THE ETERNAL GOD --
Genesis 21:33 says, “Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.”
Abraham called upon the Everlasting or Eternal God, which in Hebrew is Yahweh El Olam. El is the proper name of God and is interchangeable with Elohim, which is His title. El is the plural God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is Yahweh, the Eternal God, the unchanging God. The One who WAS, IS and ALWAYS will be. He is Yahweh, the Great I AM! He is NOT bound by time… He just simply IS, and He is always NOW.
Abraham already knew Him as Yahweh El Elyon, Yahweh, the Most High God, the Possessor of heaven and earth… Yahweh, the Creator of heaven and earth. And he already knew Him as El Shaddai. In Genesis 17, Yahweh had appeared to him as I AM El Shaddai, the I AM ALL Sufficient One. Now, here at Beersheba, Abraham declared his God to be Yahweh, the Eternal God. And it was here upon this revelation of Yahweh the Eternal God, that he planted a tamarisk tree. There is great prophetic significance in that. The tamarisk is a slow-growing tree and has to be well cared for.
You don’t plant a tamarisk tree for yourself. You plant it for the generations to come.
By planting the tamarisk tree, Abraham is proclaiming that God is the ETERNAL God to those who would come after him. He is declaring to ALL future generations the IS-ness and NOW-ness of God …. the God who is not bound by time and space!
We, as well, have a responsibility to declare the Eternal-ness (the IS-ness and NOW-ness) of God to future generations. Declaring that He is unchanging…. and that nothing we could ever do OR not do can change Him or change His eternal covenant with us!
