Genesis 15. God’s Covenant with Abram

God’s Covenant with Abram

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 

• the word of the Lord speaks
  • “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1)
• There are many mentions of God being our shield מָגֵן (magen)
  • Deuteronomy 33:29
  • 2 Samuel 22:3
  • Psalm 3:3
  • etc.
• Also, first mention of “Fear not”. There are SO many times this is said by God, but notice the pattern He uses.
  • Fear not… I am your shield. (Genesis 15:1)
  • Fear not… I am with you. (Genesis 26:24)
  • Do not fear… I have redeemed you. (Isaiah 43:1)
  • Do not be terrified… the LORD your God is with you. (Joshua 1:9)
  • Fear not… I am the First and the Last. (Revelation 1:17)

² But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 

• Eliezer is suggested to be Abram’s chief assistant, possibly the man that traveled to find a wife for Isaac

³ And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 

• Why are verse 2 and 3 essentially the same? Literary something?

⁴ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” ⁵ And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 

• Our galaxy has 100-400 billions stars and there are around 2 trillion galaxies estimated..so like 600 sextillion stars in the observable universe- so yah a lot of kids

⁶ And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

• See Romans 4:3, 9-10
• Genesis 15:6 is the first time the Hebrew word אָמַן (aman) “believed” appears in the Bible. It shares the same root as “amen” and means to fully trust or stand firm in faith.
• BUT he questions the very next promise about getting land …Why does Abram accept God’s promise about children but not land?

⁷ And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” ⁸ But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

• Would God still have made a covenant if Abram didn’t doubt Him?

 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 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

• God tells Abram to bring:
  • a heifer
  • a female goat
  • a ram
  • a turtledove
  • a young pigeon
• Interestingly, these same animals later appear as the acceptable sacrifices in Leviticus (Chapters 1-5)
  • Not dividing the birds matches Leviticus 1:17
  • Jeremiah 34:18-20 mentions this type of covenant as well
• Remember that the idiom to make a covenant in Hebrew is כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit) “to cut a covenant.”
  • (interesting given what they are about to cut)

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 

• God puts Abram in a deep sleep- not the first time we see this happen! Adam, Saul, Daniel…
• Why was it a dreadful darkness?

¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 

• God reveals the story of Exodus
  • Exodus 12:40-41 gives 430 years

¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

• Abraham dies at 175 years old

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 

• God appears as a smoking fire pot and flaming torch . Similar to
  • Exodus 3 -the burning bush.
  • Exodus 13:21 -pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.
  • Exodus 19 -Mount Sinai covered in smoke and fire.
• Notice how only God walks through the pieces, not Abram

¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, 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.”

• I believe Solomon came the closest to ruling all of these kingdoms
  • “Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt.” “…from Tiphsah to Gaza…” (1 Kings 4:21,24)
  • Otherwise we may just have to wait for the future