"... Genesis associates the “seed” promise of Genesis 15:5 most immediately with the patriarch’s natural descendants, a select group of which would inherit the promised land (e.g. Genesis 28:13–14). Elsewhere, references to the “stars” and “dust” are similarly limited in focus to the promise of land and to the old covenant nation of Israel (Exodus 32:13; Deuteronomy 1:10; 10:22; Nehemiah 9:23)—the land that would be lost and the nation that would dwindle to a small remnant through the curse of exile (Deuteronomy 28:62; compare Isaiah 48:18–19). Furthermore, later Old Testament texts, especially from Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah, explicitly restrict “seed” language to biological lineage when associated with the old covenant age. Nevertheless, we will see that Genesis itself and several Old Testament prophetic texts anticipate the expansion of “the seed of Abraham” to include those redeemed from both ethnic Israel and the nations during the eschatological age of the Messiah ..."