James 2:23

And the scripture was fulfilled The use of the words commonly applied to the fulfilment of prophetic utterances implies that St James saw in the statement of Genesis 15:6 that which, though true at the time, was yet also an anticipation of what was afterwards to be realised more fully. Of that prophecy, as of others, there were, to use Bacon's phrase, "springing and germinant accomplishments." What was then reckoned as righteousness continued to be reckoned, as with an ever-increasing value, which reached its maximumin the sacrifice of the son who was the heir of the promise.

and he was called the Friend of God The words seem to refer, in the English version of the Bible, to 2 Chronicles 20:7 and Isaiah 41:8, where the term "my friend" is applied to Abraham by Jehovah. Singularly enough, however, the term is not found in the Hebrew, nor in the LXX. version, with which St James, writing in Greek, must have been familiar, and which gives, in the first of the two passages, "Abraham thy beloved," and in the second, "whom I loved." The distinctive title first appears in Philo's citation of Genesis 18:1 (De resipisc. Noë, c. 11), and, after St James, in Clement of Rome (Epist. ad Cor. I. 10). It was probably the current phrase in the Jewish schools, and has descended to the Arabs, with whom the name of El Khalil Allah(the friend of God), or more briefly El Khalil, has practically superseded that of Abraham. Even Hebron, as the city of Abraham, and so identified with him, has become El Khalil, "the friend."