The Bible makes some pretty outlandish statements.  Genesis 22:17 is an example.  Abraham is promised in that verse that his posterity will be as numerous as the sands upon the seashore.  That statement is so outlandish as to be laughable—except that it’s true!

Abraham’s daughter-in-law was Rebekah.  As her family said their goodbyes, and sent her off to become the wife of a man they’d never meet, they left a blessing upon her.  They said, “Be thou the mother of thousands of millions.”  (Gen. 24:60).

One thousand million is one billion.  In her lifetime Rebekah only produced a set of twin boys.  One of the boys is your ancestor.  I once made a calculation about when Rebekah lived, how many generations ago that was, and what would be a reasonable estimate of the number of people who have since issued from her.  I came up with two billion.  That’s two thousands of millions.  Rebekah’s outlandish marriage blessing and prophecy stands fulfilled.

Rebekah was the wife of one of Abraham’s nine sons.  Abraham easily has many billions of descendants now.

How many grains of sand are upon the seashore?

How many stars are in the sky?

1. Russell Ballard said in the last general conference (April 2013) that it is estimated that there are 200 billion galaxies in the universe. (I don’t know how astronomers can be so bold as to publish such a number; they can’t even see all the galaxies, nor know how far the universe reaches).

Each galaxy may contain many billions of stars.  It’s estimated that our Milky Way Galaxy contains from 200 to 400 billion stars.  Other galaxies contain from as few as 10 million stars to more than a trillion.

It’s estimated that there are 70 sextillion stars in the universe.  That’s 70 thousand million million million.  (That’s a number that not even the U.S. budget office can wrap itself around).

“70 sextillion—more stars in the sky, scientists say, than there are grains of sand in every beach and desert on Earth.”  (Neal A. Maxwell, The Ensign, November 2003, pg. 100, quoting Allison M. Heinrichs and Carl Sagan).

The numbers here are mind boggling, yet Abraham is on his way toward fulfillment of the Bible’s outlandish prophecy.  What is even more outlandish is that the Abrahamic Covenant is our covenant.  There’s real food for thought here.