Genesis 15
1 After all these things, this word of God came to Abram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I’m your shield. Your reward will be grand!”
2-3 Abram said, “God, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I’m childless and Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything?” Abram continued, “See, you’ve given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all.”
4 Then God’s Message came: “Don’t worry, he won’t be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir.”
5 Then he took him outside and said, “Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You’re going to have a big family, Abram!”
6 And he believed! Believed God! God declared him “Set-Right-with-God.”
7 God continued, “I’m the same God who brought you from Ur of the Chaldees and gave you this land to own.”
8 Abram said, “Master God, how am I to know this, that it will all be mine?”
9 God said, “Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.”
10-12 He brought all these animals to him, split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. But he didn’t split the birds. Vultures swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram scared them off. As the sun went down a deep sleep overcame Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.
13-16 God said to Abram, “Know this: your descendants will live as outsiders in a land not theirs; they’ll be enslaved and beaten down for 400 years. Then I’ll punish their slave masters; your offspring will march out of there loaded with plunder. But not you; you’ll have a long and full life and die a good and peaceful death. Not until the fourth generation will your descendants return here; sin is still a thriving business among the Amorites.”
17-21 When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
Abraham is in despair! What good are all his possessions if he has no heir and the only one who might inherit from him is a trusted house servant, Eliazer of Damascus? That’s when God speaks to Abraham, who at this point is still referred to as Abram, assuring him that God will give him a son and that his descendants will be beyond number. But God knows that Abram/Abraham isn’t sure he believes these assurances, so God cuts covenant with him.
David Guzik tells us in his Enduring Word Commentary: Abram knew exactly what to do with these animals. He understood that according to the custom of his time, God told him to get a contract ready for signing.
i. In those days, contracts were sometimes made by the sacrificial cutting of animals, with the split carcasses of the animals lying on the ground. The covenant was made when parties to the agreement walked through the animal parts together, repeating the terms of the covenant. The Lord made a covenant in Genesis 15:18 is literally, “the Lord cut a covenant.”
ii. Jeremiah 34:18-20 refers to this same practice of a covenant made by cutting animals and repeating the oath of the covenant as one walks through the animal parts.
iii. The symbolism was plain. First, this was a covenant so serious, it was sealed with blood. Second, if one were to break this covenant, let this same bloodshed be poured out on their animals and on them.
iv. When Abram had his doubts and wanted assurance from the Lord, God said to him clearly, “Let’s sign a contract and settle this once for all.”
c. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away: As Abram waited for the Lord to appear and walk through the carcasses with him (to sign the covenant), God didn’t come right away. Abram had to wait and fight off the vultures until God appeared to complete the covenant ceremony.
i. Abram had reason to expect that God would come down and walk through the animal parts with him, because God had previously appeared to him in some way (Genesis 12:7). It seems Abram knew God could take some physical form. (https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/genesis-15/)
WOW! Here God doesn’t merely order Abram to offer animals as a sacrifice but to split their bodies and arrange them. Traditionally, only one animal was needed for a covenant ceremony; however, such a proceeding was very serious business, for both parties to the covenant would have to walk around and between the body parts, chanting the covenant and stating that if they broke the covenant, then they and their animals would die just as the animals offered had died. The amazing thing is that God does not demand Abram walk around the animal bodies but God Himself moves in the traditionally approved fashion as symbolized by the smoking firepot and the flaming torch. God does what Abram was unable to do at that point, pledging His divine honor.
For the rest of Abram’s life, he would remember this night, the profound darkness, and the flaming torch and smoking firepot. Why didn’t Abram also walk around the animal bodies? He was probably prostrate with his face to the earth, knowing that he was in the presence of the One True Living God. The awe of God and the fear of God were so great that Abram couldn’t do anything else.
One fascinating detail is the mention of the Amorites. Genesis 14 describes Abram uniting with three Amorite chiefs, Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, to deliver Lot and the Sodomites from their captors. Obviously, these men must have been honorable or Abram would have had nothing to do with them. Other translations of these same verses quote God as saying, “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” By the time the Israelites return from Egypt, God orders them to destroy the Amorites completely, indicating that the downward moral slide the Amorites have been pursuing has finally reached the point of no return.
What can we learn from this account of an extreme blood sacrifice? Don’t play games with God! God knows your heart better than you do, and God desires that people should love Him and serve Him. You don’t have to worry about cleaning yourself up before you come to God because God specializes in clean-ups. My husband did not become a Christian until he was 37 years old, and as a former sailor, he had an extensive vocabulary of swear words. But when Bob came to Jesus, Jesus cleaned up his heart, his mind, and his heart; in fact, the change was so complete that a supervisor sent him to see the company doctor because they thought Bob had gone crazy.
If you are serious with God, God will be serious with you. Let’s pray.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and caring for us. Lord, we long to be clean and holy, but we are stuck in our sins. Please deliver us from our sins and cleanse our hearts and our minds. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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