What Does Genesis 17:8 Mean in the King James?
And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The promise places inheritance inside the very land of your sojourning.
THE MEANING
You can be promised a place and still experience yourself as a stranger within it. The verse holds both realities together: a gift extending to those who come after you and a belonging named in the words, “I will be their God.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Feeling like an outsider does not prove you have no place or belonging; here, sojourning and promised possession occupy the same sentence.
THE ROOT
מְגֻרֶיךָ
megurekha
GROWS FROM
גור
gur
To dwell as a sojourner, away from one’s settled home.
“wherein thou art a stranger” in this verse is megurekha. The Hebrew phrase carries the sense “land of your sojournings,” so the promise meets you in a life that still feels unsettled. This root holds dwelling and outsiderhood together: receiving a place does not erase the experience of being a sojourner.
ALSO GROWS
gur: To sojourn or dwell as an outsider.
גּוּר
It names the unsettled way of living that the promised land already contains.
ger: A sojourner or resident alien.
גֵּר
This related form makes the person who sojourns visible within the land.
אֲחֻזַּת
achuzzat
GROWS FROM
אחז
achaz
To grasp, hold, or take hold.
Possession here grows from the language of holding: the promised land is something received and held. The sentence places this inheritance alongside sojourning, allowing belonging to be promised before settledness is felt.
ALSO GROWS
achaz: To grasp or take hold.
אָחַז
The verb gives the possession its sense of being held.
achuzzah: A holding, possession, or landed holding.
אֲחֻזָּה
This noun names the inheritance promised in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A promised inheritance can meet someone within the very condition of being a sojourner.
I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;THE THREAD
I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.The same gur root appears in “stranger,” and the same achaz root appears in “possession.” Abraham’s request for a burial holding makes the tension concrete: the promised land is still a place where he lives as a sojourner.
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