God Gives Abram Promises Confirmed by a Dramatic Sign, Genesis 15

A. The Covenant: the Pieces & the Smoking Furnace, Gen. 15

A.1 God's Promise of Descendants and Land, 15:1-6

After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of Yahweh came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed Yahweh; and he (i.e., Yahweh) reckoned it to him as righteousness.  (NRSV adapted)

After such success in battle, the recovery of his nephew's family, the blessing received from King Melchizedek of Jerusalem, and the satisfaction of refusing a share of the booty from Sodom, you would expect Abram to be positively bubbling with joy and confidence. But he was not. Instead, we see a discouraged man. Why? God had given him wealth, success, fame, and honor, and now promises even more:

"I am your Shield: your reward shall be very great." (v. 1). 

But is the "very great reward" all this wealth? And if so, what good is it, if he and Sarah have no son to enjoy it with, and to whom they could pass it on? Everything they possess would pass to the servant whom Abram had made his legal heir in the event that he had no child, Eliezer of Damascus (v. 2). Abram puts the blame for his childlessness squarely on God's shoulders: "You have given me no offspring," he boldly says to God. This may seem to you an impertinent attitude of a man toward God, but it can also be seen as rightly understanding the source of all life to be God, not just human beings engaging in sexual intercourse. In a very real sense, whether we read the words as a complaint or a sober statement of fact, Abram was right. It was up to God to give him offspring, if the promise "I will make of you a great nation" that God made to him in 12:2 are to be fulfilled. 

God's answer came to Abram, possibly not immediately but a day or two later: The slave that Abram had designated as his heir, if he never had a son of his own, would not in fact be his heir. Not an adopted heir, but a natural son would be his heir, one who "comes forth from your own body" (v. 4). Furthermore, the descendants would not end with just this one son. God took him outside, pointed up to heaven, and promised him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the night sky. Of course, this was just a figure of speech, not to be pressed literally. But the point of it was to emphasize an extremely numerous posterity. This promise was certainly in line with what God had promised him in 12:2, "I will make of you a great nation," for the population of nations is never small. 

Abram's response is given in verse 6: "Abram had confidence in God, and he (i.e., God) counted it to him as righteousness." This verse formed part of St. Paul's argument in Romans 4 (and Galatians 3) that human righteousness was inadequate to make a person acceptable to God, and only the righteousness that God "reckons" or "credits" to a person on the basis of his faith in God can make him acceptable. 

Coming, as this verse does, immediately after the promise of the numerous offspring, gives it the specific sense of believing an extremely improbable promise. After all, Abram was already a very old man, as was his wife. And in all the years of their marriage they had not a single pregnancy to show for it. On the age factor, see Sarah's later doubts about herself having a son for Abram (Gen 18:9-15). So for Abram to now show complete confidence in Yahweh and his new promise was no small matter. 

This reminds me of the conversation recorded in John 3 between Jesus and a very learned and elderly Jewish leader named Nicodemus. When the latter inquired how a person might enter the kingdom of God, Jesus replied that he would need to be "born again" (or "born from above [i.e., from God in heaven]," Jn 3:3). To this Nicodemus was incredulous, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can he enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus replied that what was meant was not a repetition of natural birth, but a miraculous spiritual birth produced by the Spirit of God. How would someone secure such a miraculous birth?

John 3:14 — "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." These words refer to Jesus' being "lifted up" on the cross, and taking all of the human race's sins upon himself. As the bronze serpent Moses erected in the desert (Num 21:9) wanderings symbolically absorbed the lethal effects of the snake bites incurred among the Israelites, if they believed, so also in his death on the cross Jesus absorbed for our sakes the eternally lethal effects of our own sins.

And how do we acquire this benefit? "Whoever believes in him (i.e., the 'Son of Man' Jesus) may have eternal life." Just like Abram!

A.1 The Promises Confirmed & a Covenant Made by Pieces & Furnace Passage, 15:7-19

Then he said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord Yahweh, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 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.” He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. Then Yahweh said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.  On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”  (NRSV adapted)

A promise of numerous descendants was stupefying enough, but now God renewed the promise he had made after Lot separated from Abram, that he would give him the land in which he was not living as a landless nomad. And now Abram, who had believed without need of any supporting proof God's earlier promise of descendants (vv. 5-6), feels the need for a reassuring sign from God to confirm this renewed promise of the land. The request for a sign to confirm a promise or a claim is widespread in both Testaments, and, depending on the context and the spiritual state of the one requesting it, is either gladly granted by God (as here) or refused (see Jesus' criticism of the request by the Pharisees in Matthew 12:38-40; 16:3-5). In fact, the wicked Judaean king Ahaz was once criticized by the prophet Isaiah for not asking for a sign to confirm God's promise of deliverance from enemy armies surrounding his capital city (Isaiah 7:10-17).

The sign God gave to Abram was dramatic, to say the least! He first had him cut sacrificial animals in two and lay them each half opposite the other, leaving a pathway between the halves. Then he caused him to fall into a deep, trance-like sleep, and see a glowing fire pot and a flaming torch, passing between the pieces. 

The words of promise that then came were somewhat unsettling, even if the final promised outcome was encouraging. His numerous offspring would become aliens in a "land not theirs," that is, not Canaan, and would remain that way for four hundred years—a very long time. Eventually they would become slaves and be oppressed, but at the end time appointed by God he would judge the oppressing nation and bring his people out with "great possessions." They would return "here", i.e., to Canaan, "in the fourth generation," which seems to be equivalent to the earlier words "four hundred years." One of those two expressions is a non-literal equivalent of the other. Most conservative Evangelical scholars take the 400 years literally and the four "generations" as non-literal. But of course it is equally possible to adopt the opposite interpretation. This affects the matter of dating the time of the exodus, but is not directly relevant to understanding the present passage in Genesis.

How does all this relate to Abram's initial question? He wanted to know how he could know that his descendants would acquire this land. The sign of the fiery objects passing between the halves of the sacrifice is thought by most scholars to indicate God—who is symbolized by the fiery objects—pledging himself in support of the promises. And since you will be reading this on Easter Sunday, it is uplifting to think of God in the person of his Son Jesus as the flaming objects, for Jesus passed through death into resurrection life, so that we—like the descendants of Abram leaving Egypt with "great possessions"—might pass from death into eternal resurrection life (John 5:24)!

But it is also possible that the fiery objects symbolize Abram's descendants, the Israelites later enslaved in Egypt, who passed through the slavery and oppression promised and emerged alive after the exodus to inherit the Promised Land. Either way, this dramatic sign was to encourage Abram's faith.  In verses 18b-19 the boundaries of the Promised Land are given for the first time. The "river of Egypt" is not the Nile, but the wâdi—called "the Brook of Egypt"— that formed the northeastern boundary of the Delta Region. The Euphrates River formed the northernmost boundary. The extent was also indicated by the people groups possessing it before Israel occupied it. 

Abram's faith has had quite a workout in this chapter: first believing that he will have not only a single son and heir from his own body, even though he was now very old; then believing that his descendants will some day be as numerous as the stars, and finally believing that although living outside the land in eventual slavery for a long time his descendants would return with great possessions and occupy a very large area stretching from the northeast border of Egypt all the way to the Euphrates River in the north. 

Does it sometimes seem to you that God gives you an awful lot to believe? Actually, it isn't all that complicated. We shouldn't focus on how much we need to believe: rather we should focus on the One whom we can always trust. In verse 6 it doesn't say that Abram believed in what God said (although he certain also did that), but that "he believed (i.e., had confidence) in God." That is where our focus should always lie. If there is any person in all the universe that is trustworthy, it is this Creator and Savior God of ours! Let us cast all our worries on him, since he cares for us!