Galatians 3:16

16. To Abraham… promises made In Genesis xv the covenant was made by God with Abraham, under the regular forms and ceremonies of a contract or treaty, to give him the inheritance of Canaan.

To seeds, as of many To this many difficulties are raised. For, first, it is plain that the singular Seed is used as a noun of multitude, and so is of many. It is so used in Genesis 17:4-5, and by Paul himself, Galatians 3:29. Second, the plural, seeds, is never used to signify posterity, but only in the literal vegetable sense. To this we may reply, first, that Paul’s statement, that the Seed is Christ, or Messiah, is literally true. For it was in the Seed, Christ, that really and truly the nations were to be blessed, and by the Jewish race only secondarily and from him. So to him the inheritance and the promise, Galatians 3:19, were truly given, and to the tribes only as means for his appearance. So that the apostle’s limitation of the Seed to him has a primal truth. Next it is to be noted that all Paul says is, that the singular form of the word Seed enables us congruously to read this limitation of the term to Christ into the text of the promise. If it were plural, seeds, or any equivalent term, as children, or, descendants, this could not be done. The very fact that Paul so soon as Galatians 3:29 uses the singular, seed, as equivalent to heirs, shows that he does not mean that the plural form is necessary to a plural meaning.