Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations;
The verse is part of the song of praise for bringing the ark to Jerusalem, calling all peoples to keep God's covenant in mind without ceasing. The covenant to be remembered is the one made with Abraham and sworn to Isaac and confirmed to Jacob as an everlasting covenant, with the promise of Canaan for an inheritance. The word commanded to a thousand generations is God's moral law, the Ten Commandments declared at Sinai and written on stone, which stands as the basis of that covenant and is distinct from the promise itself. To a thousand generations means perpetuity, that this commanded law stands fast forever and has not expired or been abolished. That law was known and kept by Abraham before Sinai as the condition of the promise, and all who belong to Christ by faith stand related to it just as Abraham did as his seed and heirs.
Words and Historical Setting
The verse belongs to the psalm David gave to be sung when the ark was brought to Jerusalem and set in the tent he had pitched for it, after it was brought from the house of Obededom. The section 1 Chronicles 16:8-22 shows it was composed as prayer and praise in a form to be sung. It calls God's people to keep His covenant continually in mind and presents His commanded word as enduring through a thousand generations.
The passage closely matches Psalm 105 almost word for word. 1 Chronicles 16:8-22 gives the first fifteen verses of Psalm 105, and 1 Chronicles 16:23-33 gives Psalm 96 with slight variations. The same portion is also found as Psalm 105:1-6.
The text is Hebrew poetry, a poetic outburst, with figurative expression that must not be pressed literally like prose. The use of thousand matches figurative uses elsewhere. Everlasting and forever cannot be limited to less than one generation.
The surrounding context gives Israel God's truth not for themselves alone but as His priests to the world to declare His glory among the nations so Gentiles might be converted. By so living the law that other nations would be won and by so proclaiming His glory that Gentiles would turn to Him, Israel did the same work later given to the Christian church. The result was that one law governed both Jew and Gentile who gave themselves to God.
Identity of Commanded Covenant
The covenant to be kept in mind always is the one made with Abraham, sworn to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob as a law and to Israel as an everlasting covenant. It includes the promise to give the land of Canaan for an inheritance. That patriarchal promise is distinguished from the covenant made at Sinai, because Israel are described as few in number and strangers in the land, whereas at Sinai they had become numerous. Its word extends through a thousand generations, showing a covenant lasting through all time, addressed to Abraham's seed as those of faith counted as his children through Christ, with the promise received through faith and not apart from obedience. The one moral law of God's government is that holy and commanded covenant.
The word commanded to a thousand generations is God's moral law, the Ten Commandments declared at Sinai and written on stone. Verse 17 confirms it to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, and that commanded period has not expired. It is a command binding across all generations, perpetual and encompassing every generation that will exist on earth, and it is the basis of all covenants God ever made. Its keeping meant obeying God's voice, and Abraham obeyed those commandments by faith. The land promise is included in that covenant yet joined with the commanded covenant as something distinct from it.
That everlasting covenant includes the Sabbath commandment, which therefore endures and was not excepted or abolished. The psalm was composed to be sung before the ark holding the Ten Commandments, showing the commandments did not originate at Sinai but were only there confirmed to the Hebrew people after already being known to Abraham and Isaac. The covenant was made with Abraham in the sense of being the condition of the promise made to him, which Abraham kept, including the Sabbath. God's unabolished law, including the sanctified rest day, must therefore be shown to sinners so they recognize sin and repent. Its promised duration is linked to the continuing Sabbath, with Abraham's promises looking to heirship of the world, the city with foundations, the heavenly Jerusalem and the new earth, where he and his seed will keep this covenant.
The commanded law and the promise are closely connected but entirely distinct things. The word refers to the law on which the promises were based, confirmed to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant as the Ten Commandments, not to the promise of Canaan itself. The covenant embraces both God's promise and the commanded law as its condition, with the land promise given because Abraham obeyed God's voice, charge, commandments, statutes and laws. The promise rested on God's faithful performance of His commands, with Abraham's obedience given as the reason the covenant was renewed with Isaac. To inherit the blessing of Abraham requires walking in the steps of Abraham's faith by keeping that law on which the blessing was based.
The thousand-generation covenant is not the old Sinaitic covenant made with Israel nor the new covenant made with the house of Israel and Judah. The Sinaitic covenant was a separate agreement in which God promised they would be a peculiar holy nation if they obeyed His voice and kept His covenant, the Ten Commandments, and the people answered that all the Lord had spoken they would do. The tables of the covenant belong to that enduring divine covenant, not to the first covenant. The law existed before the first covenant was made, and the object of both the first covenant and the second covenant was to secure obedience to it, continuing under the new covenant written by the Spirit in the fleshy tables of the heart instead of on tables of stone. The verse says nothing about the covenant of circumcision and makes no allusion to it, since circumcision was given and received as a rite and sign, called in Genesis 17:11 a token of the covenant between God and Abraham, so it cannot itself be the covenant commanded to a thousand generations.
Those who held otherwise taught that the covenant commanded to a thousand generations is the covenant of circumcision, not the covenant of Ten Commandments, and that there is no evidence it is the Ten Commandments.
Law, Promise, and Obedience
Abraham knew and kept God's charge, commandments, statutes and laws, including the Sabbath, long before Mount Sinai, and the Ten Commandments did not originate at Sinai but were there only confirmed to the Hebrew people, showing the covenant law was known and kept from Abraham onward as the condition of the promise. The commanded covenant is God's law confirmed to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, with the land promise included in that covenant yet distinct from the commanded word on which it rested. Abraham was favored because he obeyed God's voice, and the moral law of ten commandments is that holy and commanded covenant made with Abraham, sworn to Isaac, and established with Jacob and Israel. Those who held the lesser weight taught instead that although Abraham did have and obey commandments, statutes and laws and was favored for it, those were not in every respect the same as the law from Sinai. In that teaching the law as such came four hundred and thirty years after Abraham by Moses, Abraham never saw the Sabbath, the psalm is David's poetic outburst not to be pressed literally, and it rests only on the common elements shared by the laws Abraham had and the later Sinai law.
God's promises to Abraham and his seed, including Canaan for an everlasting possession, were based on conditions of obedience because Abraham obeyed God's voice, charge, commandments, statutes and laws. The word commanded for a thousand generations refers to the Ten Commandments, not to the promise of Canaan itself, for the covenant includes both the commanded law as its condition and the promise based on that condition. Keeping the commandments is thus connected with the promise of an everlasting inheritance, and receiving the promised inheritance depends on uprightness and sincerity developed by grace working obedience to His perfect law. To inherit the blessing of Abraham requires walking in the steps of Abraham's faith by keeping that law on which the blessing was based.
Since all, both Jews and Gentiles, broke that law and incurred its curse and penalty, all right to the blessing was forfeited and can be restored only through Christ redeeming from the curse of the law. Its curse rests on transgressors Jew and Gentile and stood between the sinner and the blessing of Abraham, which is identical with the blessing of the gospel. A transgressor of this law is not entitled to gospel blessing except as Christ redeems him when he comes by faith, and such faith does not make the law void nor make Christ a minister of sin. Transgressors under the curse of the law cannot inherit those blessings until the curse is removed, and believers now stand related to God's covenant commanded to a thousand generations just as Abraham did.
The covenant is the gospel covenant with God's Ten Commandments as its basis, described as a law or rule of action, and Abraham obeyed God's commandments by faith. The promise is received through faith, not apart from obedience to God's law, and the covenant was based on obedience by faith. It addresses Abraham's seed, understood as those who are of faith and are counted as his children through Christ, and those who belong to Christ through faith are counted as Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise fulfilled in Christ. Its duration expresses the everlasting character of God's promise to Abraham, which was not abolished at Christ's death and remains the hope of those who believe in Christ and become Abraham's heirs.
Transgressing its laws, changing its ordinance, and breaking this everlasting covenant brings the curse that devours the earth, with desolation by curse and burning upon its inhabitants. Indignation against this holy covenant set up the man of sin, the abomination that makes desolate. The everlasting covenant is the Ten Commandments, the basis of all covenants God ever made with man, including the Sabbath commandment which is not excepted. While breaking it brings the curse, keeping its commandments marks those who heed the last warning, and Abraham and all his seed will keep this covenant in the new-earth inheritance of the world.
Duration to Thousand Generations
To a thousand generations denotes perpetuity, unlimited time from generation to generation, standing fast forever and ever unalterable. The commanded covenant therefore continues, has not expired, and was not abolished or caused to vanish with the first covenant. It calls all people in every generation to keep God's covenant continually. The phrase denotes perpetuity as in showing mercy to thousands of them that love God and keep His commandments, not limited to a literal number.
Counted father to son by the Bible rule in Genesis 11, Matthew 1, and Luke 3:23-38, six thousand years from creation do not give two hundred generations. Luke's reckoning gives only about 76 generations from Adam to Christ and hardly more than 100 generations to the present. About eight hundred generations are yet to come, which would require about twenty-four thousand years yet from 1868. The thousand generations are not less than a thousand but more, because 450 years after Moses the same period is still called a thousand generations.
The verse is invoked as the basis for claiming Israel must possess literal Canaan for many generations, with 950 more generations said to exceed 40,000 years, placing the world's end far in the future. The covenant made with Abraham, sworn to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob and Israel includes the promise to give the land of Canaan as inheritance. The thousand generations of the commanded covenant is a figurative poetic expression that must not be construed literally like prose. The use of thousand there matches the figurative use of thousand in other places, and everlasting and forever cannot be limited to less than one generation.
On one understanding the phrase means throughout their generations, in which sense all the commandments, statutes, judgments, even the entire law were commanded to a thousand generations. Since only about 100 generations have passed since creation, making the decalogue the thousand-generation covenant in a literal sense would require 900 generations yet, contradicting the belief that Christ's soon coming will cause generation to cease. On the contrary understanding a thousand generations expresses the duration of God's covenant word and does not mean throughout their generations, nor does it imply a span shorter than one thousand generations.
Inheritance, Prophecy, and Application
The promises made to Abraham concern heirship of the world, looking to the city with foundations, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the new earth where Abraham and all his seed will keep the everlasting covenant. That keeping includes the Sabbath commandment, which is not excepted from the covenant to be kept there.
The promise was not exhausted in the past but reaches its fulfillment beyond the resurrection in the new-earth state. Its duration to a thousand generations expresses the everlasting character of God's promise to Abraham, which was not abolished at Christ's death and remains the hope of those who believe in Christ and become Abraham's heirs.
The promise of the land is not restricted to Jews by descent but belongs to those who are Christ's. If the promise instead required possession of literal Canaan, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the other faithful of the old dispensation would have to be resurrected to receive it, and all Christ's followers would have to go to Canaan. The long period still to run was held by those who reckoned it literally to bear on the other coming of the Lord at the end of the world at the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, showing disciples should not be wise above what is written, nor be over-curious about hidden futurity, nor give undue attention to what is not practical. That reckoning counted by Luke only about 76 generations from Adam to Christ and hardly more than 100 generations to the present, leaving about 800 generations yet to come and perhaps more beyond that.
The reference to a thousand generations does not by itself show the end of the world is far in the future. Those who held the thousand generations to mean throughout their generations taught that in that sense all the commandments, statutes, judgments, even the entire law were commanded to a thousand generations, and that since only about 100 generations have passed since creation, making the decalogue that covenant in a literal sense would require it to be observed 900 generations yet, which contradicts the belief that the coming of Christ will soon cause generation to cease. The verse calls all people in every generation to be mindful of and keep God's covenant continually, presenting God's commanded word as enduring through a thousand generations. It supports showing sinners the unabolished law, including the sanctified rest day, so they can recognize sin and repent. Its moral law remains in force through all generations and into the eternal state, distinct from the ceremonial law of types and shadows.
The verse is part of the song of praise for bringing the ark to Jerusalem, calling all peoples to keep God's covenant in mind without ceasing. The covenant to be remembered is the one made with Abraham and sworn to Isaac and confirmed to Jacob as an everlasting covenant, with the promise of Canaan for an inheritance. The word commanded to a thousand generations is God's moral law, the Ten Commandments declared at Sinai and written on stone, which stands as the basis of that covenant and is distinct from the promise itself. To a thousand generations means perpetuity, that this commanded law stands fast forever and has not expired or been abolished. That law was known and kept by Abraham before Sinai as the condition of the promise, and all who belong to Christ by faith stand related to it just as Abraham did as his seed and heirs.
Words and Historical Setting
The verse belongs to the psalm David gave to be sung when the ark was brought to Jerusalem and set in the tent he had pitched for it, after it was brought from the house of Obededom. The section 1 Chronicles 16:8-22 shows it was composed as prayer and praise in a form to be sung. It calls God's people to keep His covenant continually in mind and presents His commanded word as enduring through a thousand generations.
The passage closely matches Psalm 105 almost word for word. 1 Chronicles 16:8-22 gives the first fifteen verses of Psalm 105, and 1 Chronicles 16:23-33 gives Psalm 96 with slight variations. The same portion is also found as Psalm 105:1-6.
The text is Hebrew poetry, a poetic outburst, with figurative expression that must not be pressed literally like prose. The use of thousand matches figurative uses elsewhere. Everlasting and forever cannot be limited to less than one generation.
The surrounding context gives Israel God's truth not for themselves alone but as His priests to the world to declare His glory among the nations so Gentiles might be converted. By so living the law that other nations would be won and by so proclaiming His glory that Gentiles would turn to Him, Israel did the same work later given to the Christian church. The result was that one law governed both Jew and Gentile who gave themselves to God.
Identity of Commanded Covenant
The covenant to be kept in mind always is the one made with Abraham, sworn to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob as a law and to Israel as an everlasting covenant. It includes the promise to give the land of Canaan for an inheritance. That patriarchal promise is distinguished from the covenant made at Sinai, because Israel are described as few in number and strangers in the land, whereas at Sinai they had become numerous. Its word extends through a thousand generations, showing a covenant lasting through all time, addressed to Abraham's seed as those of faith counted as his children through Christ, with the promise received through faith and not apart from obedience. The one moral law of God's government is that holy and commanded covenant.
The word commanded to a thousand generations is God's moral law, the Ten Commandments declared at Sinai and written on stone. Verse 17 confirms it to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, and that commanded period has not expired. It is a command binding across all generations, perpetual and encompassing every generation that will exist on earth, and it is the basis of all covenants God ever made. Its keeping meant obeying God's voice, and Abraham obeyed those commandments by faith. The land promise is included in that covenant yet joined with the commanded covenant as something distinct from it.
That everlasting covenant includes the Sabbath commandment, which therefore endures and was not excepted or abolished. The psalm was composed to be sung before the ark holding the Ten Commandments, showing the commandments did not originate at Sinai but were only there confirmed to the Hebrew people after already being known to Abraham and Isaac. The covenant was made with Abraham in the sense of being the condition of the promise made to him, which Abraham kept, including the Sabbath. God's unabolished law, including the sanctified rest day, must therefore be shown to sinners so they recognize sin and repent. Its promised duration is linked to the continuing Sabbath, with Abraham's promises looking to heirship of the world, the city with foundations, the heavenly Jerusalem and the new earth, where he and his seed will keep this covenant.
The commanded law and the promise are closely connected but entirely distinct things. The word refers to the law on which the promises were based, confirmed to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant as the Ten Commandments, not to the promise of Canaan itself. The covenant embraces both God's promise and the commanded law as its condition, with the land promise given because Abraham obeyed God's voice, charge, commandments, statutes and laws. The promise rested on God's faithful performance of His commands, with Abraham's obedience given as the reason the covenant was renewed with Isaac. To inherit the blessing of Abraham requires walking in the steps of Abraham's faith by keeping that law on which the blessing was based.
The thousand-generation covenant is not the old Sinaitic covenant made with Israel nor the new covenant made with the house of Israel and Judah. The Sinaitic covenant was a separate agreement in which God promised they would be a peculiar holy nation if they obeyed His voice and kept His covenant, the Ten Commandments, and the people answered that all the Lord had spoken they would do. The tables of the covenant belong to that enduring divine covenant, not to the first covenant. The law existed before the first covenant was made, and the object of both the first covenant and the second covenant was to secure obedience to it, continuing under the new covenant written by the Spirit in the fleshy tables of the heart instead of on tables of stone. The verse says nothing about the covenant of circumcision and makes no allusion to it, since circumcision was given and received as a rite and sign, called in Genesis 17:11 a token of the covenant between God and Abraham, so it cannot itself be the covenant commanded to a thousand generations.
Those who held otherwise taught that the covenant commanded to a thousand generations is the covenant of circumcision, not the covenant of Ten Commandments, and that there is no evidence it is the Ten Commandments.
Law, Promise, and Obedience
Abraham knew and kept God's charge, commandments, statutes and laws, including the Sabbath, long before Mount Sinai, and the Ten Commandments did not originate at Sinai but were there only confirmed to the Hebrew people, showing the covenant law was known and kept from Abraham onward as the condition of the promise. The commanded covenant is God's law confirmed to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, with the land promise included in that covenant yet distinct from the commanded word on which it rested. Abraham was favored because he obeyed God's voice, and the moral law of ten commandments is that holy and commanded covenant made with Abraham, sworn to Isaac, and established with Jacob and Israel. Those who held the lesser weight taught instead that although Abraham did have and obey commandments, statutes and laws and was favored for it, those were not in every respect the same as the law from Sinai. In that teaching the law as such came four hundred and thirty years after Abraham by Moses, Abraham never saw the Sabbath, the psalm is David's poetic outburst not to be pressed literally, and it rests only on the common elements shared by the laws Abraham had and the later Sinai law.
God's promises to Abraham and his seed, including Canaan for an everlasting possession, were based on conditions of obedience because Abraham obeyed God's voice, charge, commandments, statutes and laws. The word commanded for a thousand generations refers to the Ten Commandments, not to the promise of Canaan itself, for the covenant includes both the commanded law as its condition and the promise based on that condition. Keeping the commandments is thus connected with the promise of an everlasting inheritance, and receiving the promised inheritance depends on uprightness and sincerity developed by grace working obedience to His perfect law. To inherit the blessing of Abraham requires walking in the steps of Abraham's faith by keeping that law on which the blessing was based.
Since all, both Jews and Gentiles, broke that law and incurred its curse and penalty, all right to the blessing was forfeited and can be restored only through Christ redeeming from the curse of the law. Its curse rests on transgressors Jew and Gentile and stood between the sinner and the blessing of Abraham, which is identical with the blessing of the gospel. A transgressor of this law is not entitled to gospel blessing except as Christ redeems him when he comes by faith, and such faith does not make the law void nor make Christ a minister of sin. Transgressors under the curse of the law cannot inherit those blessings until the curse is removed, and believers now stand related to God's covenant commanded to a thousand generations just as Abraham did.
The covenant is the gospel covenant with God's Ten Commandments as its basis, described as a law or rule of action, and Abraham obeyed God's commandments by faith. The promise is received through faith, not apart from obedience to God's law, and the covenant was based on obedience by faith. It addresses Abraham's seed, understood as those who are of faith and are counted as his children through Christ, and those who belong to Christ through faith are counted as Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise fulfilled in Christ. Its duration expresses the everlasting character of God's promise to Abraham, which was not abolished at Christ's death and remains the hope of those who believe in Christ and become Abraham's heirs.
Transgressing its laws, changing its ordinance, and breaking this everlasting covenant brings the curse that devours the earth, with desolation by curse and burning upon its inhabitants. Indignation against this holy covenant set up the man of sin, the abomination that makes desolate. The everlasting covenant is the Ten Commandments, the basis of all covenants God ever made with man, including the Sabbath commandment which is not excepted. While breaking it brings the curse, keeping its commandments marks those who heed the last warning, and Abraham and all his seed will keep this covenant in the new-earth inheritance of the world.
Duration to Thousand Generations
To a thousand generations denotes perpetuity, unlimited time from generation to generation, standing fast forever and ever unalterable. The commanded covenant therefore continues, has not expired, and was not abolished or caused to vanish with the first covenant. It calls all people in every generation to keep God's covenant continually. The phrase denotes perpetuity as in showing mercy to thousands of them that love God and keep His commandments, not limited to a literal number.
Counted father to son by the Bible rule in Genesis 11, Matthew 1, and Luke 3:23-38, six thousand years from creation do not give two hundred generations. Luke's reckoning gives only about 76 generations from Adam to Christ and hardly more than 100 generations to the present. About eight hundred generations are yet to come, which would require about twenty-four thousand years yet from 1868. The thousand generations are not less than a thousand but more, because 450 years after Moses the same period is still called a thousand generations.
The verse is invoked as the basis for claiming Israel must possess literal Canaan for many generations, with 950 more generations said to exceed 40,000 years, placing the world's end far in the future. The covenant made with Abraham, sworn to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob and Israel includes the promise to give the land of Canaan as inheritance. The thousand generations of the commanded covenant is a figurative poetic expression that must not be construed literally like prose. The use of thousand there matches the figurative use of thousand in other places, and everlasting and forever cannot be limited to less than one generation.
On one understanding the phrase means throughout their generations, in which sense all the commandments, statutes, judgments, even the entire law were commanded to a thousand generations. Since only about 100 generations have passed since creation, making the decalogue the thousand-generation covenant in a literal sense would require 900 generations yet, contradicting the belief that Christ's soon coming will cause generation to cease. On the contrary understanding a thousand generations expresses the duration of God's covenant word and does not mean throughout their generations, nor does it imply a span shorter than one thousand generations.
Inheritance, Prophecy, and Application
The promises made to Abraham concern heirship of the world, looking to the city with foundations, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the new earth where Abraham and all his seed will keep the everlasting covenant. That keeping includes the Sabbath commandment, which is not excepted from the covenant to be kept there.
The promise was not exhausted in the past but reaches its fulfillment beyond the resurrection in the new-earth state. Its duration to a thousand generations expresses the everlasting character of God's promise to Abraham, which was not abolished at Christ's death and remains the hope of those who believe in Christ and become Abraham's heirs.
The promise of the land is not restricted to Jews by descent but belongs to those who are Christ's. If the promise instead required possession of literal Canaan, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the other faithful of the old dispensation would have to be resurrected to receive it, and all Christ's followers would have to go to Canaan. The long period still to run was held by those who reckoned it literally to bear on the other coming of the Lord at the end of the world at the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, showing disciples should not be wise above what is written, nor be over-curious about hidden futurity, nor give undue attention to what is not practical. That reckoning counted by Luke only about 76 generations from Adam to Christ and hardly more than 100 generations to the present, leaving about 800 generations yet to come and perhaps more beyond that.
The reference to a thousand generations does not by itself show the end of the world is far in the future. Those who held the thousand generations to mean throughout their generations taught that in that sense all the commandments, statutes, judgments, even the entire law were commanded to a thousand generations, and that since only about 100 generations have passed since creation, making the decalogue that covenant in a literal sense would require it to be observed 900 generations yet, which contradicts the belief that the coming of Christ will soon cause generation to cease. The verse calls all people in every generation to be mindful of and keep God's covenant continually, presenting God's commanded word as enduring through a thousand generations. It supports showing sinners the unabolished law, including the sanctified rest day, so they can recognize sin and repent. Its moral law remains in force through all generations and into the eternal state, distinct from the ceremonial law of types and shadows.