And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the
flood
The river Euphrates, as before: or "your father, to wit, Abraham", as Noldius F24; he took him not only in a providential way, and brought him from the other side of the Euphrates, out of an idolatrous country and family, but he apprehended him by his grace, and called and converted him by it, and brought him to a spiritual knowledge of himself, and of the Messiah that should spring from his seed, and of the Covenant of grace, and of the blessings of it, and of his interest therein; which was a peculiar and distinguishing favour:
and led him throughout all the land of Canaan;
from the northern to the southern part of it; he led him as far as Shechem, where Israel was now assembled, and then to Bethel, and still onward to the south, ( Genesis 12:6-9 ) ; that he might have a view of the land his posterity was to inherit, and, by treading on it and walking through it, take as it were a kind of possession of it:
and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac;
he multiplied his seed by Hagar, by whom he had Ishmael, who begat twelve princes; and by Keturah, from whose sons several nations sprung; see ( Genesis 17:20 ) ( 25:1-4 ) ; and by Sarah, who bore him Isaac in old age, in whom his seed was called; and from whom, in the line of Jacob, sprung the twelve tribes of Israel, and which seed may be chiefly meant; and the sense is, that he multiplied his posterity after he had given him Isaac, and by him a numerous seed; so Vatablus: Ishmael is not mentioned, because, as Kimchi observes, he was born of an handmaid; but Abarbinel thinks only such are mentioned, who were born in a miraculous manner, when their parents were barren, as in this and also in the next instance.