Genesis 15

Reaffirmation of the promise to Abraham (vs. 1-6)—The section starts off with a tender God trying to provide comfort to the patriarch (v. 1). Keep in mind a few things here. Abraham was born in a pagan family, and grew up in that environment, so it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if his faith in Jehovah had occasional moments of weakness. He lived several hundred years before one word of the Bible was written, so he didn’t have what you and I have—great examples from the past. Plus, a few years have surely passed now between the promise of 12:1-3 and chapter 15, and Abraham has no son yet. So the conversation that ensues between him and God is one for which Abraham should not be condemned.

He simply asks God about the promise. “I don’t have a son; my heir is a servant. Is he to be the one?” (vs. 2-3). No, the Lord tells him, you will have a son of your own and your descendents will be innumerable. Abraham believed, and God “reckoned it to him for righteousness” (v. 6).

The covenant between God and Abraham (vs. 7-11)—Jehovah repeats the land promise and Abraham requests assurance. So the Lord asks, in effect, for a sacrifice, which was intended as a seal of the covenant between Him and the patriarch.

The future of Abraham’s descendents (vs. 12-21)—Yet dark days were ahead for Abraham’s people; he had a very terrifying dream to signify it. God explains to him what it means. Abraham’s offspring will spend 400 years “in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them” (v. 14); the Egyptian bondage is meant. But after 400 years (four generations, v. 16, but remember people lived longer back then), they would return to the land of Canaan, “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (v. 16). This is a nice working of God’s providence. The “Amorites” were a tribe in Canaan, and were meant here to represent all of the pagan peoples of the land. They were wicked, but they hadn’t yet reached God’s breaking point. So while the children of Abraham spent 400 years in Egypt increasing their numbers, the Canaanites grew increasingly more abominable to Jehovah. When God was ready to give the promised land to Israel, He was also ready to punish the Canaanites. So the exodus and conquest served two purposes—to give Abraham’s descendents the territory God had promised them, and to punish a people whose wickedness God could no longer tolerate. Jehovah then tells Abraham the furthest extent of the land his people would possess—from the “river of Egypt,” which was not the Nile, but the Sichor on the eastern border of Egypt, to the Euphrates. It wasn’t a large piece of territory as ancient empires go, but building an empire for Israel was never God’s purpose—“Christ is coming,” remember? But He would give them sustenance and peace if they would be obedient to Him—which they rarely were. The Israelites only occupied this expanse of territory for a short time under David and Solomon. It will be extremely interesting to see if modern day Israel ever tries to take all the land God promised to Abraham. At the moment, they had better not try it, or World War III would surely ensue. And as Albert Einstein said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Let us hope that Israel will be satisfied with what she now has—land, frankly, that she forfeited by her rejection of Christ and that she had no longer has any legitimate Biblical claim to. Jews were supposed to convert to Christ, and thus, in God’s eyes, there shouldn’t be any Jews today—they should all be Christians. So what purpose would there be in God preserving a land for people who shouldn’t even exist?