17:34 To this day. See note 1 Kin. 8:8.

the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. The relationship between God and the people He elected was the covenant ratified on Mount Sinai (v. 35; Ex. 19–24) and renewed on the plains of Moab (Deuteronomy). Being an Israelite was in the end not an ethnic classification, but a religious one, to belong to the God of the covenant (Ex. 12:38; Deut. 26:5; Rom. 9:8).