1 After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Don't be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." 2 Abram said, "Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, since I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 Abram said, "Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir." 4 Behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir, but he who will come forth out of your own body will be your heir." 5 Yahweh brought him outside, and said, "Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." He said to Abram, "So shall your seed be." 6 He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness. 7 He said to him, "I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it." 8 He said, "Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will inherit it?" 9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10 He brought him all of these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn't divide the birds. 11 The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. 12 When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him. 13 He said to Abram, "Know for sure that your seed will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years. 14 I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great wealth, 15 but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried in a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full." 17 It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."
God appears to Abram in a vision, and gives him great encouragement, Genesis 15:1. Abram's request and complaint, Genesis 15:2, Genesis 15:3. God promises him a son, Genesis 15:4; and an exceedingly numerous posterity, Genesis 15:5. Abram credits the promise, and his faith is counted unto him for righteousness, Genesis 15:6. Jehovah proclaims himself, and renews the promise of Canaan to his posterity, Genesis 15:7. Abram requires a sign of its fulfillment, Genesis 15:8. Jehovah directs him to offer a sacrifice of five different animals, Genesis 15:9; which he accordingly does, Genesis 15:10, Genesis 15:11. God reveals to him the affliction of his posterity in Egypt, and the duration of that affliction, Genesis 15:12, Genesis 15:13. Promises to bring them back to the land of Canaan with great affluence, Genesis 15:14-16. Renews the covenant with Abram, and mentions the possessions which should be given to his posterity, Genesis 15:18-21.
INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 15
This chapter informs us of a gracious appearance of God to Abram, and of a kind promise made unto him, Genesis 15:1; of Abram's request for an heir, Genesis 15:2; of an answer to it, that he should have one, and even a numberless seed, Genesis 15:4; which he gave credit to, Genesis 15:6; upon which he has a fresh promise of the land of Canaan, Genesis 15:7; of his inheriting of which he desires a sign, and this was given him, Genesis 15:8; and at the same time it was predicted to him how long his posterity should be afflicted in a land not theirs, and afterwards come out with great substance, Genesis 15:13; and the grant of the land of Canaan to his seed is renewed, Genesis 15:17.
(Genesis 15:1) God encourages Abram.
(Genesis 15:2-6) The Divine promise, Abraham is justified by faith.
(Genesis 15:7-11) God promises Canaan to Abraham for an inheritance.
(Genesis 15:12-16) The promise confirmed in a vision.
(Genesis 15:17-21) The promise confirmed by a sign.
The Covenant - Genesis 15
With the formula "after these things" there is introduced a new revelation of the Lord to Abram, which differs from the previous ones in form and substance, and constitutes a new turning point in his life. The "word of Jehovah" came to him "in a vision;" i.e., neither by a direct internal address, nor by such a manifestation of Himself as fell upon the outward senses, nor in a dream of the night, but in a state of ecstasy by an inward spiritual intuition, and that not in a nocturnal vision, as in Genesis 46:2, but in the day-time. The expression "in a vision" applies to the whole chapter. There is no pause anywhere, nor any sign that the vision ceased, or that the action was transferred to the sphere of the senses and of external reality. Consequently the whole process is to be regarded as an internal one. The vision embraces not only Genesis 15:1-4 and Genesis 15:8, but the entire chapter, with this difference merely, that from Genesis 15:12 onwards the ecstasy assumed the form of a prophetic sleep produced by God. It is true that the bringing Abram out, his seeing the stars (Genesis 15:5), and still more especially his taking the sacrificial animals and dividing them (Genesis 15:9, Genesis 15:10), have been supposed by some to belong to the sphere of external reality, on the ground that these purely external acts would not necessarily presuppose a cessation of ecstasy, since the vision was no catalepsy, and did not preclude the full (?) use of the outward senses. But however true this may be, not only is every mark wanting, which would warrant us in assuming a transition from the purely inward and spiritual sphere, to the outward sphere of the senses, but the entire revelation culminates in a prophetic sleep, which also bears the character of a vision. As it was in a deep sleep that Abram saw the passing of the divine appearance through the carefully arranged portions of the sacrifice, and no reference is made either to the burning of them, as in Judges 6:21, or to any other removal, the arrangement of the sacrificial animals must also have been a purely internal process. To regard this as an outward act, we must break up the continuity of the narrative in a most arbitrary way, and not only transfer the commencement of the vision into the night, and suppose it to have lasted from twelve to eighteen hours, but we must interpolate the burning of the sacrifices, etc., in a still more arbitrary manner, merely for the sake of supporting the erroneous assumption, that visionary procedures had no objective reality, or, at all events, less evidence of reality than outward acts, and things perceived by the senses. A vision wrought by God was not a mere fancy, or a subjective play of the thoughts, but a spiritual fact, which was not only in all respects as real as things discernible by the senses, but which surpassed in its lasting significance the acts and events that strike the eye. The covenant which Jehovah made with Abram was not intended to give force to a mere agreement respecting mutual rights and obligations-a thing which could have been accomplished by an external sacrificial transaction, and by God passing through the divided animals in an assumed human form-but it was designed to establish the purely spiritual relation of a living fellowship between God and Abram, of the deep inward meaning of which, nothing but a spiritual intuition and experience could give to Abram an effective and permanent hold.
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.