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Abram asked God to strengthen his faith. In response Yahweh promised to give the patriarch innumerable descendants. This led Abram to request some further assurance that God would indeed do what He promised. God graciously obliged him by formalizing the promises and making a covenant. In the giving of the covenant God let Abram know symbolically that enslavement would precede the fulfillment of the promise.
From chapters 12 through 14 issues involving God's promise to Abram concerning land have predominated. However from chapter 15 on tensions arising from the promise of descendants become central in the narrative.
Abram was legitimately concerned about God's provision of the Promised Land as well as his need for an heir. He had declined the gifts of the king of Sodom and had placed himself in danger of retaliation from four powerful Mesopotamian kings. God had proven Himself to be Abram's "shield"(defender) in the battle just passed. Now He promised to be the same in the future and to give Abram great "reward."This was God's fourth revelation to Abram.
This episode consists of two scenes that are parallel: Yahweh's word (vv. 1, 7), Abram's word (vv. 2-3, 8), Yahweh's reaction (vv. 4, 9), a public act (vv. 5, 16-17), Yahweh's word (vv. 5, 13-16), and a conclusion (vv. 6, 18-21).470
15:1 "The word of the LORD came.' This is a phrase typically introducing revelation to a prophet, e.g., 1 Sam 15:10; Hos 1:1; but in Genesis it is found only here and in v 4 of this chapter. Abraham is actually called a prophet in 20:7. It prepares the way for the prophecy of the Egyptian bondage in vv 13-16."471
Visions were one of the three primary methods of divine revelation in the Old Testament along with dreams and direct communications (cf. Num. 12:6-8).
"By his bold intervention and rescue of Lot, Abram exposes himself to the endemic plague of that region--wars of retaliation.472This fear of retaliation is the primary reason for the divine oracle of 15.1 which could be translated: Stop being afraid, Abram. I am a shield for you, your very great reward.' Yahweh's providential care for Abram is to be seen as preventing the Mesopotamian coalition from returning and settling the score."473
15:2-3 Abram used a new title for God calling Him Master (Adonai) Yahweh. Abram had willingly placed himself under the sovereign leadership of God.
"A childless couple adopts a son, sometimes a slave, to serve them in their lifetime and bury and mourn them when they die. In return for this service they designate the adopted son as the heir presumptive. Should a natural son be born to the couple after such action, this son becomes the chief heir, demoting the adopted son to the penultimate position."474
15:4 Abram assumed that since he was old and childless and since Lot had not returned to him, the heir God had promised him would be his chief servant Eliezer.
". . . under Hurrian law a man's heir would be either his natural-born son--a direct heir--or, in the absence of any natural-born son, an indirect heir, who was an outsider adopted for the purpose. In the latter case, the adopted heir was required to attend to the physical needs of his parents' during their lifetime."475
God assured Abram that the descendants He had promised would come through a "natural-born son,"not an adopted heir (cf. 12:7; 13:15-16).
15:5 To the promise of descendants as innumerable as the dust (physical descendants from the land? cf. 13:16) God added another promise that Abram's seed would be as countless as the stars. This is perhaps a promise of Abram's spiritual children, those who would have faith in God as he did. Abram may not have caught this distinction since he would have more naturally taken the promise as a reference to physical children.
15:6-7 Moses did not reveal exactly what Abram believed for which God reckoned him righteous. In Hebrew the conjunction wawwith the imperfect tense verb following indicates consecutive action and best translates as "Then."When wawoccurs with the perfect tense verb following, as we have here, it indicates disjunctive action and could read, "Now Abram had believed . . ."(cf. 1:2). God justified Abram (i.e., declared him righteous) because of his faith, evidently when he left Ur. Abram's normal response to God's words to him was to believe them. Abram had trusted the person of God previously, but he evidently had not realized that God would give him an heir from his own body (v. 4). Now he accepted this promise of God also (cf. Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23).
"In the middle of this chapter occurs what is perhaps the most important verse in the entire Bible: Genesis 15:6. In it, the doctrine of justification by faith is set forth for the first time. This is the first verse in the Bible explicitly to speak of (1) faith,' (2) righteousness,' and (3) justification.'"476
Trust in God's promise is what results in justification in any age. The promises of God (content of faith) vary, but the object of faith does not. It is always God.477Technically Abram trusted in a Person and hoped in a promise. To justify someone means to declarethat person righteous, not to makehim or her righteous (cf. Deut. 25:1). Justification expresses a legal verdict.
Moses probably recorded Abraham's faith here because it was foundational for making the Abrahamic Covenant. God made this covenant with a man who believed in Him.
James 2:23 suggests that Abram was justified when he offered Isaac (ch. 22). James meant that Abram's work of willingly offering Isaac justified him (i.e., declared him righteous). His work manifested his righteous condition. In Genesis 15 God declared Abram righteous, but in Genesis 22 Abram's works declared (testified) that he was righteous.
"In the sacrifice of Isaac was shown the full meaning of the word (Gen. 15:6) spoken 30 . . . years before in commendation of Abraham's belief in the promise of a child. . . . It was the willing surrender of the child of promise, accounting that God was able to raise him up from the dead,' which fully proved his faith."478
15:8 Abram requested a sign, a supernatural verification that God would indeed fulfill the distant promise.
"Requests for signs were not unusual in Old Testament times. They were not so much to discover God's will as to confirm it."479
God responded by making a covenant with Abram (vv. 9-12, 17).
"Only after he had been counted righteous by his faith could Abraham enter into God's covenant."480
"Four rites are mentioned [in the Old Testament] as parts of the covenant making event. They are the setting of a stone or a group of stones, the taking of an oath, the sacrifice of animals, and/or a communal meal."481
This rite (the sacrifice of animals) normally involved two parties dividing an animal into two equal parts, joining hands, and passing between the two parts (cf. Jer. 34:18-19). On this occasion, however, God alone passed between the parts indicating that Abram had no obligations to fulfill to receive the covenant promises (v. 17).
15:9-10 The animals used were standard types of sacrificial animals and may have represented the nation of Israel, "a kingdom of priests"(Exod. 19:6).
"The use of five different kinds of sacrificial animals on this occasion underlines the solemnity of the occasion."482
"We suggest that the animal cutting in Gen. 15:9-10, 17 is designated a covenant ratification sacrifice' . . . The killing and sectioning of the animals by Abram is the sacrificial preparatiofor the subsequent divine ratificatioof the covenant by Yahweh who in passing between the pieces irrevocably pledges the fulfillment of his covenant promise to the patriarch. The initiative of Yahweh remains in the foreground both in the instruction for the covenant ratification sacrifice' (Gen. 15:9-10) and in the act of berit[covenant] ratification itself (v. 17). . . .
"Gen. 15:7-21 contains covenant-making in which Yahweh binds himself in promise to Abram in the passing through the animals in the act of covenant ratification. Abram had prepared the animals for this ratification act through the covenant ratification sacrifice' which involved both killing and sectioning of the victims. Certain basic features of this covenant ratification rite are most closely paralleled only in aspects of the function of animal rites of the extant early second millennium treaty texts."483
15:11 "The birds of prey are unclean (Lev. 11:13-19; Deut. 14:12-18) and represent foreign nations (Ezek. 17:3, 7; Zech. 5:9), most probably Egypt. . . . Thus Abram driving off the birds of prey from the dismembered pieces portrays him defending his descendants from the attacks of foreign nations. Genesis itself tells of a number of attacks by foreigners against the children of Abraham (e.g. chs. 26, 34) and it already looks forward to the sojourn in Egypt (chs. 37-50 [cf. Exod. 1:11-12]). But in what sense can Abraham's actions be said to protect his offspring? Genesis 22:16-18; 26:5 suggest it was Abraham's faithful obedience to the covenant that guaranteed the blessing of his descendants. . . . Exodus 2:24 and Deuteronomy 9:5 also ground the exodus in the divine promises made to the patriarchs. The bird scene therefore portrays the security of Israel as the consequence of Abraham's piety."484
15:12 Abram's terror reflects his reaction to the flame that passed between the parts and to the revelation of the character of God that the flame represented (cf. v. 17).
15:13-14 Moses gave more detail regarding the history of the seed here than he had revealed previously (cf. vv. 14, 16). The 400 years of enslavement were evidently from 1845 B.C. to 1446 B.C., the date of the Exodus.
15:15 The ancients conceived of death as a time when they would rejoin their departed ancestors. There was evidently little understanding of what lay beyond the grave at this time in history.485
15:16 The Hebrew word translated "generation"really refers to a lifetime, which at this period in history was about 100 years.486This seems a better explanation than that four literal generations are in view. The writer mentioned four literal generations in Exodus 6:16-20 and Numbers 26:58-59, but there were quite evidently gaps in those genealogies.487
15:17 The smoking oven and flaming torch were one. This was an intensely bright, hot flame symbolic of God in His holiness. The flame is a good symbol of God in that it is pure, purges in judgment, and provides light and warmth.
"This act is . . . a promise that God will be with Abraham's descendants (e.g. 26:3, 24; 28:15; 31:3; 46:4, etc.). Indeed the description of the theophany as a furnace of smoke and a torch of fire' invites comparison with the pillar of cloud and fire that was a feature of the wilderness wanderings, and especially with the smoke, fire and torches (Exod. 19:18; 20:18) that marked the law-giving at Sinai. These were visible tokens of God's presence with his people, that he was walking among them and that they were his people (Lev. 26:12).
"In this episode then Abram's experience in a sense foreshadows that of his descendants. He sees them under attack from foreign powers but protected and enjoying the immediate presence of God. Elsewhere in the Abraham cycle, his life prefigures episodes in the history of Israel. Famine drove him to settle in Egypt (12:10; cf. chs. 42-46). He escaped after God had plagued Pharaoh (12:17; cf. Exod. 7-12), enriched by his stay in Egypt (13:2; cf. Exod. 12:35-38) and journeyed by stages (13:3; cf. Exod. 17:1; etc.) back to Canaan. In Genesis 22 Abraham goes on a three-day journey to a mountain, offers a sacrifice in place of his only son, God appears to him and reaffirms his promises. Sinai is of course a three-day journey from Egypt (Exod. 8:23), where Israel's first-born sons had been passed over (Exod. 12). There too sacrifice was offered, God appeared and reaffirmed his promises (Exod. 19-24).
"Finally, it may be observed, the interpretation of Gen. 15:9-11, 17, that I am proposing on the basis of other ritual texts in the Pentateuch is congruent with verses 13-16, which explain that Abraham's descendants would be oppressed for 400 years in Egypt before they come out with great possessions. Whether these verses are a later addition to the narrative as is generally held, or integral to it as van Seters asserts . . ., they do confirm that at a very early stage in the history of the tradition this rite was interpreted as a dramatic representation of the divine promises to Abraham. It is not a dramatized curse that would come into play should the covenant be broken, but a solemn and visual reaffirmation of the covenant that is essentially a promise . . . ."488
15:18 This was the formal "cutting"of the Abrahamic Covenant. God now formalized His earlier promises into a suzerainty treaty since Abram now understood and believed what God had promised. God as king bound Himself to do something for His servant Abram. The fulfillment of the covenant did not depend on Abram's obedience. It rested entirely on God's faithfulness.489
". . . it is fitting that in many respects the account should foreshadow the making of the covenant at Sinai. The opening statement in 15:7: I am the LORD, who brought you up out of Ur of the Chaldeans,' is virtually identical to the opening statement of the Sinai covenant in Exodus 20:2: I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.' The expression Ur of the Chaldeans' refers back to Genesis 11:28, 31 and grounds the present covenant in a past act of divine salvation from Babylon,' just as Exodus 20:2 grounds the Sinai covenant in an act of divine salvation from Egypt. The coming of God's presence in the awesome fire and darkness of Mount Sinai (Ex 19:18; 20:18; Dt 4:11) appears to be intentionally reflected in Abraham's pyrotechnic vision (Ge 15:12, 17). In the Lord's words to Abraham (15:13-16) the connection between Abraham's covenant and the Sinai covenant is explicitly made by means of the reference to the four hundred years of bondage of Abraham's seed and their subsequent exodus' (and after this they will go out,' v. 14). Such considerations lead to the conclusion that the author intends to draw the reader's attention to the events at Sinai in his depiction of the covenant with Abraham.
"If we ask why the author has sought to bring the picture of Sinai here, the answer lies in the purpose of the book. It is part of the overall strategy of the book to show that what God did at Sinai was part of a larger plan which had already been put into action with the patriarchs. Thus, the exodus and the Sinai covenant serve as reminders not only of God's power and grace but also of God's faithfulness. What he sets out to accomplish with his people, he will carry through to the end."490
Moses revealed the general geographical borders of the Promised Land here for the first time. Some scholars interpret the "river of Egypt"as the Nile.
"The argument is usually based on the fact that the Hebrew word naharis consistently restricted to large rivers. However, the Hebrew is more frequently nahal(= Arabic wady) instead of the naharof Genesis 15:18 which may have been influenced by the second naharin the text.491In the Akkadian texts of Sargon II (716 B.C.) it appears as nahal musar."492
God later specified the Wadi El Arish, "the geographical boundary between Canaan and Egypt,"493as the exact border (Num. 34:5; Josh. 15:4, 47). That seems to be the river in view here too. The Euphrates River has never yet been Israel's border. These borders coincide with those of the Garden of Eden (cf. 2:10-14).
15:19-21 Here Moses named several of the native tribes then inhabiting the Promised Land. "Canaanites"is both a general name for all these tribes and, as here, the name of one of them. These "Hittites"lived near Hebron (23:10); they are probably not the same Hittites that lived in Anatolia (Asia Minor, modern western Turkey; cf. 10:15).
The Abrahamic Covenant is basic to the premillennial system of theology. This covenant has not yet been fulfilled as God promised it would be. Since God is faithful we believe He will fulfill these promises in the future. Consequently there must be a future for Israel as a nation. Amillennialists interpret this covenant in a less literal way. The crucial issue is interpretation. If God fulfilled the seed and blessings promises literally, should we not expect that He will also fulfill the land promises literally?
The Palestinian, Davidic, and New Covenants are outgrowths of the Abrahamic Covenant. Each of these expands one major promise of the Abrahamic Covenant.
Now that God had given Abram the covenant the author proceeded to show how He would fulfill the promises. This is the reason for the selection of material that follows. So far in the story of Abram, Moses stressed the plans and purposes of God culminating in the cutting of the covenant. Now we learn how Abram and his seed would realize these plans and purposes. This involves a revelation of God's ways and man's responsibilities.494
God's people can rely on His promises even if they have to experience suffering and death before they experience them.495
