ספר בראשית

Genesis ‎18,3. “do not just pass by your servant.” Avraham was ‎overcome with a sense of prophecy as soon as he saw these men. ‎We have a tradition (Rashi, Baba Metzia 114) according to ‎which the prophet Elijah was a priest; and that when Pinchas ‎avenged the insult to G’d (Numbers 25,1-9, 11-15) perpetrated by ‎Zimri and the people at Shittim, his soul linked up with those of ‎Nadav and Avihu (who had been priests) and the letters in the ‎word ‎נא‎ in our verse allude to the first letters in the names ‎נדב, ‏אביהו‎, so that he became henceforth identified with the prophet ‎Elijah, who similarly was jealous on behalf of G’d. The words: ‎תעבור מעל עבדך‎, “pass by your servant,” are an allusion to Elijah’s ‎traditional role of briefly attending every circumcision of a Jewish ‎baby, as a symbol of the importance of that covenant between ‎the Jewish people and G’d.‎