“I shall surely bless you and I shall surely multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand that are on the seashore; and your seed will take possession of the gate of his enemies. And by means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves due to the fact that you have listened to my voice.”​—Genesis 22:16-18.

5. Regarding the promised seed of Genesis 3:15, what was revealed in God’s covenant with Abraham?

⁵ Because of Abraham’s great faith, Jehovah had earlier made with him a covenant that took effect in 1943 B.C.E. (Genesis 12:4, 7; Galatians 3:17) Some 50 years later, after having seen the tested quality of Abraham’s faith, even in connection with Isaac, Jehovah repeated and enlarged upon this covenant promise, as recorded in Genesis chapter 22. This fully expressed Abrahamic covenant supplied details as to the outworking of God’s wonderful purposes. It showed that the seed of deliverance promised in Eden would appear on earth as a descendant of Abraham, that it would be a multiple seed (the precise number not being revealed at that time), that it would vanquish its enemies and, finally, that by means of that seed all nations of the earth would get blessings for themselves.​—Genesis 3:15.

For some 2,000 years even the number of those who would make up this secondary ‘seed of Abraham’ remained unknown to humans, like “the stars of the heavens” or “the grains of sand that are on the seashore.” Then, toward the end of the first century C.E., the apostle John heard “the number of those who were sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the sons of Israel.”​—Genesis 22:17; Revelation 7:4.