In chapter 17, remember God's Spirit was unleashed for the world when Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross. The holy men of the Old Testament spoke to god directly because His Spirit was not a part of this world yet.
Regarding circumcision... because gods people if the past did not have His Spirit living inside of them, they had the law to live by in order to be reflect their relationship with the lord. Now that we do have His Spirit among us, we no longer need the law to live by but instead live by faith instead of law... “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.”
Galatians 6:15 NIV... baptism is now our formal way of showing the death of our old selves and us alive now through the Spirit to the public.
Notice how god commands Abraham to circumcise his foreskin.... something hidden under clothes constantly that no one else besides god will see but only Abraham will feel immensely... in the New Testament we are told to circumcise our hearts from the wickedness of the world and only keep the holy parts which are focused on Him.... no one else can see it, but only god knows it and we feel the change in our lives immensely.
In the first verse of chapter 17 it's important to recognize that the lord works with an identity-action relationship with us. Instead of saying "you need to be good because I am your God," the lord reverses that and says "I am god almighty.... be blameless." When identity comes first instead of our actions, it takes the pride away from our responsibilities. We are to be blameless because our lord tells us to..... not to be blameless in order to attempt to ever prove ourselves worthy of god. I have a book that explains this farther if I'm not making it clear. I'll be happy to lend it to you if you have time to read it!
Chapter 17 illustrates our promise from God of His land as an eternal possession if He is our God.
In verse 19, God told Sarah no, but had something better in mind. Sometimes Gods answer to us is also no... but with something better in mind for later.
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