What is the meaning of the union-covenant God made with Abraham? Of course, when answering this question, we usually immediately remember the promises God gave Abraham about the future of his tribe, which was to grow, become a people, and create its own state in the land through which Abraham had to wander. But is that the main thing? When Abraham meets God, he hears astonishing words: I am my covenant with you, God says to Abraham. Not the promised land, not the Torah, not the commandments, but God Himself becomes the pledge of the covenant that has been made.

And this is not surprising, because everything else depends on Him and is determined by Him. A covenant is, above all, a relationship, and no promises can guarantee relationships, even promises fulfilled to the end. Receiving the land and creating a state do not ensure closeness with God; they can be a consequence, but not a cause. Even the Torah, the commandments that centuries later would be given to the people through Moses, guarantee nothing by themselves. After all, the Torah too can be emptied out, reduced to formalism and legalism that brings no one closer to God and does not foster a living relationship with Him. Only God Himself can guarantee that the union-covenant between Him and His people will remain unshakable.

Of course, much also depends here on the people themselves, since a covenant involves at least two parties. But if anyone can repair what appears beyond repair, restore relationships that seem irretrievably destroyed, it is only the One who initiated the union-covenant. And in this is hope. Hope for the Kingdom, for the Messiah, and for salvation.

Today's passage contains the story of another meeting with God, one very important for Abraham. Here God for the first time reveals to Abraham the name by which He will be called for several centuries, up to the period of the Exodus. This name is El-Shaddai, "God of power" (v. 1). The translation "God Almighty" can formally be considered correct, but it does not reflect the full depth of the meaning of the name revealed to Abraham. For the point here is not only that the God of Abraham can do everything. The point is power, the power everyone in antiquity knew about, the supernatural power that lies at the foundation of the universe, hidden behind nature and manifesting itself in the most varied natural phenomena, from a lightning strike to a spring bursting forth in a dry steppe. The ancients believed that gods, spirits, and even some people, such as leaders, priests, sorcerers, and magicians, possessed this power. But no one ever claimed to be its only source and bearer. Meanwhile God, turning to Abraham, speaks of Himself precisely as "God of power," the God who is its only source and steward. Such a God, of course, cannot fail to be the Creator of the world and its only Sovereign.

But in this meeting there was something else, no less important. It is no accident that precisely now Abram becomes Abraham, and Sarai becomes Sarah; their former names were different (vv. 5, 15). A change of name always, among all peoples, meant a serious inner change. It meant that the former person who bore the old name no longer existed; in his place another, new person had appeared, and this new person bore a new name. Evidently, together with the name of his God, Abraham learns something else, perhaps something more important. But this "something" apparently belongs among those inner changes that cannot be expressed in words, and the sacred author only hints at the change that took place in Abraham by mentioning his new name.

Only now does God fulfill His promise about an heir (vv. 6-8, 16-21). It could not have been otherwise, for Abraham's heir had to be not simply the leader of his tribe, but also the leader of God's people. Among nomadic peoples in those times, a leader usually also fulfilled the role of chief priest; responsibility for relations with the higher powers rested on him. Abraham's heir therefore had to become, like Abraham himself, a man of God, a leader not only military and political, but also spiritual. And for this, both Abraham himself and Sarah had to live through a meeting with God and spiritual renewal, becoming different people.

One cannot enter into covenant with God and remain the same. He will unfailingly transform and renew spiritually those whom He has called after Himself, so as to make them worthy of the covenant that has been made.

Of the several meetings between Abraham and God mentioned in Genesis, only two are described in detail. The second of them is about Abraham and Sarah receiving new names, and about God beginning to act: it is during this second meeting that He tells Abraham that a son will be born to him in a year. God finally enters directly into his life and into the life of his family. The birth of a son is understandable, since it had been promised to Abraham earlier. But what does the change of name mean? In antiquity such a change, if not always, then very often had a dedicatory, initiatory meaning. The same is true of circumcision, mentioned here as well in the story of the second theophany to Abraham described in detail in Genesis.

Many biblical scholars think that the account of circumcision is a late insertion into the text, the result of an ancient tradition, once written down, passing through the hands of editors from a priestly milieu. Some concepts characteristic of that milieu can indeed be found in the description of the second theophany, but still the account of circumcision, even if it was added to the ancient tradition later, proved surprisingly appropriate: circumcision really had been an initiatory rite from very early times. At first these were age-related initiations, and later religious ones as well. Most of all, circumcision in Abraham's time was indeed understood by him and by his tribesmen as a sign of a kind of dedication to God.

Circumcision alone was not enough. A change of name presupposes that the person himself changes, that he becomes different, new, while the former, old person disappears and gives way to the new. And it is no accident that God calls Himself by the name El Shaddai, "God of strength" (usually this name is translated so that El Shaddai becomes "God Almighty"). The point is the strength that all people in antiquity revered, because the world is upheld by it and without it no life, and no existence at all, is possible.

Gods, spirits, and human beings could be bearers of this strength, but not its source. When Abraham's God calls Himself El Shaddai, God of strength, He is speaking precisely of this. He points to Himself as the source of the strength by which the world is upheld. It is the strength that changes Abraham and Sarah themselves, making them different people who bear new names. This is spiritual formation: it is impossible without inward change, and also without a meeting with God.