Genesis 17:8
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. 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 verse records God's call for Abraham to leave his idolatrous countrymen with the promise of the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession. It renews God's covenant with Abraham after he had lived nearly twenty-five years in Canaan. It promises to give all the land of Canaan to Abraham and to his seed after him for an everlasting possession, and promises that God will be their God. The covenant promises made to Abraham in the verse were confirmed to Isaac.
In the verse God accepts Abraham and his seed as His peculiar treasure, devoted to His service and separated from idolaters. Circumcision is given in the covenant as its token and seal and as a sign that Abraham's descendants were set apart from other nations and pledged to keep its conditions. Circumcision is the seal of the righteousness of faith. The pledge on their part required fulfilling the covenant's conditions, especially refusing marriage with the heathen lest they lose reverence for God and His holy law and be tempted into sinful practices and idolatry. Their failure to remain separate led them into idolatry, but God did not abandon them in Egypt because of His covenant with Abraham.
The promises in the verse made the birthright more than an inheritance of wealth: it carried spiritual pre-eminence, religious leadership of the family, and a place in the line through which the Redeemer would come. The heir of these promises was bound to serve God and obey His requirements in family and public life. The heritage promised in the verse is not in this world, for neither Abraham nor his son nor his son's son received it in this life. Abraham had no possession in the earth, no, not so much as to set his foot on, and when he desired a burial place for his dead he had to buy it of the Canaanites, so his sole possession in the land of promise was that rock-hewn tomb in the cave of Machpelah. Though Abraham possessed great substance, he used it to the glory of God and the good of his fellow men and did not look upon this world as his home.