Abrahamic Covenant
The Covenant with Abram
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Abram’s Reward
Afterward, Abram heard the word of Yahweh in a vision. “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, and you will be abundantly rewarded”
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Sometime after Abram returned from rescuing Lot, Yahweh began the process of confirming his promises by making a formal covenant with Abram.1 He promised to shield Abram from harm and to reward him for his obedience. Abram had reinforced his loyalty to Yahweh by refusing the reward offered by the king of Sodom.2 Now Yahweh would reward his faithful servant. The rest of the chapter reveals the nature of the reward: offspring and land.
Yahweh’s covenant with Abram contains three parts revealed over a period of more than thirteen years. First, Yahweh affirmed the promise of offspring through a vision.3 Second, he affirmed the promise of land through a dream.4 Third, he appeared to Abram and instituted circumcision as the sign of the covenant.5
The vision, dream, and face-to-face revelation all mark Abram as a prophet.6 Some of what he heard and saw pertained to events hundreds of years in the future. But Yahweh assured him through a solemn oath that everything he foresaw would happen and the promised land would indeed belong to his descendants.
Abram’s Dilemma
But Abram replied, “Lord Yahweh, what can you give me when I still don’t have any children? My heir is Eliezer of Damascus! Since you haven’t given me any offspring, a member of my household will inherit everything I have.”
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The promise of a reward didn’t comfort the aging Abram. About ten years had passed since God first promised the land of Canaan to his offspring, yet he still had no children.7 Now in his eighties, he was losing faith that God could keep his promise. He had everything he needed but no blood relative to pass his wealth on to.
With Lot still living in Sodom, an unrelated member of Abram’s household had become his heir. The text doesn’t explain who Eliezer was, but he must have been someone Abram trusted to care for his people after he died. Barren couples would sometimes adopt a trusted servant to care for them in their old age.8 Abram’s unnamed chief steward in chapter 24 fits this description well, but Scripture never equates him with Eliezer.
Whether or not Eliezer was Abram’s faithful steward, he was no replacement for what Abram truly desired—a child. His anguished cry reveals a heart broken by years of unfulfilled longing. The respectful “Lord Yahweh” counterbalances a slightly accusatory tone. Abram had no need for a reward that would soon pass to someone else’s household.
The Promise of Offspring
Again, Abram heard the word of Yahweh. “Not this man but a son from your own body will inherit everything you have.”
Then Yahweh led him outside. “I would like for you to look up at the sky and count the stars—if you can! Your offspring will be just as numerous.”
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Yahweh responded to Abram’s accusation not with anger but with reassurance. Eliezer would not be his heir. Yahweh knew Abram had no need for more riches. Instead, his reward would be the very children he longed for. As bleak as the situation seemed, Yahweh could and would keep his promise.
When the vision began, Abram was inside, probably in his tent.9 Yahweh then took him outside and asked him to look at the night sky filled with stars. Yahweh’s challenge for Abram to count the stars was laughably impossible.10 He would give Abram a son as his heir, but more than that, he would make his descendants as uncountable as the stars he saw that night.
Abram’s Faith
Abram trusted Yahweh, so he credited him with righteousness.
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Having received the reassurance he desired, Abram chose to trust that Yahweh would keep his promise. Nothing about his situation had changed. He was still in his eighties, and Sarai was still barren. The promise was just as humanly impossible as when the conversation started. But God’s word was all Abram needed.
Abram could have trusted his circumstances, but instead he trusted his God. Because of this, Yahweh considered him righteous. In both Romans and Galatians, Paul cites this verse as a key argument against requiring circumcision among gentile believers.11 Over fourteen years before Abram was circumcised, he was already considered righteous because of his faith. James also cites this verse and links it with Abram’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac.12 Abram’s faith was so strong that he trusted God to keep his promise even when commanded to eliminate the very means of its fulfillment.13
The Promise of Land
Then Yahweh said, “I am Yahweh, who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
But Abram replied, “Lord Yahweh, how can I know I’ll possess it?”
“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
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After renewing the promise of offspring, Yahweh also renewed his promise to give Canaan to Abram. These events probably took place the next day, with the covenant ceremony confirming both promises.
God began by identifying himself, just as he would later do to begin the covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai. “I am Yahweh, who brought you out from Ur” parallels “I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from Egypt.”14 Both of these statements accompanied terrifying encounters with God, who appeared as fire behind a veil of smoke.15 Abram’s offspring would relive his experience to remind them that everything had happened to them just as Yahweh foretold.
Once again Abram questioned the promise. But this time he did not challenge God’s ability to fulfill it.16 He humbly asked for a sign of confirmation. When God told him to bring five clean animals for the sign, Abram would have understood their significance immediately from similar practices in Near Eastern culture. It was time to formalize the covenant.
Waiting for God
So Abram brought the animals, cut them in half lengthwise, and placed the two halves across from each other. But he did not cut the birds in half. When carrion birds swooped down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Then, as the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a strong feeling of dark dread washed over him.
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Abram brought the animals as Yahweh commanded him, but he did not burn them as an offering. They had a different purpose as part of the covenant ceremony. Abram slaughtered them, cut them in half, and arranged the halves in two lines across from each other. The two birds were left whole and probably placed across from each other as well. Having made the necessary preparations, Abram waited for God to act.
Confirming a treaty by walking between the pieces of a slaughtered animal is attested in Jeremiah 34:18 and other ancient texts.17 This was probably a self-curse should one of the participants break the terms of the treaty. Since God cannot curse himself, the ceremony served as the guarantee that Abram desired. However, what was about to happen would have even greater significance for Abram and his offspring.
While he waited, the scent of the dead animals attracted carrion birds to the carcasses. Abram drove them away so they would not interfere with the ceremony and continued to wait. At sunset, he fell into a deep sleep and felt the terrifying presence of the glory of God. Yahweh had come.
The Exodus Foretold
Yahweh said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that does not belong to them. They will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. But then I will judge the nation they serve, and they will leave with great wealth.
“As for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at an advanced age. And the fourth generation will return here, for the Amorites are not yet completely wicked.”
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The events that occurred while Abram waited for Yahweh to appear foreshadowed the future.18 Before completing the covenant ceremony, God explained their significance and how Abram’s descendants would inherit Canaan.19
The five clean animals arrayed in two lines represent Abram’s offspring, the nation of Israel. God would purify them so they could stand in his presence and serve him.20 The carrion birds, like all carnivores, were unclean, and they represent a foreign nation.21 As the carrion birds attacked the clean animals, this foreign nation would attack Abram’s offspring and enslave them. They would try to prevent the fulfillment of the promises.
But Abram had driven off the carrion birds, and in the same way, God’s covenant with Abram would protect his offspring.22 After four hundred years, God would fulfill the promise of land by punishing the foreign nation and bringing Israel back to Canaan to take possession of it.23 This delay had to occur because the Canaanites of Abram’s day were “not yet completely wicked.”
The mention of the Amorites to represent all Canaanites would have reminded Abram of his Amorite friends and allies, Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner.24 They, along with other Canaanites like Melchizedek, did not deserve to lose their home.25 As a God of justice, Yahweh would not disinherit them until their own sins justified doing so.
The Covenant Confirmed
When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking firepot with a burning flame appeared and passed between the pieces of the animals. At that time, Yahweh made a covenant with Abram. “To your offspring I give this land—the land from the river of Egypt to the great Euphrates that belongs to the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
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Abram heard Yahweh’s voice as the sun was setting, but he saw nothing until it was completely dark. The dark protected him from seeing God in his full glory.26 All Abram saw was a clay pot with burning coals that produced smoke and a flame.27 Fire frequently symbolizes God’s presence,28 and here it symbolizes him swearing an oath by passing between the pieces of the animals while proclaiming the terms of the covenant.29
Just as the firepot passed between the pieces of the animals, Yahweh would walk with Abram’s offspring and lead them out of the land of slavery.30 He would give them all the land between the Euphrates and the river of Egypt (probably the Wadi el-Arish, which serves as the border between Canaan and Egypt31). Israel has never occupied this entire territory, though Solomon controlled it and received tribute from other nations living there.32 The complete fulfillment of the covenant awaits the renewal of creation on the future new earth.33
- See The Major Covenants; Why Israel?
- See The King of Sodom.
- Genesis 15:1–6.
- Genesis 15:7–21.
- Genesis 17:1–27.
- See Genesis 20:7; Numbers 12:6–8; Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, 418; Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, Genesis 15:1; Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 327.
- Genesis 12:4–7; see The Promised Land.
- Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, 420; Kidner, Genesis, 134; Walton, “Genesis,” 84; Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, Genesis 15:2–3; Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 328–329.
- Abram is still experiencing the vision that started in verse 1. Although some visions involve seeing supernatural events, others only involve hearing God speak (see Jacob’s vision in Genesis 46:2–4). The difference between a vision and a dream is whether or not the person is awake.
- See Genesis 13:16.
- Romans 4:3; Galatians 3:6.
- James 2:21–23; see Binding Isaac. To fully appreciate their very different arguments, it is necessary to note that while Paul is talking about circumcision (a work of the law), James is talking about caring for the poor (an act of kindness and love). That Paul completely agreed with James on this issue is evident in passages such as Romans 3:7–8; 6:15–22; 12:9–21; and Galatians 5:13–26; 6:7–10.
- Hebrews 11:17–19.
- Exodus 20:2.
- Genesis 15:12, 17; Exodus 19:16–18; 20:18–19.
- See Abram’s Dilemma.
- Schnittjer, Torah Story, 121; Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, Genesis 15:9–10.
- See Foreshadowing; Waiting for God.
- Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, 433–434; Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 335.
- See Clean Animals.
- God never revealed the identity of the foreign nation to Abram, but Moses’s generation would have understood that it referred to Egypt.
- Exodus 2:24; 6:5.
- According to Exodus 12:40–41, Israel lived in Egypt for 430 years. The four hundred years here is probably a round number. But it could also mean that the oppression of the Israelites began thirty years after they moved to Egypt (see Constable, Genesis, 229–230). In this case, Joseph would have still been alive, which might explain why he could not be buried in Canaan after he died, as his father had been (Genesis 50:1–14, 22–26).
- See Abram’s Allies.
- See Canaan Cursed; Melchizedek.
- See Exodus 33:18–23.
- Pritz, Human-made Things, 5.11 Oven. The Hebrew literally reads “a firepot of smoke and a torch of fire.” But the verb “passed” is singular, so both descriptions refer to one object (see Hendiadys).
- Exodus 3:2; 13:21; 19:18; 24:17; Leviticus 9:24; Numbers 9:15; Deuteronomy 4:24; 9:3; 2 Chronicles 7:1; Psalm 50:3; Isaiah 4:5; 10:17; Ezekiel 1:27–28; Zechariah 2:5.
- See Waiting for God.
- Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 333; see The Exodus Foretold.
- Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, 438; Ross, “Genesis,” 113; Walton, “Genesis,” 86; Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, Genesis 15:18.
- 1 Kings 4:21.
- See Isaiah 65:17–19; Ezekiel 47:13–48:29; Revelation 21:1–3.