לתשובת המינים

Genesis 22:18, 26:4

How are the nations blessed by Abraham's seed?

Acts 3:25

"And all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your seed"

Peter quotes this verse during a sermon recorded in the book of Acts, but doesn’t really expound upon it, nor does it seem incredibly essential for his point. However Peter does seem to understand the seed as referring to the Nazarene, and I know that this is the interpretation given by many Christians.

First it is important to note that the translation of the NIV, and probably most Christian translations, is inadequate. Their translation implies that the nations will be blessed by Abraham’s seed. As you can see from the translation above that the nations will bless themselves. The verb וְהִתְבָּרְכוּ is in the Hith'Pa'el command form. Hith'Pa’el is reflexive which means that they perform the action on themselves.1 It is therefore the nations doing the blessing, not the seed (i.e. the Nazarene, in Christian thought). The nations will bless themselves by the name of the seed. As Rashi comments on 26:4, "A man says to his son may your seed be like the seed of Isaac".

Secondly, this applies to Abraham many offspring. We established earlier that the word זַרְעֲךָ, seed, can and does refer to the plural offspring of Abraham. This is also the case in our texts in question. If you look to the preceding sentences of each of the texts this will be confirmed. Verse 17 of chapter 22 says, "I will surely bless you and make your seed as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore."

The word for seed in this verse is זַרְעֲךָ. Earlier in verse 4, Chapter 26 it says I will make your seed as numerous as the stars in the sky. Again the word for seed is זַרְעֲךָ. So since the context of these verses establishes the זַרְעֲךָ of our texts as plural, it clearly cannot refer to the singular individual the Nazarene.

Rather it refers to the Jewish people, Am Yisrael.