in 4:17: 'I have made you a father of many nations' (Genesis 17:5 LXX, 'patera pollon ethnon tetheika se'). Paul reads the perfect tense ('I HAVE made') as already-accomplished divine speech that calls the not-yet into being.

High confidence

Allusion1

A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.

Rom 4:9-12

'That he might be the father of all those who believe' (4:11) and 'the father of circumcision' (4:12) anticipate the quotation of Genesis 17:5 in 4:17, reading Abraham's universal fatherhood out of the Genesis covenant promise. The 'father of many nations' motif governs the circumcised/uncircumcised dual fatherhood here.

Medium confidence

Echo2

A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.

John 1:35-42 ?

Jesus' renaming of Simon to Cephas/Peter (v.42) follows the OT pattern of God renaming at covenant calling (Abram to Abraham). The name-change-as-vocation motif coheres with the call narrative; low because no single text is quoted.

Low confidence
Matt 1:1-17 ?

The structuring fixation on fourteen generations may exploit the gematria of David's name (D-W-D = 4+6+4 = 14), itself anchored in Abraham, whose covenant-name change occurs in Gen 17. Faint, learned numerological echo; contested.

Low confidence
Elsewhere in Genesis 17
Genesis 17:1 6Genesis 17:7 6Genesis 17:7-8 2Genesis 17:8 3Genesis 17:9-14 5Genesis 17:10 2Genesis 17:12 3Genesis 17:17 3Genesis 17:19 4