Genesis 15:1-21--The Abrahamic Covenant

​Daily Readings

• Day 1: Genesis 15:1-21
• Day 2: Genesis 16:1-16
• Day 3: Genesis 17:1-27
• Day 4: Genesis 18:1-15
• Day 5: Genesis 18:16–19:38
• Day 6: Psalm 105

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Genesis 15
World English Bible

15 After these things Yahweh’s word came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

2 Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, since I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Abram said, “Behold, you have given no children to me: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”

4 Behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come out of your own body will be your heir.” 5 Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So your offspring will be.” 6 He believed in Yahweh, who credited it to him for righteousness. 7 He said to Abram, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.”

8 He said, “Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will inherit it?”

9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He brought him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn’t divide the birds. 11 The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

12 When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him. 13 He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years. 14 I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great wealth; 15 but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.” 17 It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I have given this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

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Abram passed the test to put his faith and trust in the LORD for the blessing and protection He gave instead of the "blessing" and "protection" of earthly kings that would come at a cost (probably of those kings trying to make Abram their vassal).  The LORD appears to Abram after all this and tells him not to be afraid (Abram must have looked strong and confident on the outside but was probably a little afraid on the inside--a real, "What did I just do?" moment).  The LORD promises Abram that He is indeed Abram's shield and exceedingly great reward.

This then sparks a conversation between the LORD and Abram--Abram can wait for land and even possessions.  He's okay to not even receive those in his lifetime, but he has a hard time with the fact that it looks right now like he is going to have no descendants to inherit that blessing.  He asks the LORD quite directly if he is going to have to make his chief servant his heir (he seems to have learned that Lot is not the one that is going to be his heir, even though I think that was his original intent of bringing Lot along).  The LORD answers that Eliezer of Damascus will not be his heir.  He will have an heir that will be of his own flesh and blood, and that if he can count the starts in the sky, then, and only then, will he be able to count the number of descendants that he will one day have.

Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.  This is a really important verse in Scripture that we should not just gloss over.  It is cited by Paul in Romans 4:3, and Galatians 3:6 and by James the half-brother of Jesus in James 2:23 to explain how we are saved by faith, but that faith is accompanied by actions that demonstrate that faith is genuine.  I do not doubt the text that Abram believed, so it was by faith that Abram asked for a sign to know that this promise was certainly going to come to pass.  He was about to get exactly what he asked for, but it again has great gospel implications how God chose to answer this question.  Typically, when someone asked someone else to "cut" a covenant (you'll see why it's called that in just a minute), there is a declaration of "shall" and "shall not" statements made by each side along with a list of positive benefits for keeping the covenant and negative consequences for breaking the covenant along with terms given for how and when the covenant can be amended or nullified and at what point the covenant can be considered broken.  It was the tradition of that time for animals to be cut and split in two and for the two parties to join hands and walk through the halves of the cut animals to say "This is what I expect to have happen to me if I break covenant with you."  God tells Abram to get the animals and cut them as prescribed and to lay out the pieces.  Abram probably thinks he knows what is coming next, but God does something great and beautiful.

The LORD puts Abram to sleep and allows him to see the LORD as a smoking pot and flaming torch.  The LORD alone walks through the pieces of the cut animals and makes no conditions on Abram.  The LORD declares this to be an everlasting covenant that can never be amended, revoked or cancelled.  Abram is told much of what is going to happen to his descendants in the future, including the time they would spend as slaves in Egypt, but the LORD would deliver them (this is what the Israelites were going through in the moment when they received this book from Moses about their history that had been lost).  Even as slaves to foreigners, the LORD would be with them and He would remember this covenant, even if they failed to remember it.  He would cause them to come out a nation and a people to have great wealth.  It would not be until the fourth generation that they would arrive in the Promised Land and start to possess it as their own.  All this, the LORD would allow to happen because of the severe wickedness of the Canaanites and needing to remove His people away from them until their wickedness reached the point where it was time for judgment to be poured out on them, and then the LORD would use His people to judge them and drive them out of the Land that had been given to Abram and his descendants by eternal covenant.

We typically only think of this covenant being for the Land of Canaan where the Israelites would be given their allotments for an eternal possession and inheritance.  That's only a fraction of the Land that was given to Abram and his descendants (and the Old Testament makes clear that the entirety of this promise passed to Isaac and Jacob--while there were other Abrahamic peoples, none of them were promised any of this Land).  The boundaries are drawn by the LORD:

 “I have given this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

Everything from the Nile River in Egypt (including the land of Goshen) to the Great River (the Euphrates River).  These boundaries will be established a little more clearly in other passages like Exodus 23:31 and Deuteronomy 11:24 as well as Joshua 1:3-4 (by this point it would be clear that the entirety of the land promised to Abram belongs to the Israelites).  There would also be clearer markers given for the Land they were to live in in passages like Numbers 34:1-12 and the vision of the fullness of the Promised Land that is yet to come in Ezekiel 47:13-20.  Israel has never fully possessed all of the Land God promised to them--not even in the days of King Solomon.  A greater king than Solomon is coming that will be able to give His people everything the LORD has promised to them.  This is part of the Messianic Promise that the Israelites still long to have fulfilled.