Genesis 15

In chapter 15 we see God reassuring Abram of the promise that he made earlier, the promise of descendants, land and a special blessing to the world. In verse one it says, “Do not be afraid, I am your SHIELD, your very great reward.” The word translated into shield is the word Magen. God was the shield, the one who protected Abram in that battle where he rescued his nephew Lot. The word Magen, is sometimes mistranslated as “Star: rather than shield, as in the Star of David, but the Bible itself never speaks of a Shield or Star of David, but it does speak of a Shield Avram, or Shield of Abram.

God then speaks of a very great reward. Materially speaking Abram was already very wealthy. He didn’t need more wealth or things. What he lacked was not prosperity, but posterity. Descendants was what he lacked. What value is there to have such wealth if you don’t have family to pass it onto? So, God took Abram outdoors and told him to look up into the sky. He reassured him that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky. Some promises, such as this one that God gave to Abram, are just too good to be true. Abram needed reassurances. You’ll see God repeat the promise and elaborate on it throughout the Scriptures.

What was Abram’s response to God’s reassurances? He didn’t roll his eyes. He didn’t say, “Yeah, right.” Abram’s response was, verse 6, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” If this sentence sounds a bit familiar, it is repeated in Romans 4:3, 4:9 and 4:22. Now some people say that Abram was saved by grace through faith in the coming Messiah. There is no indication that the content of Abram’s faith was a belief in the Messiah to come. He may have known more about the details and of the Messiah than what is in this passage, but there doesn’t seem to be any indication of this. There has always been one and only one means of salvation: grace through faith. What changes is the content of faith. Go back to Adam or Noah. How much had been revealed to them? At Emmaus Bible College, incoming Freshmen are given a test to determine their level of understanding of the Bible. If you took this test, how would you do, compared to Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, David, etc.? Did any of these Old Testament figures know the town where Jesus was born? What was his mother’s name? What was his first miracle? Could they name four of his twelve disciples. You would get the highest test score in the class. Don’t you feel smart now? Revelation from God is progressive, revealed over many centuries. What is it that one has to believe to be saved? These changes are based upon what God has revealed up to any given point in time. The contents of Abram’s faith were his promises; the object of Abram’s faith was God. The passage goes on to say in verse 6, Abram believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Thus, Abram was saved by grace through faith, and the content of his faith was the promises of God. The object of his faith was God. Here is the first mention of three key salvation terms: believed, credited and righteousness. There has always been only one way of salvation: by grace through faith. There weren’t two ways: law keeping in the Old Covenant and faith in the New Covenant. Abram was saved by grace through faith, NOT OF WORKS (Eph 2:8).

In verse 7, it says, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, HOW can I KNOW that I will gain possession of it?”

Today, if someone makes a fantastic, unbelievable promise to you, then repeats it, what would we demand to hold that person accountable? We might have an attorney draw up a contact, both parties would sign it, maybe even have it notarized. Neat and tidy. But not in the day of Abram.

Verse 9, “So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer (not call your lawyer), a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Somehow, Abram got all these animals. Verse 10, “Abram brought all of these to him (what? Four days later?) cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; (did Sarai help, like setting a table for guests?) the birds, however, he did not cut in half (of course, everybody knows that). Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. What did the neighbors think? “Look at that crazy old man, running around chasing birds. Must be something big going on at his place tonight.” Perhaps this was done in an isolated location, just God and Abram.

Why all the animals and blood? This is what they called a blood covenant. We see this in Jer. 34:8-11 where the life of the individual is pledged to the covenant. If one failed to keep the covenant, his blood was to be poured out just as the blood of the animal had been poured out.  Usually, both parties walked between the pieces, but since this was an unconditional covenant, Abram didn’t walk between them.

What if God asked you to do this today? Where does Abram get these animals? Is there a pet store at the mall? Does he send some kids out to ask people, “Hey, do any of you guys have any pigeons? Doves? What is this, a scavenger hunt?

V 12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.”

What puzzles me is this, if the reason for doing this is to reassure Abram, why did Abram fall into a deep sleep? What did God do, hypnotize him? If you were God, wouldn’t it make more sense to say, “Abram, make yourself a stiff cup of coffee, I need your full attention for the rest of my presentation.”? Or maybe, as the sun was setting, Abram, an old man, fell into a deep sleep, he just needed a nap after chasing away birds of prey all afternoon. Then he woke up had a cup of coffee and then the Lord spoke to him, the ceremony began and then they barbequed the animals.

Sleep scientists say that we go through four states of sleep.

Stage one is light sleep where your heartbeat and breathing slows down. During this stage some people experience hypnagogic hallucinations, dreams that appear real. This is the time when some people claim to have been abducted by aliens.

Stage two sleep is when your heartbeat and breathing slow even further.

Stage three is deep sleep and it might be difficult to wake someone from this stage.

Then there is Rapid Eye Movement (REM) or the dream stage of sleep. Breathing becomes faster, heart rate and blood pressure increases to near waking levels.

But now we have a fifth stage, one that scientists have not studied and do not recognize. This one is very rare and only God induces it in his subject. One commentary says that this was a visionary sleep, where he was in a deep sleep, but fully conscious of what was going on. It was the same sort of deep sleep that fell upon Adam in Gen. 2:2, “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” We see this same type of sleep in I Sam. 26:12, “So David took the spear and water jug near Saul’s head, and they left. No one saw or knew about it, not did anyone wake up. They were all sleeping because the Lord had put them into a deep sleep.”

If you ever experience sleep paralysis or have a hypnogogic hallucination, it can be frightening. This visionary sleep was a new experience for Abram and was frightful, described as a thick and dreadful darkness.

V 13 “Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves (remember the promise, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you”?), and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers (euphemism for dying) in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” This last phrase shows God’s patience with the bad guys living in the promised land.

V 17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates-the land of the Kenites and all the other “ites’.” Notice here that the covenant extends to his descendants. This is not a one generational promise. Notice also, it doesn’t say, “they made a covenant with each other.” This was a one-sided deal, an unconditional covenant. Abram didn’t have to do anything to “earn” what was promised. Nor could it be taken away from him or his descendants.

To us, the gathering of animals, cutting them up, placing them just right, like setting the table for Thanksgiving, all seems very strange. Abram didn’t appear to question any of this because that was just the way things were done back then.

And what is this “smoking fire pot and blazing torch” that appeared and passed between the pieces? This is another example of the Shechinah Glory, the visible manifestation of God’s presence, usually appearing as a light, as a fire, as a cloud or some combination of the three. The smoking fire pot was a pillar of smoke (does this sound familiar?). The torch means a rising flame. So, it appears to be a fire, heating up a fire pot which gives off smoke.

I wonder, was he out by himself when this happened? Were there others around who witnessed these events? If he was alone, did he tell others about his experience? If it happened to you, would you tell others? If you did, what would they think? If this ever happens to you, you might want to keep this to yourself, share with others only on a need to know basis. Don’t be like Joseph who bragged about his visions.