God’s promises to Abraham
15
📚After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision 📖, saying, “Do not be afraid 📖, Abram. I am your shield 📖, and your exceedingly great reward 📖”.2 📚And Abram said, “Lord God 📖, what will you give me, while I go childless? And while the manager of my household is this Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 📚And Abram said, “See, you have not given me any offspring, and, see, someone born in my house is my heir”.
15:3 If Abraham had no child all he could do was leave his property to someone else. Evidently he had been considering Eliezer for this.⚜
4 📚And now the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “This one will not be your heir, but the one who will come forth from your own body will be your heir”. 5 📚And he brought him outside and said, “Look now toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them”. And he said to him, “So will your offspring be”.
15:4-5 God made this promise of an heir when Abraham’s wife Sarai was barren (Gen 11:30), and in any case past the age of childbearing (Heb 11:11). It was not humanly possible for them to have children. But God is able to make anything happen and human impossibilities are as nothing to Him (Gen 18:14; Jer 32:17, 27; Luke 1:37).⚜
6 📚And he believed in the LORD, and He counted it to him for righteousness.
15:6 This is one of the key verses of the Bible. It is repeated in three books of the New Testament (Rom 4:3, 9, 22; Gal 3:6; Jam 2:23). God did not count Abraham righteous because of his piety or obedience to God’s call, but because of his faith. In himself Abraham was a sinner, as we all are. Men cannot change themselves into holy people, cannot create for themselves a righteous nature, cannot stand before God by their good works (Isa 64:6; Jer 13:23; Rom 3:10-12). But if we trust God and believe God’s promises, God counts our faith as righteousness (Rom 3:22; 5:1; 10:10; Phil 3:9; Heb 11:7). He puts on us His own perfect righteousness – Isa 61:10; 1 Cor 1:30; 2 Cor 5:21. See also Gen 3:21. In this way God makes us fit for His presence, even as He did Abraham.⚜
7 📚And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it”.
8 📚And he said, “Lord God, how can I know that I will inherit it?”
9 📚And he said to him, “Bring to me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a dove, and a young pigeon”. 10 📚And he took all these to him, and cut them in half and laid each piece opposite 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.
12 📚And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and suddenly a horror of great darkness fell on him.
13 📚And he said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve those people. And they will afflict them for four hundred years. 14 📚And also I will judge that nation whom they will serve. And afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 📚And you will go to your fathers in peace 📖. You will be buried in a good old age. 16 📚But in the fourth generation 📖 they will come here again, for the wickedness of the Amorites 📖 is not yet full 📖”.
17 📚And it came about that when the sun went down and it was dark, there appeared a smoking furnace 📖 and a flaming torch that passed between those pieces.
15:17 In ancient times when making a solemn covenant sometimes an animal was killed and divided into two parts. Then the covenant makers passed between the parts. See Jer 34:18-19. Here God Himself, symbolized by fire, walked between the parts of the slain animals. On fire as a symbol of God see Ex 3:2.⚜
18 📚In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of 19 📚the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 📚the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 📚the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites”.
15:18-21 God now makes a solemn covenant to give the land of Canaan to Abram’s descendants (Gen 13:14-17; 17:1-8; 22:17; 26:4; 28:13-15). The land was occupied by numerous and strong peoples, but God fulfilled His promise as He always does. See Josh 21:43-45; 1 Kings 4:20-21.⚜