Nehemiah 9:7-8

YHWH's Choice Of, And Covenant With, Abram/Abraham (Nehemiah 9:7).

Not only had YHWH created all things, however, but He had also out of all the nations chosen their forefather Abram, adopted him as His own (changing his name to Abraham), and had given to him and to his seed the promise of the land of Canaan. And they acknowledged that He had performed what He had promised. He had given them possession of the land. As they will go on to say, it was not His fault that it had gone badly wrong.

Nehemiah 9:7

“You are YHWH the God, who chose Abram, and brought him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name of Abraham, and found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his seed, and have performed your words, for you are righteous.”

The emphasis was now on the fact that it was YHWH Who, as the Creator and Ruler of all the world, and as the covenant-fulfilling Righteous One, had called and chosen Abram. He had brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees (in other words out of Babylonia, just as He had brought them out of Babylonia), had sovereignly given him his new name Abraham as an indication that he was now God's chosen one, (just as they bore the name of Israel His chosen one), and had found him faithful before Him (something that they now recognised should be true of them). Note the emphasis on God's election, and on Abram's God-given name (Genesis 17:5; not emphasised elsewhere outside Genesis), and on Abraham's responsive faith and obedience (his heart was faithful before Him, which may well reflect Genesis 15:6).

As a consequence God had made a covenant with him to give to him and his seed the land of Canaan, something which He had performed because He was ‘righteous' (conformed rightly to His covenant promises). And their tradition saw the land promised as having successfully been given to his seed (1 Kings 4:21), in spite of their previous rebellions. There is a clear implication in this that the returnees were expectant that God would similarly consider His sovereign choice and covenant with regard to His chosen people, would show covenant love towards those who bore a new name given by God (Israel), and would perform His word before them, but this is not actually stated.

The description given here also assumes a knowledge of the tradition behind Genesis 11:31 in respect of Ur of the Chaldees, and the traditions which spoke of Canaan as ‘the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite' (compare Deuteronomy 7:1, rather than Genesis 15:19). The ‘list of nations' depicted here is not a direct citation. It is not found in this order in the books of Moses, and here omits the Hivites. But it was clearly based on a memory of a known tradition.