The scale of what the Lord is proposing is quite stunning. Our sun and all the planets in the solar system are in the Milky Way galaxy, kind of on the edge of it. Scientists estimate there are something like 100 billion stars other than our sun in the Milky Way galaxy. With our sun that makes 100 billion and one. Right now, astronomers estimate there are something between 100-200 billion galaxies alongside our Milky Way. And then the math gets hard. As Elizabeth Howell from space.com writes, “Sheer numbers is one problem — once the count gets into the billions, it takes a while to do the addition.”
And here the Lord is promising Abraham that he will have as many descendants as there are stars in the heavens. That’s a lot of descendants.
