Promises like this one Gen 17:
5Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
6And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
7And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
8And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
The possession of the Land of Canaan for an everlasting Inheritance, this promise is fulfilled in Christ
Gal 3:16.
Abraham had been given spiritual understanding, He as well as Isaac and Jacob, Heirs together with Him of the same promise [ heb 11:9] did not believe this inheritance of Canaan was literal land , but Spiritual and they did not believe it to be a centralized location or plot of land [ like those deceived to believe today] but that it was the whole world.
That Abraham knew the promise to be heavenly or spiritual look at heb 11:
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob,
the heirs with him of the same promise:
10
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
11Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
15And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
16
But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
There is just no way anyone who is taught of God can believe in light of this passage that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were trusting God for a literal plot of land in the middle east as their everlasting possession, that is absolutely insane.
That He [ Abraham] knew it was of a much wider scope than a piece of real estate over in modern Israel, but that this possession encompassed the World lets look at rom 4:
13For the promise,
that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
You see that ? Heir of the World, not of a literal piece of land. This promise to be the Heir of the world, could not be anything else than God's promise to Abraham and His seed after Him [ gen 17:7], but the everlasting possession of Canaan, a Heavenly Country, and notice how Gen 17 and Heb 11 correlate together as to the promise of the everlasting possession of Canaan.
Gen 17:
8And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
And heb 11:
16
But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
So it is clear to me, those of you who believe the land of Canaan promised in gen 17:8 was a literal piece of land, you have been deceived , and guess by who ? Who is the great deceiver ? Those who believe such, clearly have not the Faith of Abraham, nor the Faith of Christ.