Neither shall thy name be any more called Abram
Which signifies an "high father", which name he bore for many
years before he was the father of anyone:
but thy name shall be Abraham:
with all addition of the letter (h) inserted into it, and makes the last syllable two,
"raham": which word in the Arabic language, as Hottinger
F7 observes, signifies "numerous" {h};
so that with this addition his name Abraham may be interpreted,
the father of a numerous offspring; and with this agrees the
reason of it, as follows:
for a father of many nations have I made thee;
not that he was so already in fact, but in the purpose and
promise of God, ( Romans 4:17 ) ; Abraham
has not only been the father of many nations, in a literal sense,
as before observed, but in a mystical sense, of the whole world;
that is, of all in it that believe, whether Jews or Gentiles; and
so the Rabbins F9 interpret it: at first, they say, he
was the father of Aram, and therefore his name was called Abram,
but now he is the father of the whole world, and therefore called
Abraham; and so Maimonides F11 himself says, quoting this
passage,
``behold he is the father of the whole world, who are gathered under the wings of the Shechinah.''