4Behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come out of your own body will be your heir.”5Yahweh 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 your offspring will be.”6He believed in Yahweh, who credited it to him for righteousness.7He said to Abram, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.”
8He said, “Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will inherit it?”
4 Behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come 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 your offspring will be.”
6 He believed in Yahweh, who credited it to him for righteousness.
7 He said to Abram, “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?”
KJVKing James Version
4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.
8 And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?
Show all 3 translations
JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying: 'This man shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.'
5 And He brought him forth abroad, and said: 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to count them'; and He said unto him: 'So shall thy seed be.'
6 And he believed in the LORD; and He counted it to him for righteousness.
7 And He said unto him: 'I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.'
8 And he said: 'O Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?'
James 2:23(v6)So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness,” and he was called the…
Galatians 3:6-14(v6)Even as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Know therefore that those who are of faith are children of…
Romans 4:9(v6)Is this blessing then pronounced on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for…
Romans 4:20-25(v6)Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully…
Romans 4:3-6(v6)For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now to him who works, the reward is…
Show all 50 cross-references
Psalms 106:31(v6)That was credited to him for righteousness, for all generations to come.
Hebrews 11:8(v6)By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to the place which he was to receive for an inheritance. He went out, not knowing…
Romans 4:11(v6)He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might…
Hebrews 11:12(v5)Therefore as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore, were fathered by one man,…
Romans 4:18(v5)Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken,…
Deuteronomy 1:10(v5)Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as the stars of the sky for multitude.
Exodus 32:13(v5)Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring…
Genesis 22:17(v5)that I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your offspring greatly like the stars of the heavens, and like the sand which is on the…
Luke 1:18(v8)Zacharias said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.”
Deuteronomy 10:22(v5)Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now Yahweh your God has made you as the stars of the sky for multitude.
Jeremiah 33:22(v5)As the army of the sky can’t be counted, and the sand of the sea can’t be measured; so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant…
1 Chronicles 27:23(v5)But David didn’t take the number of them from twenty years old and under, because Yahweh had said he would increase Israel like the stars…
Genesis 12:1(v7)Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.
Genesis 17:16(v4)I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. Yes, I will bless her, and she will be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples…
Psalms 147:4(v5)He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names.
Luke 1:34(v8)Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, seeing I am a virgin?”
Romans 9:7-8(v5)Neither, because they are Abraham’s offspring, are they all children. But, “your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac.” That is, it is…
Genesis 12:2(v5)I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
2 Samuel 7:12(v4)When your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your offspring after you, who will proceed out of your body,…
2 Kings 20:8(v8)Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What will be the sign that Yahweh will heal me, and that I will go up to Yahweh’s house the third day?”
Isaiah 7:11(v8)“Ask a sign of Yahweh your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.”
Acts 7:2-4(v7)He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in…
Galatians 4:28(v4)Now we, brothers, as Isaac was, are children of promise.
Genesis 16:10(v5)Yahweh’s angel said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, that they will not be counted for multitude.”
Genesis 21:12(v4)God said to Abraham, “Don’t let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your servant. In all that Sarah says to…
Genesis 26:4(v5)I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and will give all these lands to your offspring. In your offspring all the nations…
Genesis 28:14(v5)Your offspring will be as the dust of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the…
Judges 6:17-24(v8)He said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. Please don’t go away until I…
Judges 6:36-40(v8)Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If…
Psalms 86:17(v8)Show me a sign of your goodness, that those who hate me may see it, and be shamed, because you, Yahweh, have helped me, and comforted me.
Genesis 13:15-17(v7)for I will give all the land which you see to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so…
Genesis 13:16(v5)I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can count the dust of the earth, then your offspring may also be…
Genesis 24:2-4(v8)Abraham said to his servant, the elder of his house, who ruled over all that he had, “Please put your hand under my thigh. I will make you…
Genesis 24:13-14(v8)Behold, I am standing by the spring of water. The daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let it happen, that the…
1 Samuel 14:9-10(v8)If they say this to us, ‘Wait until we come to you!’ then we will stand still in our place, and will not go up to them. But if they say…
2 Chronicles 32:21(v4)Yahweh sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains, in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he…
Nehemiah 9:7-8(v7)You are Yahweh, the God who chose Abram, brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, gave him the name of Abraham, found his heart faithful…
Psalms 105:42(v7)For he remembered his holy word, and Abraham, his servant.
Psalms 105:44(v7)He gave them the lands of the nations. They took the labor of the peoples in possession,
Romans 4:13(v7)For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he should be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness…
Genesis 12:7(v7)Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” He built an altar there to Yahweh, who had appeared to him.
Psalms 105:11(v7)saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance,”
Philemon 1:12(v4)I am sending him back. Therefore receive him, that is, my own heart,
Genesis 11:28-31(v7)Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees, while his father Terah was still alive. Abram and Nahor married wives. The name…
2 Samuel 16:11(v4)David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, “Behold, my son, who came out of my bowels, seeks my life. How much more this Benjamite,…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (21 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv4, 6, 7, 84. This shall not be thine heir. We hence…
4. This shall not be thine heir. We hence infer that God had approved the wish of Abram. Whence also follows the other point, that Abram had not been impelled by any carnal affection to offer up this prayer, but by a pious and holy desire of enjoying the benediction promised to him. For God not only promises him a seed, but a great people, who in number should equal the stars of heaven. They who expound the passage allegorically; implying that a heavenly seed was promised him which might be compared with the stars, may enjoy their own opinion: but we maintain what is more solid; namely, that the faith of Abram was increased by the sight of the stars. For the Lord, in order more deeply to affect his own people, and more efficaciously to penetrate their minds, after he here reached their ears by his word, also arrests their eyes by external symbols, that eyes and ears may consent together. Therefore the sight of the stars was not superfluous; but God intended to strike the mind of Abram with this thought, ‘He who by his word alone suddenly produced a host so numerous by which he might adorn the previously vast and desolate heaven; shall not He be able to replenish my desolate house with offspring?’ It is, however, not necessary to imagine a nocturnal vision, because the stars, which, during the day, escape our sight, would then appear; for since the whole was transacted in vision, Abram had a wonderful scene set before him, which would manifestly reveal hidden things to him. Therefore though he perhaps might not move a step, it was yet possible for him in vision to be led forth out of his tent. The question now occurs, concerning what seed the promise is to be understood. And it is certain that neither the posterity of Ishmael nor of Esau is to be taken into this account, because the legitimate seed is to be reckoned by the promise, which God determined should remain in Isaac and Jacob; yet the same doubt arises respecting the posterity of Jacob, because many who could trace their descent from him, according to the flesh, cut themselves off, as degenerate sons and aliens, from the faith of their fathers. I answer, that this term seed is, indiscriminately, extended to the whole people whole God has adopted to himself. But since many were alienated by their unbelief, we must come for information to Christ, who alone distinguishes true and genuine sons from such as are illegitimate. By pursuing this method, we find the posterity of Abram reduced to a small numbers that afterwards it may be the more increased. For in Christ the Gentiles also are gathered together, and are by faith ingrafted into the body of Abram, so as to have a place among his legitimate sons. Concerning which point more will be said in the seventeenth chapter Genesis 17:1
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn v8This is a particular motion of God’s Spirit, which…
This is a particular motion of God’s Spirit, which is not lawful for all to follow, in asking signs: but was permitted to some by a peculiar motion, as to Gideon and Hezekiah.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv4–8Gen 15:4 And, behold, the word of the LORD…
Gen 15:4 And, behold, the word of the LORD [came] unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
Ver. 4. And, behold, the word of the Lord, &c.] Abram’s "Behold" of grief, is answered with God’s "Behold" of grace. The Greek rendereth it, "And straightway." God was straight at hand to help Abram’s infirmity, and to raise up his faith that began to flag and hang the wing, as the best faith will, if long put to it. Adeo nihil est in nobis magni, quod non queat minui .
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv4, 5, 6, 8i.e. Out of thy own body: see Gen 35:11;…
i.e. Out of thy own body: see Gen 35:11; 2Sa 7:12; 2Ch 6:9.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v7We have here the assurance given to Abram of…
We have here the assurance given to Abram of the land of Canaan for an inheritance.
I. God declares his purpose concerning it, Gen 15:7. Observe here, Abram made no complaint in this matter, as he had done for the want of a child. Note, Those that are sure of an interest in the promised seed will see no reason to doubt of a title to the promised land. If Christ is ours, heaven is ours. Observe again, When he believed the former promise (Gen 15:6) then God explained and ratified this to him. Note, To him that has (improves what he has) more shall be given. Three things God here reminds Abram of, for his encouragement concerning the promise of this good land: -
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1. What God is in himself: I am the Lord Jehovah; and therefore, (1.) "I may give it to thee, for I am sovereign Lord of all, and have a right to dispose of the whole earth." (2.) "I can give it to thee, whatever opposition may be made, though by the sons of Anak." God never promises more than he is able to perform, as men often do. (3.) "I will make good my promise to thee." Jehovah is not a man that he should lie.
2. What he had done for Abram. He had brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, out of the fire of the Chaldees, so some, that is, either from their idolatries (for the Chaldeans worshipped the fire), or from their persecutions. The Jewish writers have a tradition that Abram was cast into a fiery furnace for refusing to worship idols, and was miraculously delivered. It is rather a place of that name. Thence God brought him by an effectual call, brought him with a gracious violence, snatched him as a brand out of the burning. This was, (1.) A special mercy: "I brought thee, and left others, thousands, to perish there." God called him alone, Isa 51:2. (2.) A spiritual mercy, a mercy to his soul, a deliverance from sin and its fatal consequences. If God save our souls, we shall want nothing that is good for us. (3.) A fresh mercy, lately bestowed, and therefore should be the more affecting, as that in the preface to the commandments, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt lately. (4.) A foundation mercy, the beginning of mercy, peculiar mercy to Abram, and therefore a pledge and earnest of further mercy, Isa 66:9. Observe how God speaks of it as that which he gloried in: I am the Lord that brought thee out. He glories in it as an act both of power and grace; compare Isa 29:22, where he glories in it, long afterwards. Thus saith the Lord who redeemed Abraham, redeemed him from sin.
3. What he intended to do yet further for him: "I brought thee hither, on purpose to give thee this land to inherit it, not only to possess it, but to possess it as an inheritance, which is the sweetest and surest title." Note, (1.) The providence of God has secret but gracious designs in all its various dispensations towards good people; we cannot conceive the projects of Providence, till the event shows them in all their mercy and glory. (2.) The great thing God designs in all his dealings with his people is to bring them safely to heaven. They are chosen to salvation (Th2 2:13), called to the kingdom (Th1 2:12), begotten to the inheritance (Pe1 1:3, Pe1 1:4), and by all made meet for it, Col 1:12, Col 1:13; Co2 4:17.
II. Abram desires a sign: Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Gen 15:8. This did not proceed from distrust of God's power or promise, as that of Zacharias; but he desired this, 1. For the strengthening and confirming of his own faith; he believed (Gen 15:6), but here he prays, Lord, help me against my unbelief. Now he believed, but he desired a sign to be treasured up against an hour of temptation, not knowing how his faith might, by some event or other, be shocked and tried. Note, We all need, and should desire, helps from heaven for the confirming of our faith, and should improve sacraments, which are instituted signs, for that purpose. See Jdg 6:36-40; Kg2 20:8-10; Isa 7:11, Isa 7:12. 2. For the ratifying of the promise to his posterity, that they also might be brought to believe it. Note, Those that are satisfied themselves should desire that others also may be satisfied of the truth of God's promises. John sent his disciples to Christ, not so much for his own satisfaction as for theirs, Mat 11:2, Mat 11:3. Canaan was a type of heaven. Note, It is a very desirable thing to know that we shall inherit the heavenly Canaan, that is, to be confirmed in our belief of the truth of that happiness, and to have the evidences of our title to it more and more cleared up to us.
III. God directs Abram to make preparations for a sacrifice, intending by that to give him a sign, and Abram makes preparation accordingly (Gen 15:9-11): Take me a heifer, etc. Perhaps Abram expected some extraordinary sign from heaven; but God gives him a sign upon a sacrifice. Note, Those that would receive the assurances of God's favour, and would have their faith confirmed, must attend instituted ordinances, and expect to meet with God in them. Observe, 1. God appointed that each of the beasts used for this service should be three years old, because then they were at their full growth and strength: God must be served with the best we have, for he is the best. 2. We do not read that God gave Abram particular directions how to manage these beasts and fowls, knowing that he was so well versed in the law and custom of sacrifices that he needed not any particular directions; or perhaps instructions were given him, which he carefully observed, thought they are not recorded: at least it was intimated to him that they must be prepared for the solemnity of ratifying a covenant; and he well knew the manner of preparing them. 3. Abram took as God appointed him, though as yet he knew not how these things should become a sign to him. This was not the first instance of Abram's implicit obedience. He divided the beasts in the midst, according to the ceremony used in confirming covenants, Jer 34:18, Jer 34:19, where it is said, They cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts. 4. Abram, having prepared according to God's appointment, now set himself to wait for the sign God might give him by these, like the prophet upon his watch-tower, Hab 2:1. While God's appearing to own his sacrifice was deferred, Abram continued waiting, and his expectations were raised by the delay; when the fowls came down upon the carcasses to prey upon them, as common and neglected things, Abram drove them away (Gen 15:11), believing that the vision would, at the end, speak, and not lie. Note, A very watchful eye must be kept upon our spiritual sacrifices, that nothing be suffered to prey upon them and render them unfit for God's acceptance. When vain thoughts, like these fowls, come down upon our sacrifices, we must drive them away, and not suffer them to lodge within us, but attend on God without distraction.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv4–8And behold, the word of the Lord came unto…
And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him,.... Either having disappeared, and then came a second time, or he again spoke unto him:
saying, this shall not be thine heir; this Eliezer, this servant of thine, as thou hast made him, or hast intended to make him, giving up all hopes of having issue by Sarai:
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but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir; that is, one shall inherit all thou hast, that shall be begotten by thee; an own son of Abram's, and not a servant born in his house; one that should spring out of his own loins: the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "out of thy womb", that is, out of his wife's, which was his; the phrase designs a genuine and legitimate son of his, who would be legally his heir.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv5–8And he brought him forth - It seems, early…
And he brought him forth - It seems, early in the morning, and said, look now toward heaven, and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be -
1. So innumerable, for so the stars seem to a common eye. Abram feared he should have no child at all, but God tells him his descendents should be so many as not to be numbered.
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2. So illustrious, as the stars of heaven for splendour; for to them pertained the glory, Rom. ix, 4. Abram's seed according to the flesh were like the dust of the earth, Chap. xiii, 16, but his spiritual seed are like the stars of heaven.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv5–8Verse 5. Look now toward heaven] It appears that…
Verse 5. Look now toward heaven] It appears that this whole transaction took place in the evening; See Clarke on Ge 13:14. Abram had either two visions, that recorded in Ge 15:1, and that in Ge 15:12, c. or what is mentioned in the beginning of this chapter is a part of the occurrences which took place after the sacrifice mentioned Ge 15:9, c.: but it is more likely that there was a vision of that kind already described, and afterwards a second, in which he received the revelation mentioned Ge 15:13-16. After the first vision he is brought forth abroad to see if he can number the stars and as he finds this impossible, he is assured that as they are to him innumerable, so shall his posterity be; and that all should spring from one who should proceed from his own bowels - one who should be his own legitimate child.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv5–8Gen 15:5. And he brought him forth — It…
Gen 15:5. And he brought him forth — It seems, early in the morning; and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be — 1st, So innumerable, for so the stars seem to a common eye. Abram feared he should have no child at all, but God tells him his descendants should be so many as not to be numbered. 2d, So illustrious, as the stars of heaven for splendour; for to “them pertained the glory,” Rom 9:4. Abram’s seed according to the flesh were like the “dust of the earth,” Gen 13:16, but his spiritual seed are like the stars of heaven.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv6, 8Reputed by God, who cannot judge wrong; so that…
Reputed by God, who cannot judge wrong; so that Abram increased in justice by this act of faith, believing that his wife, now advanced in years, would have a child; from whom others should spring, more numerous than the stars of heaven. (Haydock) --- This faith was accompanied and followed by many other acts of virtue, St. James ii. 22. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn v4This shall not be thine heir--To the first part…
This shall not be thine heir--To the first part of his address no reply was given; but having renewed it in a spirit of more becoming submission, "whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it" [Gen 15:8], he was delighted by a most explicit promise of Canaan, which was immediately confirmed by a remarkable ceremony.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv4–84. Behold — How vivid the revelation!
4. Behold — How vivid the revelation!
This shall not be thine heir — Such an express answer touching his heir was potent to quell all further doubt and fear.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv5–85. tell the stars] i.e. count. A proverbial expression…
5. tell the stars] i.e. count. A proverbial expression for the infinite and innumerable, as in Gen_22:17, Gen_26:4.
The word “tell” is Old English for “count,” as in Psa_22:17, “I may tell all my bones”; Psa_48:12, “tell the towers thereof”; Jer_33:13, “And in the cities of Judah shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him that telleth them.” Cf. “And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale” (Milton, L’Allegro, 67, 68).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv5, 6, 8(5) He brought him forth.—There is no reason for…
(5) He brought him forth.—There is no reason for regarding this as a poetical description of a merely mental emotion. With his senses dormant, but alive to every spiritual impression, Abram feels himself led forth from the tent into the open space around, and is there commanded to count the stars. As a matter of fact, the stars visible to the naked eye are not very numerous, but they have ever been a received metaphor for an infinite multitude, probably because, as men gaze, they perpetually see the faint radiance of more and more distant constellations. Thus they cannot be counted, and Abram’s seed was to be countless, because of the vastness of its number.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv4–8And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto…
And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv5, 7And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look…
Gen_15:5-6
And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
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And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness
Abrams faith
These two verses lie close together on one page of the Bible. They are part of a brief event in one human life. Yet, as we read them, they seem to separate from each other, and to stand very far apart. The fifth verse is altogether of the past. It shows us the tent of the patriarch gleaming white in the clear starlight of the Eastern night. We learn with Abraham to look up and believe and be at rest. The sixth verse suggests thoughts of the nearer present. From the hour when St. Paul first cited this fact of Abrahams faith and his justification by faith, this verse has been taken out of the older story and bedded in our modern controversies.
I. In these verses lies the union of two things that God has joined together and that man is ever trying to separate--LIFE AND LIGHT. God revealed Himself to us, not by words that told of a Father, but by a life that showed a Father; not by a treatise on Fatherhood, but by the manifestation of a Son. And so He ever joins the light of precept with the life of practice.
II. We read that Abraham believed God--NOT THEN FOR THE FIRST TIME, NOT THEN ONLY. He had heard Gods voice before, and at its bidding had gone out to be an exile and pilgrim all his days. His faith was no intellectual assent to a demonstrated proposition; it was the trust of the heart in the voice of God. It was the belief, not that solves difficulties, but that rises above them.
III. WHY WAS ABRAHAMS FAITH COUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS? Because, as all sin lies folded in one thought of distrust, so in one thought of trust lies all possible righteousness--its patience, its hope, its heroism, its endurance, its saintliness; and therefore He who sees the end from the beginning reckons it as righteousness. In the faith of Abraham lay all the righteous endurance, all the active service, of his believing life. This simple trust of Abraham made the practical motive power of his life, as it should make that of ours. (Bp. Magee.)
Gods covenant and Abrams faith
I. WHAT WAS THE COVENANT, AND TO WHOM WAS IT REALLY MADE?
1. As we commonly use the term it means an agreement between two equal parties who bind themselves to do, or not to do, certain things. In the realm of Redemption it cannot be so, because God and man are not equals and cannot make mutual agreements. Gods covenant begins and ends with Himself. It comes to us only through His mercy and grace. The power to fulfil its conditions, on mans part, comes through the same grace received into the heart by faith.
2. To whom was this promise made? To Abraham and his seed, which is Christ.
II. WHAT WAS, AND IS, ACCEPTABLE FAITH? We see at a glance that the covenant asked almost nothing of its recipient as he left his home and entered Canaan. He had done nothing, that we can see, which would in the least entitle him to hear so large a promise, so divine. To be sure, we read that he would bring up his children well, but this hardly constitutes a valid reason why he should be selected to become heir of the world and the father of the faithful. We have the exact announcement here: He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness. It need not have been counted, if it had been real and intrinsic righteousness. It would have stood out in its own merits. In a word, it was the obedience of faith--the obedience springing out of, and kept alive by, faith. So far as sight went, there was nothing to justify his acceptance of the amazing promise that his seed should be as the dust and the stars for number, and that he should be the father of a nation which should fill and bless the earth. And although Christ is fully revealed to us, the steps from the life of nature into that of grace are essentially steps into an uncertainty. Only by faith do we know what we shall find when we accept salvation. We make a venture. We put the foot out for a step, and the only confidence we have that we shall not fall is the confidence of faith. Like Abraham we are called to go out into a country that shall be showed us after we have started for it. And how often must we leave kindred and friends behind us, like Christian in the dream of John Bunyan, and set our faces away from all that charms us, and cry aloud: Life! life! nor tarry in all the plain? (E. N. Packard.)
The covenant with Abram
I. GODS REST GIFT TO MAN IS HIMSELF (Gen_15:1). Hitherto God had promised to confer blessings upon Abram. Not till now had He promised to bestow Himself. Abram knew that God was better than His gifts. If He would confer Himself, no good can be lacking. So, taking God at His word, Abrams struggling faith comes to victory.
II. GOD GRANTS TO THE RELIEVING SOUL FREE INTERCOURSE WITH HIMSELF. As yet, whenever God had spoken, Abram had kept silence. Now his lips are opened.
III. GOD REVEALS HIMSELF TO MAN IN A WAY ADAPTED TO HIS PRESENT NEED. Abram had said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit the land? God heeded this request, and gave him a token adapted to his age and country. That was four thousand years ago, and in a barbarous age. To expect now such, or any sensuous phenomenon at the meeting place of God and man, would be to roll back the stream of time and expect the nineteenth century after Christ to be as gross in its spiritual conceptions as the nineteenth century before him. Still, the fact that God regarded Abrams request, and in a manner suited to His comprehension condescended to bind Himself by covenant to His promises of grace, is a lesson of perpetual hope. Gods ear is never closed to His childrens cry.
IV. GODS REVELATIONS TO MAN ARE PROGRESSIVE. There are seven or eight recorded instances of Gods communing with Abram (see Gen_12:1-3; Gen_12:7; Gen_21:13; Gen_21:15; Gen_21:17; Gen_21:22.). As God dealt with Abram He deals with us. The blessing faith asks for and receives today is the type of a richer one tomorrow. To Abram, childless, wandering in a strange land, the highest imagined good was a son and a home. These God promised. But how much greater the blessing when it was revealed that God in him was to reknit the broken bond between Himself and a fallen race, and through his seed to provide a Saviour for an apostate world! Faith, wherever it enters, makes the soul expansive. Today it wants and obtains; and by that very obtaining its wants are heightened still, and these when gratified yet more enlarge the soul, and urge it on to ask and expect yet ampler blessings. Nor is there ever fear that mans increased capacity or desire will exceed Gods ability to grant. The depths of His power and love are unfathomable.
V. THE CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH GODS BLESSINGS FLOW TO MAN IS FAITH. Notice the process by which Abrams faith resulted, Hot only in an imputed, but also in an actual righteousness. He hears the call of God, and comes to the decisive act of trusting Him. He then rises to the successive steps of walking with God, covenanting with Him, communing and interceding with Him, and at length withholding from Him nothing which he regards most dear. From this example of Abram several lessons respecting faith are taught. We learn that--
1. The sinners first duty is to believe what God has spoken. Had Abram disbelieved God, every act born of that disbelief would have been an act of sin. The only right thing he could do was to believe God and accept His proffered favour. So is it now To have confidence in God, to repose in Him, to fall into the arms of His promised grace, is the only first right act a sinner can perform. Hence the Scriptures emphasize the truth that salvation comes from believing.
2. The foundation of faith is Gods promise. God had told Abram what He would do. Abrams faith consisted in believing that God would do just as He had said.
3. Obedience is an essential element in faith. Because Abram believed God he obeyed Him. It is, says Selden, an unhappy division that is made between faith and works. Though in my interest I may divide them, just as in the candle I know there is both light and heat, yet put out the candle and they are both gone; one remains not without the other. So is it betwixt faith and works.
4. Faith is the souls simplest act, and also its mightiest energy. To Abram, weak and sinful, what so simple as to trust, like a little child, in his heavenly Father? Yet thus he became mightier than a conqueror.
5. Faiths highest conquests are not at first. (P. B. Davis.)
Gods covenant with Abram
I. ABRAM HAD EXPOSED HIMSELF TO DANGEROUS REPRISALS BY HIS VICTORY OVER THE CONFEDERATE EASTERN RAIDERS. In the reaction following the excitement of battle, dread and despondency seem to have shadowed his soul. Therefore the assurance with which this chapter opens came to him. It was new, and came in a new form. He is cast into a state of spiritual ecstasy, and a mighty word sounds, audible to his inward ear. The form which it takes--I am thy shield--suggests the thought that God shapes His revelation according to the moments need. The unwarlike Abram might well dread the return of the marauders in force, to avenge their defeat. Therefore God speaks to his fears and present want. Abram had just exercised singular generosity in absolutely refusing to enrich himself from the spoil. God reveals Himself as his exceeding great reward. He gives Himself as recompense for all sacrifices.
II. MAKE THE TRIUMPHANT FAITH WHICH SPRINGS TO MEET THE DIVINE PROMISE. The first effect of that great assurance is to deepen Abrams consciousness of the strange contradiction to it apparently given by his childlessness. It is not distrust that answers the promise with a question, but it is eagerness to accept the assurance and ingenuous utterance of difficulties in the hope of their removal. God is too wise a Father not to know the difference between the tones of confidence and unbelief, however alike they may soured; and He is too patient to be angry if we cannot take in all His promise at once. He breaks it into bits not too large for our lips, as He does hove. The frequent reiterations of the same promises in Abrams life are not vain. They are a specimen of the unwearied repetition of our lessons, Here a little, there a little, which our teacher gives his slow scholars. So, once more, Abram gets the promise of posterity in still more glorious form. Before, it was likened to the dust of the earth; now it is as the innumerable stars shining in the clear eastern heaven. As he gazes up into the solemn depths, the immensity and peace of the steadfast sky seems to help him to rise above the narrow limits and changefulness of earth, and a great trust floods his soul. Belief as credence is mainly an affair of the head, but belief as trust is the act of the will and the affections. The object of faith is set in sunlight clearness by these words--the first in which Scripture speaks of faith. Abram leaved on the Lord. It was not the promise, but the promiser, that was truly the object of Abrams trust.
III. MARK THE FULL-ORBED GOSPEL TRUTH AS TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH WHICH IS IMBEDDED IN THIS RECORD OF EARLY REVELATION. He counted it to him for righteousness. A geologist would be astonished if he came on remains in some of the primary strata which indicated the existence, in these remote epochs, of species supposed to be of much more recent date. So here we are startled at finding the peculiarly New Testament teaching away hack in this dim distance. No wonder that Paul fastened on this verse, which so remarkably breaks the flow of the narrative, as proof that his great principle of justification by faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent Divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation to God into which, through it, Abram entered. He was not a perfectly righteous man, as some passages of his life show; but he rose here to the height of loving and yearning trust in God, and God took that trust in lieu of perfect conformity to His will.
IV. CONSIDER THE COVENANT WHICH IS THE CONSEQUENCE OF ABRAMS FAITH, AND THE PROOF OF HIS ACCEPTANCE. It is important to observe that the whole remainder of this chapter is regarded by the writer as the result of Abrams believing God. The way in which Gen_15:7 and the rest are bolted on, as it were, to Gen_15:6, clearly shows this. The nearer lesson from this fact is that all the Old Testament revelation from this point onward, rests on the foundation of faith. The further lesson, for all times, is that faith is ever rewarded by more intimate and loving manifestations of Gods friendship, and by fuller disclosures of His purposes. The covenant is not only Gods binding Himself anew by solemn acts to fulfil His promises already made, but it is His entering into far sweeter and nearer alliance with Abram than even He had hitherto had. That name, the friend of God, by which he is still known over all the Muhammadan world, contains the very essence of the covenant. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The covenant with Abram
I. ABRAMS APPREHENSION AND GODS ASSURANCE.
1. The Divine words, Fear not, suggest that Abram was now filled with apprehension.
2. There was strong ground for such apprehension.
3. In this opportune moment of apprehension, Gods gracious voice of assurance was heard in vision by Abram.
(1) Encouraging words. Do not fear!
(2) The ground of the encouragement. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.
(a) As his shield, an all-sufficient protection.
(b) As his exceeding great reward, better than all spoils of war or earthly good.
(c) A present help in every time of need is our covenant God.
II. ABRAMS QUESTIONING AND GODS ANSWER.
1. This question was natural.
2. This question was timely.
3. It has been quaintly said: The pious complaint of human weakness before God must be distinguished from impious murmurs against God.
4. Gods answer.
(1) Positive.
(2) All-assuring.
III. ABRAMS FAITH AND GODS ATTESTATION.
1. This act of faith seems to have risen to a sublimer height, and to have been more spiritually appropriating, than any previous act had been.
2. Gods special attestation of this act of faith is peculiarly significant Rom_4:18-25).
3. The solemn ratifying rite.
4. Abrams deep sleep, and accompanying revelation from God. Lessons:
1. The assurance of Gods grace should quiet all our fears, and give abiding strength to our faith in His promises.
2. Let us imitate Abrams sublime faith when (Rom_4:20).
3. Unbelief dishonours God; faith glorifies Him. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
The covenant with Abram
I. ABRAM QUESTIONING. He never doubted God. But his faith was tried. His question in Gen_15:2 is a prayer for more light, as afterwards, in Gen_15:8, he asks for some token from God to assure him.
II. ABRAM BELIEVING. He believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that Gods promise must be true. This faith, then, was simply trusting Gods word.
III. ABRAM ASSURED. Abram watched. Abram waited. Then deep sleep fell on him. Gods time often comes when His servants weakness is most felt.
1. God unveils to Abram a glimpse of the future.
2. God allows Abram to see a symbol of the Divine Presence. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Lessons
1. Gods infinite condescension. Will God in very deed become a contracting party with man? Shall only the breadth of a sacrifice separate the Most High God from a sinful creature such as even Abraham was? And yet so it was.
2. Let us see here again a type and emblem of the greater covenant between the Father and the Son, the covenant of grace.
3. And we ought, in fine, to enter into covenant, as Abraham did, with God. In every act of firm belief in God and Christ there is implied the idea of covenant obligation. We bind ourselves to be Gods forever; and He promises, not to us by ourselves (as is supposed in a personal covenant), but to us as in Christ, all those blessings, present and future, which are implied in Him. (G. Gilfillan.)
The word count used in two senses
At the last general election some millions of votes had to be counted. And the proceedings on that occasion illustrated the fact that the verb to count is used in two senses. The clerk counts the voting papers he takes out of the ballot box; but presently he comes to one which has been filled up by the voter irregularly, and, throwing it aside, he exclaims, That will not count, or I cant count that. He does not mean that there is any physical difficulty in adding that one vote to the number he has arrived at. He means that it must not be reckoned. The same distinction may be seen in the Bible. When David says of Gods precious thoughts, If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand (Psa_139:18), the word count is used in the ordinary sense of numbering; and the same Hebrew word is sometimes translated number, as in Davids numbering of the people. But when the Psalmist complains, We are counted as sheep for the slaughter Psa_44:22), he means not numbered, but regarded, or reckoned; and the Hebrew word used is elsewhere rendered reckoned, or imputed, as in Psa_32:2, Unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. So also in the Greek of the New Testament; and teachers should particularly note, in studying this lesson, that in the Authorised Version of Romans
4. the words count (which occurs twice), reckon (which occurs three times), and impute (which occurs six times), all stand for one Greek word, which is used eleven times in that chapter, and always means count in the second sense. In the Revised Version this is put right, and in no chapter is the revision more valuable. It renders the word by reckon in every case, and every reader feels the immensely increased strength of St. Pauls argument. Now these two senses of the word count both appear in Gen_15:1-21, in the fifth and sixth verses. (In the fifth verse the English words tell and numbered are the same in the Hebrew, and are, of course, equivalent to count and counted). And in both cases the use of the expression is very significant. (E. Stock.)
Faith takes the righteous character of its object
Just as the hand of a dyer that has been working with crimson will be crimson just as the hand that has been holding fragrant perfumes will be perfumed; so my faith, which is only the hand by which I lay hold on precious things, will take the tincture and fragrance of what it grasps. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Faith in Christ our Righteousness
Like as, in winter, we no sooner go from the fire but we are cold, nor out of light but we enter into darkness, even so we no sooner be parted from Jesus Christ, who is our Righteousness and our Life, but straight we are in sin and death; forasmuch as He is our Life that quickeneth us, the Sun that giveth us light, and the Fire that warmeth, comforteth, and refresheth all His members. (J. Spencer.)
He believed in God
For the first time is that sacred emotion recorded which forms the centre of religion; which confides in things promised but unseen; which conquers every doubt by reliance and resignation; which discovers, through the mists of the present, the sunshine of the future; and which recognizes in the discordant strife of the world the traces of the eternal mind that leads it to an unceasing harmony. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)
And He counted it to him for righteousness
1. From this confessedly weighty sentence we learn, implicitly, that Abram had no righteousness. And here the universal fact of mans depravity comes out into incidental notice as a thing usually taken for granted in the words of God.
2. Righteousness is here imputed to Abram. Hence mercy and grace are extended to him; mercy taking effect in the pardon of his sin, and grace in bestowing the rewards of righteousness.
3. That in him which is counted for righteousness is faith in Jehovah promising mercy. In the absence of righteousness this is the only thing in the sinner that can be counted for righteousness.
(1) It is not of the nature of righteousness. If it were actual righteousness, it could not be counted as such. But believing God, who promises blessing to the undeserving, is essentially different from obeying God, who guarantees blessing to the deserving. Hence it has a negative fitness to be counted for what it is not.
(2) It is trust in Him who engages to bless in a holy and lawful way. Hence it is that in the sinner which brings him into conformity with the law through another, who undertakes to satisfy its demands, and secure its rewards for him. Thus it is the only thing in the sinner which, while it is not righteousness, has yet a claim to be counted for such, because it brings him into union with one who is just and having salvation. It is not material what the Almighty and All-gracious promises in the first instance to him that believes in Him, whether it be a land, or a seed, or any other blessing. All other blessing, temporal or eternal, will flow out of that express one in a perpetual course of development, as the believer advances in experience, in compass of intellect, and capacity of enjoyment. Hence it is that a land involves a better land, a seed a nobler seed, a temporal an eternal good. The patriarchs were children to us in the comprehension of the love of God: we are children to those who will hereafter experience still grander manifestations of what God has prepared for them that love Him. The shield and exceeding great reward await a yet inconceivable enlargement of meaning. (Professor J. G. Murphy.)
The rationale of faith in God
I. FAITH IN GOD SUPPOSES A DIVINE REVELATION.
1. We must have a revelation of a personal God.
2. That revelation must exhibit God in loving relations to man.
(1) As able to protect him from all evil.
(2) As a sufficient portion.
II. THE ACT OF FAITH RESTS UPON A DIVINE PROMISE.
1. Faith is the present realization of some good which we hope for.
2. Without a Divine promise, faith becomes mere adventure.
III. THERE ARE DIFFICULTIES IN FAITH WHICH GOD IS READY TO MEET.
1. Such difficulties are part of our trial in this present state.
2. Such difficulties need not overtask our faith.
IV. FAITH IN GOD IS MANS ONLY RIGHTEOUSNESS.
1. Man has no righteousness of and from himself.
2. Man cannot attain righteousness by obedience to the works of the law.
3. Man can only possess righteousness by the gracious act of God. (T. H.Leale.)
The firmness of Abrahams faith -
I. GOD SPOKE TO ABRAHAM ABOUT HIS FEAR.
II. GOD SPOKE TO ABRAHAM ABOUT HIS CHILDLESSNESS.
III. ABRAHAM BELIEVED BEFORE HE UNDERWENT THE JEWISH RITE OF CIRCUMCISION.
IV. ABRAHAM BELIEVED IN FACE OF STRONG NATURAL IMPROBABILITIES.
V. HIS FAITH WAS DESTINED TO BE SEVERELY TRIED.
VI. HIS FAITH WAS COUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Justification by faith illustrated by Abrams righteousness
I. How was ABRAM JUSTIFIED?
1. He was not justified by his works.
2. This justification came to Abram not by obedience to the ceremonial law, any more that by conformity to the moral law.
3. The faith which justified Abram was still an imperfect faith, although it perfectly justified him.
(1) Imperfect beforehand. Prevarication as to wife.
(2) Imperfect afterwards. Taking Hagar in order to effect Divine purpose.
4. So far, then, all is clear: Abram was not justified by works, nor by ceremonies, nor partly by works and partly by faith, nor by the perfection of his faith--he is counted righteous simply because of his faith in the Divine promise. I must confess that, looking more closely into it, this text is too deep for me, and therefore I decline, at this present moment, to enter into the controversy which rages around it; but one thing is clear to me, that if faith be, as we are told, counted to us for righteousness, it is not because faith in itself has merit which may make it a fitting substitute for a perfect obedience to the law of God, nor can it be viewed as a substitute for such obedience. For all good acts are a duty: to trust God is our duty, and he that hath believed to his utmost hath done no more than it was his duty to have done. He who should believe without imperfection, if this were possible, would even then have only given to God a part of the obedience due; and if he should have failed in love, or reverence, or aught beside, his faith, as a virtue and a work, could not stand him in any stead. In fact, according to the great principle of the New Testament, even faith, as a work, does not justify the soul. We are not saved by works at all or in any sense, but alone by grace, and the way in which faith saves us is not by itself as a work, but in some other way directly opposite thereto.
II. Let us pass on to consider THE PROMISE UPON WHICH HIS FAITH RELIED when Abram was justified.
1. Abrams faith, like ours, rested upon a promise received direct from God. This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed by. Had this promise been spoken by any other, it would have been a subject of ridicule to the patriarch; but, taking it as from the lip of God, he accepts it, and relies upon it. Now, if you and I have true faith, we accept the promise, He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved, as being altogether Divine.
2. Abrams faith was faith in a promise concerning the seed. He saw Christ by the eye of faith, and then he saw the multitude that should believe in Him, the seed of the father of the faithful. The faith which justifies the soul concerns itself about Christ, and not concerning mere abstract truths.
3. Abram had faith in a promise which it seemed impossible could ever be fulfilled. The faith which justifies us must be of the same kind. It seems impossible that I should ever be saved; I cannot save myself; I see absolute death written upon the best hopes that spring of my holiest resolutions; In me, that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing; but yet for all this I believe that through the life of Jesus I shall live, and inherit the promised blessing.
4. This justifying faith was faith which dealt with a wonderful promise, vast and sublime. I do not hear him saying, It is too good to be true. No; God hath said it--and nothing is too good for God to do. The greater the grace of the promise, the more likely it is to have come from Him, for good and perfect gifts come from the Father of Lights. Canst thou believe that heaven is thine, with all its ecstasies of joy, eternity with its infinity of bliss, God with all His attributes of glory? Oh! this is the faith that justifies, far-reaching, wide-grasping faith, that diminishes not the word of promise, but accepts it as it stands.
5. Once more, Abram showed faith in the promise as made to himself. Out of his own bowels a seed should come, and it was in him and in his seed that the whole world should be blessed. I can believe all the promises in regard to other people. I find faith in regard to my dear friend to be a very easy matter, but oh! when it comes to close grips, and to laying hold for yourself, here is the difficulty.
III. In the third place, let us notice THE ATTENDANTS OF ABRAMS JUSTIFICATION.
1. With your Bibles open, kindly observe that, after it is written his faith was counted to him for righteousness, it is recorded that the Lord said to him, I am Jehovah that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. When the soul is graciously enabled to perceive its complete justification by faith, then it more distinctly discerns its calling. Now, the believer perceives his privileged separation, and discerns why he was convinced of sin, why he was led away from self-righteousness and the pleasures of this world, to live the life of faith; now he sees his high calling and the prize of it, and from the one blessing of justification he argues the blessedness of all the inheritance to which he is called.
2. Abram, after being justified by faith, was led more distinctly to behold the power of sacrifice. By Gods command he killed three bullocks, three goats, three sheep, with turtle doves and pigeons, being all the creatures ordained for sacrifice.
3. Perhaps even more important was the next lesson which Abram had to learn. He was led to behold the covenant. I suppose that these pieces of the bullock, the lamb, the ram, and the goat, were so placed that Abram stood in the midst with a part on this side and a part on that. So he stood as a worshipper all through the day, and towards nightfall, when a horror of great darkness came over him, he fell into a deep sleep. Who would not feel a horror passing over him as he sees the great sacrifice for sin, and sees himself involved therein? Can God forget a covenant with such sanctions? Can such a federal bond so solemnly sealed be ever broken? Impossible. Man is sometimes faithful to his oath, but God is always so; and when that oath is confirmed for the strengthening of our faith by the blood of the Only-begotten, to doubt is treason and blasphemy. God help us, being justified, to have faith in the covenant which is sealed and ratified with blood.
4. Immediately after, God made to Abram (and here the analogy still holds) a discovery, that all the blessing that was promised, though it was surely his, would not come without an interval of trouble. You are a justified man, but you are not freed from trouble. Your sins were laid on Christ, but you still have Christs cross to carry. The Lord has exempted you from the curse, but He has not exempted you from the chastisement. Learn that you enter on the childrens discipline on the very day in which you enter upon their accepted condition.
5. To close the whole, the Lord gave to Abram an assurance of ultimate success. He would bring his seed into the promised land, and the people who had oppressed them He would judge. So let it come as a sweet revelation to every believing man this morning, that at the end he shall triumph, and that those evils which now oppress him shall be cast beneath his feet. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Faith counted for righteousness
The expression counted for righteousness does not signify, considered as a righteous act; but it means, accepted for righteousness. Righteousness, such as would satisfy Gods holy law, he had not; but faith he had: and God takes this faith as a substitute for righteousness, and reckons it to him as righteousness.
1. This faith was an entire surrender of himself to God, and renouncing of his own will and wisdom.
2. It was an implicit confidence in the Divine faithfulness and veracity.
3. It looked to Gods promise; and that promise contained, in germ, the whole doctrine of the gospel.
4. This faith showed itself in holy obedience.
I. WE ARE BY NATURE, AND IN OURSELVES, UNRIGHTEOUS.
II. WE ARE NOT ABLE TO SAVE OURSELVES BY WORKS.
III. TO BE MADE RIGHTEOUS MEANS TO BE SET PERFECTLY RIGHT WITH GODS LAW.
IV. THIS CAN BE DONE FOR US ONLY BY FAITH. In other words, our salvation must be of grace; it must be accomplished for us by God; and we must acquiesce in His method, and surrender ourselves to His power.
V. FAITH, IN RESTING UPON GODS WORD, RESTS UPON A STATEMENT, A DOCTRINE, AND A PROMISE. The statement is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died, rose again, and now sitteth at Gods right hand. The doctrine is that His death was an express and all-sufficient atonement for our sins; so that God now, looking at it, can be just and the justifier of the ungodly. The promise is that all sin shall be remitted, and all righteousness imputed to him who truly repents and shelters in the atoning sacrifice of Christ.
VI. YET FAITH HAS A PRACTICAL RESULT. He who thus believes is saved. He is inspired with love to God; he is renewed in the Divine likeness, and made a partaker of the Holy Ghost; and therefore he must delight to keep Gods commandments and do His will. Application:
1. To the ungodly. Seek justification, and so flee from the wrath to come.
2. To those seeking to be righteous. Will you study Gods method of righteousness, which is by faith, and at once fall in with it?
3. To believers. Cultivate more faith, and rest confident of never perishing, but having eternal life. Beware of relapsing into the spirit of merit mongering and legalism. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
Abrahams faith counted for righteousness
To establish the doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ, it is not necessary to maintain that the faith of Abram means Christ in whom he believed. Nor can this be maintained; for it is manifestly the same thing, in the account of the Apostle Paul, as believing, which is very distinct from the object believed in. The truth appears to be this: It is faith, or believing, that is counted for righteousness; not, however, as a righteous act, or on account of any inherent virtue contained in it, but in respect of Christ, on whose righteousness it terminates. That we may form a clear idea, both of the text and the doctrine, let the following particulars be considered:--
1. Though Abram believed God when he left Ur of the Chaldees, yet his faith in that instance is not mentioned in connection with his justification; nor does the apostle, either in his Epistle to the Romans or in that to the Galatians, argue that doctrine from it, or hold it up as an example of justifying faith. I do not mean to suggest that Abram was then in an unjustified state; but that the instance of his faith which was thought proper by the Holy Spirit to be selected as the model for believing for justification, was not this, nor any other of the kind; but those only in which there was an immediate respect had to the person of the Messiah. By Him, all that believe (that is, in Him) are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. It is through faith in His blood that they obtain remission of sins--He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
2. This distinction, so clearly perceivable both in the Old and New Testament, sufficiently decides in what sense faith is considered as justifying. Whatever other properties the magnet may possess, it is as pointing invariably to the north that it guides the mariner: so whatever other properties faith may possess, it is as pointing to Christ, and bringing us into union with Him, that it justifies.
3. The phrase, counted it for righteousness, does not mean that God thought it to be what it was, which would have been merely an act of injustice; but His graciously reckoning it what in itself it was not; viz., a ground for the bestowment of covenant blessings.
4. Though faith is not our justifying righteousness, yet it is a necessary concomitant, and mean of justification; and being the grace which above all others honours Christ, it is that which above all others God delights to honour. Hence it is that justification is ascribed to it, rather than to the righteousness of Christ without it. Our Saviour might have said to Bartimeus, Go thy way, I have made thee whole. This would have been truth, but not the whole of truth which it was His design to convey. The necessity of faith in order to healing would not have appeared from this mode of speaking, nor had any honour been done, or encouragement been given to it: but by His saying, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole, each of these ideas is conveyed, Christ would omit mentioning His own honour, and knowing that faith having an immediate respect to Him, amply provided for it. (A. Fuller.)
Power of faith
He who walks by sight only, walks in a blind alley. He who does not know the freedom and joy of reverent, loving speculation, wastes his life in the gloomy cell of the mouldiest of prisons. Even in matters that are not distinctly religious, faith will be found to be the inspiration and strength of the most useful life. It is faith that does the great work in the world. It is faith that sends men in search of unknown coasts. It is faith that re-trims the lamp of inquiry, when sight is weary of the flame. It is faith that unfastens the cable and gives men the liberty of the seas. It is faith that inspires the greatest works in civilization. So we cannot get rid of religion unless we first get rid of faith, and when we get rid of faith we give up our birthright and go into slavery forever. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Firm religious belief
Sir Humphrey Davy used to remark, I envy not quality of the mind or intellect in others; nor genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes when all hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions and plains and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair.
Abram believed
This is the first time the word believed occurs in the Bible. How wonderful this chapter is in the matter of first uses of words! It seems to be a chapter of beginnings! Believed--what a history opens in this one word! The moment Abram believed, he was truly born again. We may see here some of the great meanings of the word. Paul says of Abram that against hope he believed in hope, and that he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Here, then, we may study the word at the fountain head. Believed means supported, sustained, strengthened; Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God; Abram hid his life and his future in this promise, as a child might hide or nestle in a mothers breast. That is faith. He took the promise as a fulfilment; the word was to him a fact. Thus he was called out of himself, out of his own trust, out of his own resources, and his life was fostered upon God--he by-lived, lived-by, believed, God! It was surely a perilous moment. Appearances were against the promise. Doubt might well have said, How can this thing be? But Abram staggered not. Gods love was set before him like an open door, and Abram went in and became a child at home. Henceforward the stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and his greatness. They were henceforward not stars only but promises, and oaths, and blessings. Thus dust is turned into flesh; bread into sacramental food; and stars become revelations and prophecies. This act of believing in the Lord was accounted unto Abram for righteousness. From the first, God has always made much of faith. In no instance has it been treated as a mere matter of course, but rather as a precious thing that called for approbation and blessing. Faith was counted unto Abram for character; it added something positive to his being; he became more than merely harmless; he became noble, dignified, righteous. To believe, is not simply to assent; it is to take the thing promised as if it were actually given; and this action on the part of man is followed by an exactly corresponding action on the part of God, for he takes the faith as righteousness, the act of belief as an act of piety, a mental act as a positive heroism. What Abram did, we ourselves have to do. He rested on the word of God; he did not wait until the child was born, and then say, Now I believe; that would not have been faith, it would have been sight. It is thus that I must believe God; I must throw my whole soul upon Him, and drive all doubt, all fear, from my heart, and take the promise as a fact. (J. Parker, D. D.)
And he believed in the Lord
Scarcely any event of the Old Testament is more frequently celebrated than this, and made the subject of more lengthy comment. Abraham believed God; and it was counted unto him for righteousness. It is a story as beautiful as it is blessed, if we can but tell it as it should be told. Let us listen, longing that Abrahams faith may be ours. After these things the word of the Lord came upon Abram in a vision, saying--So it ever begins. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Do not let us begin to think of Abrahams advantage in the vision. We have the Word of God as he never had it, or could have it. Above all, we have the Word made flesh, the Only-Begotten, full of truth and grace. A thousand precious promises ever wait to welcome us, and pledge to us the blessing of our God. And it is from the Word that faith springs. Fear not, Abram. Abram was fearing and fretting. And well he might. I am thy shield, come in under My presence, I will screen thee, and I will be thy portion, thy reward exceeding great. Thus God draws His mournful child to Himself that He may comfort him. I am. What God is, is our blessedness. To know Him is rest; to know Him is to rejoice. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless? Give thee indeed, Abraham! Surely thou art forgetting how much He has given thee. Has He not given thee already more than enough? Wealth does but leave me poor indeed; lands and fame yield no comfort if He be not mine! O blessed longing, O holy discontent, to find no rest, no satisfaction, except in Christ! No complaint is so welcome to our God as that which comes from a longing for Christ. Then comes the promise of a son distinct and assured. And not spoken only, but God led him forth and bade him look into the heavens. And Abraham believed in the Lord. Unbelief has plenty of ground for the sole of its foot, and might very well have said: My Lord, that is impossible. Unbelief might have whispered again: I do not see hew it can be? Unbelief makes much of that: I do not see how it can be. But what of that? Are there not ten thousand things which I have not sense enough to understand, but which I am glad to be sure of for all that! Of all follies the supreme folly is unbelief. Abraham listened, and God spake. Abraham looked, and all about him was the pledge and measure of this promise: And Abraham believed in the Lord. If God had said it should be, why of course it must be--must be. There is no room for doubt. For thee and me there is a vision brighter than that Syrian sky and the glory of the heavens. We see Jesus. To be like Him--is our high colling and the glorious promise of God. What shall we say? Shall we look at ourselves, at our failings, at our folly? Shall we go through the list of our hindrances and difficulties? Shall we begin to argue about the possibility of it all? Or shall we boldly take hold of the Almighty power of God and rest in the assurance of the word that cannot be broken? The servant shall be as his Lord. See further. The impossibility was Gods possibility. The relation of Abraham to the Messiah was not of nature, but by a new creation, a resurrection. So then for us here is the great secret of the blessed life: It is an utter and absolute surrender of ourselves to God for the fulfilment of His purposes; and then an abiding confidence in Him that He will assuredly fulfil the word wherein He hath caused us to hope. (M. G.Pearse.)
Look now toward heaven
You may be hemmed in on every side; but you are not hemmed in overhead. If you cannot see a great way before you, or on either hand, you can see far enough straight up. When you question what God can do, look above, and see what God has done. This looking at obstacles, fixing our eyes on the hills or the bogs, on the lions or the bad men in our pathway, is discouraging business. It makes us believe that there is no way out of our difficulties. But to look up into the clear sky, and to see the moon and the stars in their marvellous beauty, inspires us to the feeling that there are no difficulties out of which their Maker cannot find the way for us. What is it that has discouraged you? Is it your empty purse; or the business outlook of the times; or the rumours of impending war; or the misdoing or the lack of your wayward boy; or the suspicious looks of those who used to trust you; or the sense of your own poor health; or a fresh conviction of your lack of mental power? Whatever it is that has made you anxious, look now toward heaven: there is nothing discouraging in that direction. If the Lord who made the heavens, and keeps the moon and the stars in their places, has given you a promise, you may be sure that He can make that promise good. (H. C. Trumbull.)
So shall thy seed be
That the Lord assumed any visible form is not likely, and it would lessen the sweetness, solitude, and sublimity of the incident. No! Abraham stands there alone, like a grey granite rock glimmering in the light of stars. Behind him are his tents, where every eye is closed in slumber. Around stretches the wide solitary plain, with the hills of Hebron in the distance. Above is the illimitable firmament, not, as in this climate, spotted here and there with patches and streaks, and points of splendour, but hanging down like a roof of solid and compacted gold; the points, and streaks, and patches being those of the darkness, and serving to relieve the intensity, and to measure the depth of the surrounding glory. In the clear air of the Eastern night, the breeze of midnight blowing and increasing the transparency, as well as the coolness of the atmosphere, the stars look myriads and millions, the Pleiades appear, not as to us, a nest of fireflies tangled in a silver braid, but a hundred distinct particles of glowing light; Orion seems not to us a giant half seen through wisps of mist, but like Nebuchadnezzars golden image in the plain of Dura, blazing equally from every limb; constellations unknown to, or dimly seen in our latitudes, here sparkle like gems of various colours, red, blue, purple, and green; and although only a section of the Great Bear looms above the northern horizon, the southern man is not conscious of the mutilation, and sees instead--oh! rapturous object to the Christian heart, although Abraham is not yet aware of the import of the solemn symbol--the Cross of the South, with its unequal and tremulous, but beautiful angles, appearing like a tree of glory on the remotest verge of the horizon. And while Abraham is gazing at this mass of heavenly splendour, and vainly trying to number its bright atoms, there comes a whisper from above the stars, which, as it passes along, hushes the breeze of night, the voice of distant streams, and the roar of wandering lions, and pierces the very core of his heart--So shall thy seed be. There are their numbers already registered in the book of heaven. (G. Gilfillan.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v7Gen_15:9. Take me.] Heb. Take for me, i.e., Take…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_15:9. Take me.] Heb. Take for me, i.e., Take and offer for me. Three years old. Denoting, say Kalisch, “the perfection of their species.”
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Gen_15:10. Divided them.] In this manner animals were prepared for the ratification of a covenant. Hence the Heb. for to make a covenant is, to cut a covenant. The custom was to cut the animals intended for sacrifice in two, and then to pass between the parts (Jer_34:18-19, Psa_50:5). “It consisted in cutting the throat of the victim, and pouring out its blood. The carcass was then divided length-wise, as nearly as possible into two equal parts, which being placed opposite to each other at a short distance, the covenanting parties approached at the opposite ends of the passage thus formed, and meeting in the middle, took the customary oath.” (Bush). Laid each piece one against another. Heb. Gave every one’s part, or piece, against his fellow, i.e., laid head against head, shoulder against shoulder, etc., so that the covenanting parties might pass between them. The birds divided he not. As there were two birds, they could be separated so as to make a space between them, without the necessity of their division. It was afterwards commanded in the Law not to divide birds in sacrifices. (Lev_1:17). Fowls were regarded as mere appendages to the sacrifices.
Gen_15:11. Fowls came down upon the carcases.] Ravenous birds of prey, such as eagles, vultures, kites, etc., which feed upon dead bodies.
Gen_15:12. Deep sleep.] The same expression is used of Adam: Gen_2:21. The LXX has ecstasy—a supernatural trance.
Gen_15:13. Know of a surety.] Heb. Knowing know. A stranger. This refers chiefly to Egypt; but their sojourn in Canaan, where they lived as strangers, is also included. Four hundred years. “400 years is the manner of speech of prophecy, taking the greater and round numbers. It was really 430; see Exo_12:40. The devices resorted to in order to produce exact agreement are beneath notice.” (Alford).
Gen_15:16. Fourth generation.] “The fourth generation of the Isaaelites who went down to Egypt should return and possess Canaan. This was the result. Caleb was the fourth from Judah, Moses was the fourth from Levi; or Isaac, Levi, Amram, Eleazar, may represent the four generations.” (Jacobus). “In the fourth, age. An age here means the average period from the birth to the death of one man. This age or generation ran parallel with the life of Moses, and therefore consisted of 120 years. Joseph lived 110 years. Four such generations amount to 480 or 440 years.” (Murphy). Amorites. The general name for the Canaanitish tribes.
Gen_15:18. River of Egypt.] Some suppose the Nile is meant; but to this others object that the region from the Nile to the Euphrates includes a wider dominion than Israel ever attained. Hence it has been conjectured that the reference is to the Wady el Arisch, which is called the “Brook of Egypt.” “It is true that the domain of Israel never reached exactly to the river Nile. But nothing between them and the Nile was independent of them. Virtually this was the extent; and as Kurtz remarks, these two rivers are considered here as the representatives of the two great powers of the East and the West; and the meaning of the promise is, that the land and commonwealth of the descendants of Abram should be independent, and continue by the side of and between these two empires, and that no other empire or nation should permanently bear independent sway in the districts which lay between Judea and these two great empires.” (Jacobus).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_15:7-21
THE CONFIRMATION OF FAITH
Abram had now that faith by which he was regarded righteous in the sight of God. But faith is only the beginning of the spiritual life, which, as in the case of all life, is a season of weakness. Therefore it must be strengthened and encouraged and brought into further development. God graciously confirmed the faith of His servant, so that he might have entire confidence in His ability to accomplish the word of promise. He who gives spiritual life to the soul is ready to give it more abundantly. We may learn from the instance of Abram how, when once we have faith, we may reasonably look to God for the further assurance of it. How was Abram’s faith confirmed? The answer to this question will be a guide and comfort to believers in all ages.
I. Faith is confirmed by the remembrance of God’s past dealings. The soul that has believed has already passed through some stages of spiritual history in all which the Divine goodness and leading were manifest. When faith wavers, or its life is in danger of growing feeble, it is well for us to review the past and to remember what God has been to us. We may use memory to stimulate both faith and hope. This was the use the Psalmist made of the past mercies of God: “Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings I rejoice” (Psa_63:7). The several parts of this act of remembrance may be gathered from God’s dealings with Abram in this solemn transaction.
1. We should call to mind what God is. Abram was reminded of the majesty, the glory, and unchangeable nature of that Being with whom he had to do. The Lord announced His own awful name, “I am JEHOVAH” (Gen_15:7). God’s name is Himself, and could we learn and know the mysterious secret of it, we should see an end to all our soul’s fears. God is the All-sufficient One, and if we but know that, we need want no more. But such is the frailty of our nature that we are under the necessity of ever reminding ourselves of fundamental truths. If the life of faith is to be maintained, the soul must frequently cast itself upon God. In the presence of His power and unchangeable purpose of goodness, we can have no fear that His promise shall fail.
2. We should consider the steps by which we have arrived at what we are already. Abram, now, for several years was conscious of God’s dealings with him. He had ordered his life by God’s direction. He had experienced many proofs of His favour, and of His power to deliver in the time of danger. The Lord reminded him of these things. “I am JEHOVAH, that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees” (Gen_15:7). That journey was long, leading through various prospects, and through paths of chequered experience; but God was with him and led him on. Abram may now confirm his faith by looking at the steps which God had already taken to secure to him the land of promise. Part of the Divine plan had been already accomplished, for God brought him out of Ur that he might give him possession of Canaan. This was surely enough. Will God now falter or fail in the midst of His work, and not go on unto the end? The believer can look back upon all that God has done, and upon all the way by which he has been led, and take courage.
3. We should keep that purpose of God before us in reference to which we first exercised our faith. “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it” (Gen_15:7). Abram’s attention is called to the purpose which God intended for him from the very first. God had promised him the land, and on that word he had ventured to hope and trust. All God’s dealings were tending towards the fulfilment of this promise. “I called thee, and promised to bless thee; and whatever may be the darkness of the troubled scene now to be set before thee, it is thy privilege still to know that He who brought thee out of Ur to inherit this land is ‘the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever’ ” (Candlish). All God’s dealings with believers now tend to the working out of His original purpose concerning them, which is to unite them to Himself and bring them to glory. If we remember what is the end of our high calling of God, we have no cause to fear. We have no need to be discouraged because of the way. Our faith, like that of Abram, rests upon the promise of God that He hath provided for us a better place.
II. Faith is confirmed by covenant. The Lord had entered into covenant with Adam and with Noah, but this is the first time that He makes a covenant with Abram. The patriarch needed encouragement. He was not yet in possession of the land which was promised, and the disclosures of the future of his race, which were shortly to be submitted to him, were not altogether cheering. A covenant is granted, not that God requires it for Himself, but for our sakes. We require the definite word, and that it should be confirmed by some act. God thus makes agreement with man, and ties Himself down to conditions. Consider the exact place which this covenant held in the spiritual history of Abram.
1. It was a token and pledge of God’s promises, not a concession to unbelief. Abram desires that his faith should be confirmed by some sign or token. “And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (Gen_15:8). This request was made after he had exercised genuine faith, and had been accounted righteous and accepted in the sight of God. This was not the demand of doubt or of unbelief, made in the spirit of an evil and adulterous generation which seeked after a sign. To require a sign before believing, and as a necessary condition of that act, is a sin. It is presuming to dictate to God, as if we had made up our minds not to agree to His terms until we heard them, or until He should come round to ours. But when we first rest our faith upon God’s bare word, we then may humbly hope for some token and pledge of His promises. That living thing called faith yet needs an atmosphere constantly renewed, fresh and invigorating. The fitting frame of mind for every child of God is, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.” So it was with Abram. He believed, and had acceptance and peace; but the future was dark and he was compassed about with infirmity. “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit the land?”
2. It was a covenant made by sacrifice (Gen_15:9-10). In every covenant, some token or sign must be given as a common point of meeting for God and man. Thus, in the case of Noah there was a sign or token, but this is the first time in which God prepares for a covenant with man with all the formality of a sacrificial transaction. This shows that the gospel idea had now reached a farther stage of development. This transaction pointed to the sacrifice of Christ. Abram’s sacrifice was to consist of animals of three years old, which was the time of full vigour. They were to be unblemished, and of the best. Such was “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” He was cut off in the time of his full strength. He was holy, and without spot. He was the flower and perfection of the race—the new and better beginning of humanity. In the tokens of this covenant there are two principles recognised, as bearing upon the great sacrifice for sin.
(1.) That life comes through death. These animals were slain, as plainly to set forth that death is the consequence of sin. It is also the means of life, for God’s covenants convey the gifts of mercy and salvation. Through the death of God’s Great Sacrifice we have life. In human experience we have some imperfect analogies to this. The sufferings, and even the death of men, are often the hard conditions securing the good of the race. The death of the mother is often the life of the child. Death for death is the stern requirement of our salvation, but He who saved us had strength beyond the power of death, and rose again for our justification. He brought life from the dead.
(2.) That this sacrifice pointed to a greater whose intent was to bring man into union with God. The animals were divided, according to the custom in such solemnities (Gen_15:10). The parties were to pass together between the parts of the sacrifice, as denoting that they were thus at one. “The unity laid down in the covenant is hereby expressed. The division of the sacrifices into two portions represents the two parties to the covenant. As these portions constitute in reality one animal, so these two parties to the covenant are joined into one” (Kurtz). The form of the word “atonement” shows that it signifies that we are made one with God. To knit together again the broken relations between God and man is the great work of Christ.
3. It was a covenant which was so ordered as to give a further exercise to faith. When the sacrifice was all made ready, there followed a time of silence and suspense. Abram can only with difficulty keep off the devouring birds of the air which fall upon the divided fragments. He watches anxiously till the close of day, when he becomes weary and falls into a heavy slumber. A mysterious darkness surrounds him. Light at last shines forth out of it, and the symbols of the Divine glory appear, but still the waiting for them was a trial. While mankind was waiting for Christ, it was a time of darkness, suspense, and trial. While the Deliverer was only promised, it was difficult to keep even the most prophetic souls always awake.
III. Faith is confirmed by a further discovery of the Divine will. Abram was a prophet, and it was necessary that he should know what was the mind of God, that he might be able to interpret it for the benefit of the Church. It was necessary that God should reveal His will. But the principle still holds good in the case of each believer, that God always rewards obedience by a further discovery of His will. “If any man,” says Jesus, “will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.”
1. This discovery was preceded by a revelation of the awful majesty of God. There was an “horror of great darkness” upon Abram (Gen_15:12). This produced a state of mind which is proper when God is about to grant an audience with His creature. This feeling of awe and horror was often an attendant upon special prophetic revelations (Job_4:13-14; Dan_10:8).
2. The future was unfolded. Not for the benefit of Abram alone, as an individual, but for that of the Church. Israel for four hundred years afterwards would have these words to ponder, and even after that to contemplate the still further issues which would be prepared. Of the future, which was here unfolded to the prophet, it may be observed—
(1) That it was not altogether a cheering prospect. Abram’s seed were to be strangers in a land that is not their own, to be condemned to a debasing and cruel servitude for four hundred years. The immediate future of his race was drawn in sad colours. Prosperity would only be granted after many years of grievous trouble. This is a picture of what the Church is, and will be throughout history. Her life is a transcript of that of her Lord’s. It was necessary that He should first suffer, and afterwards enter into His glory, and so His church must pass through weary seasons of darkness and trial before she sees full prosperity and enters into her joyful reward. God’s revelation does not hide from believers the troubles they may expect in this life. But—
(2). It would be bright in the end. After a previous affliction for four hundred years Abram’s posterity were to be delivered from the House of Bondage (Gen_15:14). The afflictions of God’s saints are intended to issue in blessing. The “horror of great darkness” which fell upon the patriarch was a picture of the prospects of his race, which at first were discouraging, but afterwards joyous. God was about to create a people for Himself, and as in the creation of the world so it was here, there was darkness first and then light. This is also the order of the spiritual history of the individual. The new life of souls begins in sorrow, but ends in blessedness. In that prophetic picture of the afflictions of his posterity there were two things which would comfort and assure the mind of Abram. One was that God would punish the instruments of their affliction, “Also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge” (Gen_15:14). Those who afflict God’s people bring down upon themselves His judgments in the end. Such is the terrible law of retributive providence as seen in the course of human history. God may use a nation as a rod to afflict His people, but afterwards He breaks the rod in pieces. No weapon that is formed against them can prosper. The Church is too strong to be broken by the powers of this world, for those who have opposed her have either been brought to submission, or have been blotted out of the family of nations. Another consolatary thought was that there were reasons for the delay of the promised blessings. “For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Gen_15:16). He who is Lord of all must rule over the wicked as well as the righteous. His longsuffering towards sinners is often a reason why He delays the deliverance of His people. They must abide the time of God’s forbearance with those who afflict them. It should reconcile us to the prosperity of the wicked to remember that God allows evil in this world sufficient time to work out its own recompense. It is enough for us to know that what is right and true shall triumph in the end, and what is wrong and false shall be destroyed after it has had a fair trial. The Church cannot enter into her complete reward until the measure of the world’s iniquity is full.
IV. Faith is confirmed by the display of the Divine glory. “And it came to pass that when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces” (Gen_15:17). Here was a twofold symbol of the glory of God.
1. The Divine glory in the overthrow of evil. The smoking furnace was a symbol of the Divine wrath, and would represent God’s vindictive judgments upon their oppressors. This was the smoke of destruction—the consuming fire of God’s anger which burns up all evil. When the Lord comes it will be to take vengeance upon sinners as well as to reward His saints. God is true to His nature when He punishes, for nothing that is unholy can live in His sight.
2. The Divine glory in salvation. The burning lamp was a symbol of the light of salvation—of Christ, the Saviour of the world. This is that glory of God, the contemplation of which gives joy. Without this the thought of God would be terrible to the soul. We might admire God’s wisdom, and stand in awe of His power and justice; but it is only when we know Him as the God of Salvation that our meditation of Him can be sweet. Our souls could not endure under the awful majesty of God unless we had the comforting light of His salvation. It is observable that God alone passed between the sacrifice. Abram had but to stand by and do nothing. He had asked a sign, and must wait for God. The covenant was one of grace, and God must first give before He requires any work on man’s part. He alone will have the glory of our salvation.
V. Faith is confirmed by the prospect of a peaceful death, and of re-union with the spirits of the just. Faith in God cannot content itself with the present life. He who is our covenant God is ours for ever, and holds an eternal relation to our souls. Those to whom God gives Himself can never die. The words spoken to Moses, “I am the God of Abram, and of Isaac, and of Jacob,” are quoted by our Lord as a proof of the immortality of man. They imply that the real life of these men had not been extinguished by death; they were all living in the sight of Him from whose eye no human being could wander. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him.” To Abram, God gave the promise, “Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace” (Gen_15:15). To go from one place to another, and there to join companionship with others, is not annihilation. It may imply a change in the mode of existence, but the continuity of it is not broken. The Fathers were still living, and Abram was to join their company when God had prolonged his life to a “good old age.” He would come slowly and late to the grave, but his end would be peace, and that rest which God grants His people when they have laid down the burden of this life. God confirmed the faith of Abram by promising him this blessedness hereafter. Faith must fasten upon the future. To every faithful believer God gives the promise of a peaceful end, and of reunion with the spirits of the just.
1. This prospect renders the life of the believer independent of the earthly fortunes of the Church. The children of Abram, after much affliction, were at length to see prosperity. Abram would not live to enjoy it, and that melancholy thought may have oppressed him. But now he is assured that it shall all be well with himself. His own being was safe amidst all the varied fortunes of his people’s history. It is but poor comfort if we only believe in the immortality of the race, and not of the individual soul. Unless we have the blessed prospect of seeing the goodness of the Lord in what is truly “the land of the living,” our souls may well faint under the mystery of an existence, which without that blessed hope is meaningless and vain.
2. This prospect deprives the grave of its terrors. Abram, like all his fathers before him, must go to the grave, but it would be in peace. He would enter the assembly of those who were living in God’s sight. No alarm on meeting God in that world where the soul must be conscious of His presence. Thus faith transfigures that terrible thing, death, and makes it the gate of life. This, the first mention of the grave in the Bible, is cheerful and friendly, because the promise of God lighted it up with the life beyond.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_15:7. In that early age of the world the name of God was no mere designation of some mysterious Power, of which men were vaguely conscious, nor was it a convenient abstraction, but a solemn reality to those simple-minded but earnestly religious souls who used it. That name signified what God was, and who.
Enough for faith to know that God is by necessity what He is. This knowledge affords a stable centre where the heart can rest, and the intellect can afford to wait for such increase of knowledge as God may be pleased to grant.
He saith unto him—God expressly making out his mind to Abram—I am Jehovah who now speak unto thee, who was, is, and is to come, who calls that which is not as if it were, and can make to be what and when I please; so that thy faith need not stagger concerning anything that I speak unto thee. All being is within the compass of mine.—(Hughes.)
In this passage, God does seem to lay emphasis on his name, Jehovah, notwithstanding what is said afterwards: “I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them” (Exo_6:3). Nor is there any real inconsistency here. It cannot be meant in that passage that the name Jehovah was literally unknown to the patriarchs, or that God in his intercourse with them never appealed to it. The idea rather is, that as God appeared in their days chiefly in the giving of promises, whereas in the time of Moses He appeared to fulfil them, His attribute of power was that principally concerned in the former case, and His attribute of faithfulness in the latter. The patriarchs had to look to Him as God Almighty, able, in due time, to accomplish all His promises which He was then giving them. Moses and the Israelites were to know Him as Jehovah, unalterably faithful after the lapse of ages, and fulfilling His promises given long before. Still, it does not follow that the view of God implied in His name Jehovah was altogether concealed from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or, that it was never used to impart to their souls strong consolation and good hope through grace. On the contrary, the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, expressly tells us that to Abraham God sware by Himself; or, as he explains it, in support of His unchangeable word, appealed to His unchangeable nature or name. (Heb_6:13-18.) And if, on any occasion, His name of immutability was likely to be thus used, it was at the opening of such a revelation as this.—(Candlish.)
The record of God’s gracious dealings with His saints is an encouragement to all who shall hereafter believe. Hence the value of sacred biography.
What God had already done for Abram ought to strengthen and confirm his faith.
1. God brought him out of the land of his birth, which was defiled by idolatry.
2. All the events of his life were working towards the end contemplated by the promise.
3. God had deposited in his mind the seeds of religion, which would grow into a church.
Let the remembrance of what I have done for thee confirm thy confidence, since every former mercy is a pledge of a future. God giveth after He hath given, as the spring runneth after it hath run. And as the eye is not weary of seeing, nor the ear of hearing, no more is God of doing good to His people. “Draw out thy loving kindness,” saith David (Psa_36:10, marg.), as a continued series or chain, where one link draws on another to the utmost length.—(Trapp.)
Gen_15:8. The same request may be made with two different minds. Zacharias (Luk_1:18) asked this in unbelief; the Blessed Virgin (Luk_1:34), as Abram here, in faith, humbly yearning for further assurance. God, who sees the heart, answers accordingly.—(Alford.)
Abram grants God to be Jehovah, showing that his faith was still strong. The sign was needed, not for his own sake, but for the sake of his posterity, who might be tempted to despair on account of the slow realisation of the promise. In His dealings with individual saints God has often in view the future welfare of His Church.
Many instances are recorded where God has been graciously pleased to give signs to His people for the confirmation of their faith when there was not any doubt upon their minds respecting either His faithfulness or power. When He appeared to Gideon (Jdg_6:14-21), and told him that He should deliver his country from the yoke of Midian, Gideon said, “If now I have found grace in Thy sight, then show me a sign that Thou talkest with me.” In answer to which, God caused a fire to come out of the rock and consume the kid and cakes which Gideon had prepared for Him; and presently afterwards (Jdg_6:36-40) He gave him another sign, making the dew to fall alternately on the fleece and on the ground, while the other remained perfectly dry. In the same way He gave to Hezekiah a choice of signs, offering to make the shadows on the sundial go backwards or forwards ten degrees, according as he should desire. (2Ki_20:8-11.) From hence it appears that the inquiries which proceed from faith are good and acceptable to God.—(Bush.)
Even where faith is real it has a right to seek for its full assurance.
He desires a sign, not that he believed not before, but that he might better believe. How great is God’s love in giving us sacraments, and therein to make Himself to us visible as well as audible.—(Trapp.)
We should be anxious to make our inheritance in the heavenly Canaan sure. It shall be given to those for whom it is prepared, but we may well be concerned as to whether we ourselves shall have part or lot in it.
Gen_15:9. Abram must be prepared for the revelation which God was about to give him, by being reminded that he was not fit to approach God, except through an appointed way of mercy.
The outward signs of our faith, and the means of our redemption, are not left to man’s device. God Himself appoints them.
The animals prescribed are of the three kinds afterwards allowed by the law for sacrifice; and the birds are those repeatedly mentioned in the law as those to be brought for offerings. The animals were to be each three years old, denoting the perfection of their species. But we Christians cannot shut our eyes to a deeper symbolism in this sacred number, especially when we remember that this part of the covenant symbolism was to be “for ME,” i.e., to signify God’s part of it. (Alford.)
The soul believes that it shall be even as God has promised, but it does not yet understand how or through what experiences the blessing is to come. In answer, therefore, to the promise it says, “Whereby shall I know,” etc. The Lord replies by a command to sacrifice, and in this worship and sacrifice His way is manifested. Beside the altar light breaks in. Faith may be strong while yet in outward things; but light comes while we stand before the Lord, by the holy altar of burnt-offering. At every stage we prove this. Noah is taught much beside his offering. (Ch. Gen_8:20-22.) So, too, is David in later days. (Psa_73:16-17.) Abram, no less, by the altar learns the reasons for the delay in the possession of the inheritance. There is opened the experience of his seed; there again the covenant is renewed and added to. (Jukes: “Types of Genesis.”)
Gen_15:10. The universal Eastern custom was to divide the sacrifices, as Abram did, and both the contracting parties passed between the halves. Here one alone of the parties, Jehovah, thus passed. Abram’s part of the covenant was the obedience of faith; and God on account of this entered, He, the righteous God, into bond with Abram, thus made a contracting party with God, and therefore accounted righteous. (Alford.)
In the Gospel covenant the only-begotten Son passes through between God and us. Christ gathers together in one all those things which sin has sundered and scattered.
Gen_15:11. Having made ready the sacrifices, he waited, perhaps, for the fire of God to consume them, which was the usual token of acceptance. But meanwhile the birds of prey came down upon them, which he was obliged to drive away. Interruptions, we see, attend the Father of the Faithful in his most solemn approaches to God; and interruptions, though of a different kind, attend believers in their devotions. How often do intruding cares, like unclean birds, seize upon that time and those affections which are devoted to God? Happy is it for us, if by prayer and watchfulness we can drive them away, so as to worship Him without distraction.
Evil thoughts have a terrible power to come down upon us and enter our minds, even when we are able to shut out other influences.
Evil thoughts, unless we make an effort to drive them away, must spoil our sacrifice, which should be kept pure.
No sooner are the bodies of the beasts offered, and the parts laid open before the eye of God and the worshipper, than the fowls came down to mar the offering. So when the believer has set before him the sacrifice, and in the contemplation of it would fain learn to see and feel with God, the fowls, “evil spirits in heavenly places,” powers within or without subject to the wicked one, messengers of “the prince of the power of the air,” come to distract our communion. He that has stood beside his offering knows what distractions these winged messengers cause, while we rise up like Abram to drive them away.—(Jukes: “Types of Genesis.”)
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn vv5–7Gen 15:5 - Gen 15:18.
Genesis
GOD’S COVENANT WITH ABRAM
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Gen 15:5 - Gen 15:18.
1. Abram had exposed himself to dangerous reprisals by his victory over the confederate Eastern raiders. In the reaction following the excitement of battle, dread and despondency seem to have shadowed his soul. Therefore the assurance with which this chapter opens came to him. It was new, and came in a new form. He is cast into a state of spiritual ecstasy, and a mighty ‘word’ sounds, audible to his inward ear. The form which it takes-’I am thy shield’-suggests the thought that God shapes His revelation according to the moment’s need. The unwarlike Abram might well dread the return of the marauders in force, to avenge their defeat. Therefore God speaks to his fears and present want. Just as to Jacob the angels appeared as a heavenly camp guarding his undefended tents and helpless women; so, here and always, God is to us what we most need at the moment, whether it be comfort, or wisdom, or guidance, or strength. The manna tasted to each man, as the rabbis say, what he most desired. God’s gifts take the shape of man’s necessity.
Abram had just exercised singular generosity in absolutely refusing to enrich himself from the spoil. God reveals Himself as ‘his exceeding great reward.’ He gives Himself as recompense for all sacrifices. Whatever is given up at His bidding, ‘the Lord is able to give thee much more than this.’ Not outward things, nor even an outward heaven, is the guerdon of the soul; but a larger possession of Him who alone fills the heart, and fills the heart alone. Other riches may be counted, but this is ‘exceeding great,’ passing comprehension, and ever unexhausted, and having something over after all experience. Both these aspects of God’s preciousness are true for earth; but we need a shield only while exposed to attack. In the land of peace, He is only our reward.
2. Mark the triumphant faith which wings to meet the divine promise. The first effect of that great assurance is to deepen Abram’s consciousness of the strange contradiction to it apparently given by his childlessness. It is not distrust that answers the promise with a question, but it is eagerness to accept the assurance and ingenuous utterance of difficulties in the hope of their removal. God is too wise a father not to know the difference between the tones of confidence and unbelief, however alike they may sound; and He is too patient to be angry if we cannot take in all His promise at once. He breaks it into bits not too large for our lips, as He does here. The frequent reiterations of the same promises in Abram’s life are not vain. They are a specimen of the unwearied repetition of our lessons, ‘Here a little, there a little,’ which our teacher gives His slow scholars. So, once more, Abram gets the promise of posterity in still more glorious form. Before, it was likened to the dust of the earth; now it is as the innumerable stars shining in the clear Eastern heaven. As he gazes up into the solemn depths, the immensity and peace of the steadfast sky seems to help him to rise above the narrow limits and changefulness of earth, and a great trust floods his soul. Abram had lived by faith ever since he left Haran; but the historian, usually so silent about the thoughts of his characters, breaks through his usual manner of narrative to insert the all-important words which mark an epoch in revelation, and are, in some aspects, the most significant in the Old Testament. Abram ‘believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.’
Observe the teaching as to the nature and object of faith in that first clause. The word rendered ‘believed’ literally means to steady oneself by leaning on something. So it gives in a vivid picture more instructive than many a long treatise what faith is, and what it does for us. As a man leans his trembling hand on a staff, so we lay our weak and changeful selves on God’s strength; and as the most mutable thing is steadied by being fastened to a fixed point, so we, though in ourselves light as thistledown, may be steadfast as rock, if we are bound to the rock of ages by the living band of faith. The metaphor makes it plain that faith cannot be merely an intellectual act of assent, but must include a moral act, that of confidence. Belief as credence is mainly an affair of the head, but belief as trust is an act of the will and the affections.
The object of faith is set in sunlight clearness by these words,-the first in which Scripture speaks of faith. Abram leaned on ‘the Lord.’ It was not the promise, but the promiser, that was truly the object of Abram’s trust. He believed the former, because he trusted Him who made it. Many confusions in Christian teaching would have been avoided if it had been always seen that faith grasps a person, not a doctrine, and that even when the person is revealed by doctrine, it is him, and not only it, which faith lays hold of. Whether God speaks promises, teachings of truth, or commandments, faith accepts them, because it trusts Him. Christ is revealed to us for our faith by the doctrinal statements of the New Testament. But we must grasp Himself, as so revealed, if we are to have faith which saves the soul. This same thought of the true object of faith as personal helps us to understand the substantial identity of faith in all ages and stages of revelation, however different the substance of the creeds. Abram knew very little of God, as compared with our knowledge. But it was the same God whom Abram trusted, and whom we trust as made known in His Son. Hence we can stretch out our hands across the ages, and clasp his as partaker of ‘like precious faith.’ We walk in the light of the same sun,-he in its morning beams, we in its noonday glory. There has never been but one road to God, and that is the road which Abram trod, when ‘he believed in the Lord.’
3. Mark the full-orbed gospel truth as to the righteousness of faith which is embedded in this record of early revelation, ‘He counted it to him for righteousness.’ A geologist would be astonished if he came on remains in some of the primary strata which indicated the existence, in these remote epochs, of species supposed to be of much more recent date. So here we are startled at finding the peculiarly New Testament teaching away back in this dim distance. No wonder that Paul fastened on this Gen 13:1-13">, which so remarkably breaks the flow of the narrative, as proof that his great principle of justification by faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation to God into which, through it, Abram entered. He was not a perfectly righteous man, as some passages of his life show; but he rose here to the height of loving and yearning trust in God, and God took that trust in lieu of perfect conformity to His will. He treated and regarded him as righteous, as is proved by the covenant which follows. The gospel takes up this principle, gives us a fuller revelation, presents the perfect righteousness of Christ as capable of becoming ours by faith, and so unveils the ground on which Abram and the latest generations are equally ‘accepted in the beloved.’ This reckoning of righteousness to the unrighteous, on condition of their faith, is not because of any merit in faith. It does not come about in reward of, but by means of, their faith, which is nothing in itself, but is the channel only of the blessing. Nor is it a mere arbitrary act of God’s, or an unreal imputing of what is not. But faith unites with Christ; and ‘he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,’ so as that ‘in Him we have redemption.’ His righteousness becomes ours. Faith grafts us into the living Vine, and we are no longer regarded in our poor sinful individual personality, but as members of Christ. Faith builds us into the rock; but He is a living Stone, and we are living stones, and the life of the foundation rises up through all the courses of the great temple. Faith unites sinful men to God in Christ; therefore it makes them partakers of the ‘blessedness of the man, . . .to whom the Lord will not impute sin,’ and of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord reckons his faith for righteousness. That same faith which thus clothes us with the white robe of Christ’s righteousness, in lieu of our own tattered raiment, also is the condition of our becoming righteous by the actual working out in our character of all things lovely and of good report. It opens the heart to the entrance of that divine Christ, who is first made for us, and then, by daily appropriation of the law of the spirit of life, is made in us, ‘righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.’ May all who read these lines ‘be found in Him,’ having ‘that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith!’
4. Consider the covenant which is the consequence of Abram’s faith, and the proof of his acceptance.
It is important to observe that the whole remainder of this chapter is regarded by the writer as the result of Abram’s believing God. The way in which Gen 15:7 and the rest are bolted on, as it were, to Gen 15:6, clearly shows this. The nearer lesson from this fact is, that all the Old Testament revelation from this point onward rests on the foundation of faith. The further lesson, for all times, is that faith is ever rewarded by more intimate and loving manifestations of God’s friendship, and by fuller disclosure of His purposes. The covenant is not only God’s binding Himself anew by solemn acts to fulfil His promises already made, but it is His entering into far sweeter and nearer alliance with Abram than even He had hitherto had. That name, ‘the friend of God,’ by which he is still known over all the Mohammedan world, contains the very essence of the covenant. In old days men were wont to conclude a bond of closest amity by cutting their flesh and interchanging the flowing blood. Henceforth they had, as it were, one life. We have not here the shedding of Abram’s blood, as in the covenant of circumcision. Still, the slain animals represent the parties to the covenant, and the notion of a resulting unity of the closest order as between God and Abram is the very heart of the whole incident.
The particulars as to the rite by which the covenant was established are profoundly illuminative. The significant division of the animals into two shows that they were regarded as representing the contracting parties, and the passing between them symbolised the taking up of the obligations of the covenant. This strange rite, which was widely spread, derives importance from the use of it probably made in Heb 9:16 - Heb 9:17. The new covenant, bringing still closer friendship and higher blessings, is sealed by the blood of Christ. He represents both God and man. In His death, may we not say that the manhood and the Godhead are parted, and we, standing as it were between them, encompassed by that awful sacrifice, and enclosed in its mysterious depths, enter into covenant with God, and become His friends?
We need not to dwell upon the detailed promises, of which the covenant was the seal. They are simply the fuller expansion of those already made, but now confirmed by more solemn guarantees. The new relation of familiar friendship, established by the covenant itself, is the main thing. It was fitting that God’s friend should be in the secret of His purposes. ‘The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’ but the friend does. And so we have here the assurance that faith will pierce to the discernment of much of the mind of God, which is hid from sense and the wisdom of this world. If we would know, we must believe. We may be ‘men of God’s counsel,’ and see deeply into the realities of the present, and far ahead into what will then become the certainties of the future, if only we live by faith in the secret place of the Most High, and, like John, lean so close on the Master’s bosom that we can hear His lowest whisper.
Notice, too, the lessons of the smoking furnace and the blazing torch. They are like the pillar of fire and cloud. Darkness and light; a heart of fire and a wrapping of darkness,-these are not symbols of Israel and its checkered fate, as Dean Stanley thinks, but of the divine presence: they proclaim the double aspect of all divine manifestations, the double element in the divine nature. He can never be completely known; He is never completely hid. Ever does the lamp flame; ever around it the smoke wreathes. In all His self-revelation is ‘the hiding of His power’; after all revelation He dwelleth ‘in the thick darkness.’ Only the smoke is itself fire, but not illumined to our vision. The darkness is light inaccessible. Much that was ‘smoke’ to Abram has caught fire, and is ‘light’ to us. But these two elements will ever remain; and throughout eternity God will be unknown, and yet well known, pouring Himself in ever-growing radiance on our eyes, and yet ‘the King invisible.’
Nor is this all the teaching of the symbol. It speaks of that twofold aspect of the divine nature, by which to hearts that love He is gladsome light, and to unloving ones He is threatening darkness. As to the Israelites the pillar was light, and to the Egyptians darkness and terror; so the same God is joy to some, and dread to others. ‘What maketh heaven, that maketh hell.’ Light itself can become the source of pain the most exquisite, if the eye is diseased. God Himself cannot but be a torment to men who love darkness rather than light. Love and wrath, life and death, a God who pities and who cannot but judge, are solemnly proclaimed by that ancient symbol, and are plainly declared to us in the perfect revelation in Christ Jesus.
Observe, too, the manner of the ratification of the covenant. The symbol of the Divine presence passed between the pieces. No mention is made of Abram’s doing so. Why this one-sided covenant? Because God’s gracious dealings with men are one-sided. He seeks no oaths from us; He does not exchange blessings for our gifts. His covenant is the free result of His unmotived love, and is ratified by a solemn sacrifice, which we do not offer. We have nothing to do but to take what He gives. All ideas of barter and bargain are far from Him. Our part is but to embrace His covenant, which is complete and ratified whether we embrace it or not. What a wonderful thought that is of a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God! We do not hear so much of it as our fathers did. The more is the pity. It means that God has, as it were, buoyed out across the boundless ocean of His possible modes of action a plain course, which He binds Himself to keep; that He has frankly let us into the very secret of His doings; that He has stooped to use human forms of assurance to make it easier to trust Him; that He has confirmed His promise by a mighty sacrifice. Therefore we may enter into closest friendship with Him, and take for our own the exultant swan-song of Abram’s royal son: ‘Although my house be not so with God [although my life be stained, and my righteousness unfit to be offered to His pure eyes]; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v7The covenant Sacrifice
The covenant Sacrifice
v. 7. And He said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. In preparing to give Abram a special sign of the covenant’s consummation and to assure him of the fact that his descendants would be the possessors of the land of Canaan, the Lord introduces Himself as He whose conduct in the past is a guarantee of His faithfulness in the future.
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v. 8. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? This was not a question of doubt, but of a desire for some assurance in the case of this promise which transcended all human understanding. He was asking for a covenant sign.
v. 9. And He said unto him, Take ye an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. All of these were sacrificial animals, which, although they were not burned as sacrifices to Jehovah, yet were to be consecrated to Him, Lev 1:2-14.
v. 10. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another; but the birds divided he not.
v. 11. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
v. 12. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. At the direction of God, Abram prepared the sacrificial animals, the heifer, the ram, and the goat being cut in half lengthwise and the several pieces laid over against one another, by pairs, while the birds were not divided. The entire proceeding filled Abram with the deepest awe. When the birds of prey, eagles and vultures, came down to feed on the carcasses, Abram turned them away, drove them off. The ceremonial which was here enacted was that in use from ancient times, the contracting parties passing between the halves of the dead animals to indicate their reconciliation to a unity. The culmination of the strange scene came when, as the sun was setting, Abram was overcome by a deep sleep and a great horror fell upon him.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv4, 6Then, behold
Then, behold
The word "behold" emphasizes the fact that the word of Yahweh came to Abraham again.
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the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, "This
The idiom "The word of Yahweh came to" is used to introduce a special message from God. See how you translated this idiom in Genesis 15:1. AT: "Yahweh gave him a message. He said, 'This" or "Yahweh spoke this message to him: 'This" (See: Idiom)
This man
This refers to Eliezer of Damascus.
the one who will come from your own body
"the one that you will father" or "your very own son." Abram's own son would become his heir.
number the stars
"count the stars"
So will your descendants be
Just as Abram would not be able to count all the stars, he would not be able to count all his descendants because there would be so many.
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv4, 6, 715:4-6 God affirmed that the promise was for Abram’s…
15:4-6 God affirmed that the promise was for Abram’s own offspring and showed him the stars as a promise of the vast number of descendants that he would have (22:17; 26:4). Paul quotes this promise in Rom 4:18 to underscore the strength of Abram’s faith.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv4, 6, 7, 8 4. This shall not be thine heir. We hence…
4. This shall not be thine heir. We hence infer that God had approved the wish of Abram. Whence also follows the other point, that Abram had not been impelled by any carnal affection to offer up this prayer, but by a pious and holy desire of enjoying the benediction promised to him. For God not only promises him a seed, but a great people, who in number should equal the stars of heaven. They who expound the passage allegorically; implying that a heavenly seed was promised him which might be compared with the stars, may enjoy their own opinion: but we maintain what is more solid; namely, that the faith of Abram was increased by the sight of the stars. For the Lord, in order more deeply to affect his own people, and more efficaciously to penetrate their minds, after he here reached their ears by his word, also arrests their eyes by external symbols, that eyes and ears may consent together. Therefore the sight of the stars was not superfluous; but God intended to strike the mind of Abram with this thought, ‘He who by his word alone suddenly produced a host so numerous by which he might adorn the previously vast and desolate heaven; shall not He be able to replenish my desolate house with offspring?’ It is, however, not necessary to imagine a nocturnal vision, because the stars, which, during the day, escape our sight, would then appear; for since the whole was transacted in vision, Abram had a wonderful scene set before him, which would manifestly reveal hidden things to him. Therefore though he perhaps might not move a step, it was yet possible for him in vision to be led forth out of his tent. The question now occurs, concerning what seed the promise is to be understood. And it is certain that neither the posterity of Ishmael nor of Esau is to be taken into this account, because the legitimate seed is to be reckoned by the promise, which God determined should remain in Isaac and Jacob; yet the same doubt arises respecting the posterity of Jacob, because many who could trace their descent from him, according to the flesh, cut themselves off, as degenerate sons and aliens, from the faith of their fathers. I answer, that this term seed is, indiscriminately, extended to the whole people whole God has adopted to himself. But since many were alienated by their unbelief, we must come for information to Christ, who alone distinguishes true and genuine sons from such as are illegitimate. By pursuing this method, we find the posterity of Abram reduced to a small numbers that afterwards it may be the more increased. For in Christ the Gentiles also are gathered together, and are by faith ingrafted into the body of Abram, so as to have a place among his legitimate sons. Concerning which point more will be said in the seventeenth chapter Genesis 17:1
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v8 This is a particular motion of God’s Spirit, which…
This is a particular motion of God’s Spirit, which is not lawful for all to follow, in asking signs: but was permitted to some by a peculiar motion, as to Gideon and Hezekiah.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv4–8 Gen 15:4 And, behold, the word of the LORD…
Gen 15:4 And, behold, the word of the LORD [came] unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
Ver. 4. And, behold, the word of the Lord, &c.] Abram’s "Behold" of grief, is answered with God’s "Behold" of grace. The Greek rendereth it, "And straightway." God was straight at hand to help Abram’s infirmity, and to raise up his faith that began to flag and hang the wing, as the best faith will, if long put to it. Adeo nihil est in nobis magni, quod non queat minui .
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 8 i.e. Out of thy own body: see Gen 35:11;…
i.e. Out of thy own body: see Gen 35:11; 2Sa 7:12; 2Ch 6:9.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v7 We have here the assurance given to Abram of…
We have here the assurance given to Abram of the land of Canaan for an inheritance.
I. God declares his purpose concerning it, Gen 15:7. Observe here, Abram made no complaint in this matter, as he had done for the want of a child. Note, Those that are sure of an interest in the promised seed will see no reason to doubt of a title to the promised land. If Christ is ours, heaven is ours. Observe again, When he believed the former promise (Gen 15:6) then God explained and ratified this to him. Note, To him that has (improves what he has) more shall be given. Three things God here reminds Abram of, for his encouragement concerning the promise of this good land: -
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1. What God is in himself: I am the Lord Jehovah; and therefore, (1.) "I may give it to thee, for I am sovereign Lord of all, and have a right to dispose of the whole earth." (2.) "I can give it to thee, whatever opposition may be made, though by the sons of Anak." God never promises more than he is able to perform, as men often do. (3.) "I will make good my promise to thee." Jehovah is not a man that he should lie.
2. What he had done for Abram. He had brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, out of the fire of the Chaldees, so some, that is, either from their idolatries (for the Chaldeans worshipped the fire), or from their persecutions. The Jewish writers have a tradition that Abram was cast into a fiery furnace for refusing to worship idols, and was miraculously delivered. It is rather a place of that name. Thence God brought him by an effectual call, brought him with a gracious violence, snatched him as a brand out of the burning. This was, (1.) A special mercy: "I brought thee, and left others, thousands, to perish there." God called him alone, Isa 51:2. (2.) A spiritual mercy, a mercy to his soul, a deliverance from sin and its fatal consequences. If God save our souls, we shall want nothing that is good for us. (3.) A fresh mercy, lately bestowed, and therefore should be the more affecting, as that in the preface to the commandments, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt lately. (4.) A foundation mercy, the beginning of mercy, peculiar mercy to Abram, and therefore a pledge and earnest of further mercy, Isa 66:9. Observe how God speaks of it as that which he gloried in: I am the Lord that brought thee out. He glories in it as an act both of power and grace; compare Isa 29:22, where he glories in it, long afterwards. Thus saith the Lord who redeemed Abraham, redeemed him from sin.
3. What he intended to do yet further for him: "I brought thee hither, on purpose to give thee this land to inherit it, not only to possess it, but to possess it as an inheritance, which is the sweetest and surest title." Note, (1.) The providence of God has secret but gracious designs in all its various dispensations towards good people; we cannot conceive the projects of Providence, till the event shows them in all their mercy and glory. (2.) The great thing God designs in all his dealings with his people is to bring them safely to heaven. They are chosen to salvation (Th2 2:13), called to the kingdom (Th1 2:12), begotten to the inheritance (Pe1 1:3, Pe1 1:4), and by all made meet for it, Col 1:12, Col 1:13; Co2 4:17.
II. Abram desires a sign: Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Gen 15:8. This did not proceed from distrust of God's power or promise, as that of Zacharias; but he desired this, 1. For the strengthening and confirming of his own faith; he believed (Gen 15:6), but here he prays, Lord, help me against my unbelief. Now he believed, but he desired a sign to be treasured up against an hour of temptation, not knowing how his faith might, by some event or other, be shocked and tried. Note, We all need, and should desire, helps from heaven for the confirming of our faith, and should improve sacraments, which are instituted signs, for that purpose. See Jdg 6:36-40; Kg2 20:8-10; Isa 7:11, Isa 7:12. 2. For the ratifying of the promise to his posterity, that they also might be brought to believe it. Note, Those that are satisfied themselves should desire that others also may be satisfied of the truth of God's promises. John sent his disciples to Christ, not so much for his own satisfaction as for theirs, Mat 11:2, Mat 11:3. Canaan was a type of heaven. Note, It is a very desirable thing to know that we shall inherit the heavenly Canaan, that is, to be confirmed in our belief of the truth of that happiness, and to have the evidences of our title to it more and more cleared up to us.
III. God directs Abram to make preparations for a sacrifice, intending by that to give him a sign, and Abram makes preparation accordingly (Gen 15:9-11): Take me a heifer, etc. Perhaps Abram expected some extraordinary sign from heaven; but God gives him a sign upon a sacrifice. Note, Those that would receive the assurances of God's favour, and would have their faith confirmed, must attend instituted ordinances, and expect to meet with God in them. Observe, 1. God appointed that each of the beasts used for this service should be three years old, because then they were at their full growth and strength: God must be served with the best we have, for he is the best. 2. We do not read that God gave Abram particular directions how to manage these beasts and fowls, knowing that he was so well versed in the law and custom of sacrifices that he needed not any particular directions; or perhaps instructions were given him, which he carefully observed, thought they are not recorded: at least it was intimated to him that they must be prepared for the solemnity of ratifying a covenant; and he well knew the manner of preparing them. 3. Abram took as God appointed him, though as yet he knew not how these things should become a sign to him. This was not the first instance of Abram's implicit obedience. He divided the beasts in the midst, according to the ceremony used in confirming covenants, Jer 34:18, Jer 34:19, where it is said, They cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts. 4. Abram, having prepared according to God's appointment, now set himself to wait for the sign God might give him by these, like the prophet upon his watch-tower, Hab 2:1. While God's appearing to own his sacrifice was deferred, Abram continued waiting, and his expectations were raised by the delay; when the fowls came down upon the carcasses to prey upon them, as common and neglected things, Abram drove them away (Gen 15:11), believing that the vision would, at the end, speak, and not lie. Note, A very watchful eye must be kept upon our spiritual sacrifices, that nothing be suffered to prey upon them and render them unfit for God's acceptance. When vain thoughts, like these fowls, come down upon our sacrifices, we must drive them away, and not suffer them to lodge within us, but attend on God without distraction.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv4–8 And behold, the word of the Lord came unto…
And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him,.... Either having disappeared, and then came a second time, or he again spoke unto him:
saying, this shall not be thine heir; this Eliezer, this servant of thine, as thou hast made him, or hast intended to make him, giving up all hopes of having issue by Sarai:
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but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir; that is, one shall inherit all thou hast, that shall be begotten by thee; an own son of Abram's, and not a servant born in his house; one that should spring out of his own loins: the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "out of thy womb", that is, out of his wife's, which was his; the phrase designs a genuine and legitimate son of his, who would be legally his heir.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv5–8 And he brought him forth - It seems, early…
And he brought him forth - It seems, early in the morning, and said, look now toward heaven, and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be -
1. So innumerable, for so the stars seem to a common eye. Abram feared he should have no child at all, but God tells him his descendents should be so many as not to be numbered.
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2. So illustrious, as the stars of heaven for splendour; for to them pertained the glory, Rom. ix, 4. Abram's seed according to the flesh were like the dust of the earth, Chap. xiii, 16, but his spiritual seed are like the stars of heaven.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv5–8 Verse 5. Look now toward heaven] It appears that…
Verse 5. Look now toward heaven] It appears that this whole transaction took place in the evening; See Clarke on Ge 13:14. Abram had either two visions, that recorded in Ge 15:1, and that in Ge 15:12, c. or what is mentioned in the beginning of this chapter is a part of the occurrences which took place after the sacrifice mentioned Ge 15:9, c.: but it is more likely that there was a vision of that kind already described, and afterwards a second, in which he received the revelation mentioned Ge 15:13-16. After the first vision he is brought forth abroad to see if he can number the stars and as he finds this impossible, he is assured that as they are to him innumerable, so shall his posterity be; and that all should spring from one who should proceed from his own bowels - one who should be his own legitimate child.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv5–8 Gen 15:5. And he brought him forth — It…
Gen 15:5. And he brought him forth — It seems, early in the morning; and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be — 1st, So innumerable, for so the stars seem to a common eye. Abram feared he should have no child at all, but God tells him his descendants should be so many as not to be numbered. 2d, So illustrious, as the stars of heaven for splendour; for to “them pertained the glory,” Rom 9:4. Abram’s seed according to the flesh were like the “dust of the earth,” Gen 13:16, but his spiritual seed are like the stars of heaven.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv6, 8 Reputed by God, who cannot judge wrong; so that…
Reputed by God, who cannot judge wrong; so that Abram increased in justice by this act of faith, believing that his wife, now advanced in years, would have a child; from whom others should spring, more numerous than the stars of heaven. (Haydock) --- This faith was accompanied and followed by many other acts of virtue, St. James ii. 22. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v4 This shall not be thine heir--To the first part…
This shall not be thine heir--To the first part of his address no reply was given; but having renewed it in a spirit of more becoming submission, "whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it" [Gen 15:8], he was delighted by a most explicit promise of Canaan, which was immediately confirmed by a remarkable ceremony.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv4–8 4. Behold — How vivid the revelation!
4. Behold — How vivid the revelation!
This shall not be thine heir — Such an express answer touching his heir was potent to quell all further doubt and fear.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv5–8 5. tell the stars] i.e. count. A proverbial expression…
5. tell the stars] i.e. count. A proverbial expression for the infinite and innumerable, as in Gen_22:17, Gen_26:4.
The word “tell” is Old English for “count,” as in Psa_22:17, “I may tell all my bones”; Psa_48:12, “tell the towers thereof”; Jer_33:13, “And in the cities of Judah shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him that telleth them.” Cf. “And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale” (Milton, L’Allegro, 67, 68).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8 (5) He brought him forth.—There is no reason for…
(5) He brought him forth.—There is no reason for regarding this as a poetical description of a merely mental emotion. With his senses dormant, but alive to every spiritual impression, Abram feels himself led forth from the tent into the open space around, and is there commanded to count the stars. As a matter of fact, the stars visible to the naked eye are not very numerous, but they have ever been a received metaphor for an infinite multitude, probably because, as men gaze, they perpetually see the faint radiance of more and more distant constellations. Thus they cannot be counted, and Abram’s seed was to be countless, because of the vastness of its number.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv4–8 And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto…
And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv5, 7 And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look…
Gen_15:5-6
And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
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And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness
Abrams faith
These two verses lie close together on one page of the Bible. They are part of a brief event in one human life. Yet, as we read them, they seem to separate from each other, and to stand very far apart. The fifth verse is altogether of the past. It shows us the tent of the patriarch gleaming white in the clear starlight of the Eastern night. We learn with Abraham to look up and believe and be at rest. The sixth verse suggests thoughts of the nearer present. From the hour when St. Paul first cited this fact of Abrahams faith and his justification by faith, this verse has been taken out of the older story and bedded in our modern controversies.
I. In these verses lies the union of two things that God has joined together and that man is ever trying to separate--LIFE AND LIGHT. God revealed Himself to us, not by words that told of a Father, but by a life that showed a Father; not by a treatise on Fatherhood, but by the manifestation of a Son. And so He ever joins the light of precept with the life of practice.
II. We read that Abraham believed God--NOT THEN FOR THE FIRST TIME, NOT THEN ONLY. He had heard Gods voice before, and at its bidding had gone out to be an exile and pilgrim all his days. His faith was no intellectual assent to a demonstrated proposition; it was the trust of the heart in the voice of God. It was the belief, not that solves difficulties, but that rises above them.
III. WHY WAS ABRAHAMS FAITH COUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS? Because, as all sin lies folded in one thought of distrust, so in one thought of trust lies all possible righteousness--its patience, its hope, its heroism, its endurance, its saintliness; and therefore He who sees the end from the beginning reckons it as righteousness. In the faith of Abraham lay all the righteous endurance, all the active service, of his believing life. This simple trust of Abraham made the practical motive power of his life, as it should make that of ours. (Bp. Magee.)
Gods covenant and Abrams faith
I. WHAT WAS THE COVENANT, AND TO WHOM WAS IT REALLY MADE?
1. As we commonly use the term it means an agreement between two equal parties who bind themselves to do, or not to do, certain things. In the realm of Redemption it cannot be so, because God and man are not equals and cannot make mutual agreements. Gods covenant begins and ends with Himself. It comes to us only through His mercy and grace. The power to fulfil its conditions, on mans part, comes through the same grace received into the heart by faith.
2. To whom was this promise made? To Abraham and his seed, which is Christ.
II. WHAT WAS, AND IS, ACCEPTABLE FAITH? We see at a glance that the covenant asked almost nothing of its recipient as he left his home and entered Canaan. He had done nothing, that we can see, which would in the least entitle him to hear so large a promise, so divine. To be sure, we read that he would bring up his children well, but this hardly constitutes a valid reason why he should be selected to become heir of the world and the father of the faithful. We have the exact announcement here: He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness. It need not have been counted, if it had been real and intrinsic righteousness. It would have stood out in its own merits. In a word, it was the obedience of faith--the obedience springing out of, and kept alive by, faith. So far as sight went, there was nothing to justify his acceptance of the amazing promise that his seed should be as the dust and the stars for number, and that he should be the father of a nation which should fill and bless the earth. And although Christ is fully revealed to us, the steps from the life of nature into that of grace are essentially steps into an uncertainty. Only by faith do we know what we shall find when we accept salvation. We make a venture. We put the foot out for a step, and the only confidence we have that we shall not fall is the confidence of faith. Like Abraham we are called to go out into a country that shall be showed us after we have started for it. And how often must we leave kindred and friends behind us, like Christian in the dream of John Bunyan, and set our faces away from all that charms us, and cry aloud: Life! life! nor tarry in all the plain? (E. N. Packard.)
The covenant with Abram
I. GODS REST GIFT TO MAN IS HIMSELF (Gen_15:1). Hitherto God had promised to confer blessings upon Abram. Not till now had He promised to bestow Himself. Abram knew that God was better than His gifts. If He would confer Himself, no good can be lacking. So, taking God at His word, Abrams struggling faith comes to victory.
II. GOD GRANTS TO THE RELIEVING SOUL FREE INTERCOURSE WITH HIMSELF. As yet, whenever God had spoken, Abram had kept silence. Now his lips are opened.
III. GOD REVEALS HIMSELF TO MAN IN A WAY ADAPTED TO HIS PRESENT NEED. Abram had said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit the land? God heeded this request, and gave him a token adapted to his age and country. That was four thousand years ago, and in a barbarous age. To expect now such, or any sensuous phenomenon at the meeting place of God and man, would be to roll back the stream of time and expect the nineteenth century after Christ to be as gross in its spiritual conceptions as the nineteenth century before him. Still, the fact that God regarded Abrams request, and in a manner suited to His comprehension condescended to bind Himself by covenant to His promises of grace, is a lesson of perpetual hope. Gods ear is never closed to His childrens cry.
IV. GODS REVELATIONS TO MAN ARE PROGRESSIVE. There are seven or eight recorded instances of Gods communing with Abram (see Gen_12:1-3; Gen_12:7; Gen_21:13; Gen_21:15; Gen_21:17; Gen_21:22.). As God dealt with Abram He deals with us. The blessing faith asks for and receives today is the type of a richer one tomorrow. To Abram, childless, wandering in a strange land, the highest imagined good was a son and a home. These God promised. But how much greater the blessing when it was revealed that God in him was to reknit the broken bond between Himself and a fallen race, and through his seed to provide a Saviour for an apostate world! Faith, wherever it enters, makes the soul expansive. Today it wants and obtains; and by that very obtaining its wants are heightened still, and these when gratified yet more enlarge the soul, and urge it on to ask and expect yet ampler blessings. Nor is there ever fear that mans increased capacity or desire will exceed Gods ability to grant. The depths of His power and love are unfathomable.
V. THE CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH GODS BLESSINGS FLOW TO MAN IS FAITH. Notice the process by which Abrams faith resulted, Hot only in an imputed, but also in an actual righteousness. He hears the call of God, and comes to the decisive act of trusting Him. He then rises to the successive steps of walking with God, covenanting with Him, communing and interceding with Him, and at length withholding from Him nothing which he regards most dear. From this example of Abram several lessons respecting faith are taught. We learn that--
1. The sinners first duty is to believe what God has spoken. Had Abram disbelieved God, every act born of that disbelief would have been an act of sin. The only right thing he could do was to believe God and accept His proffered favour. So is it now To have confidence in God, to repose in Him, to fall into the arms of His promised grace, is the only first right act a sinner can perform. Hence the Scriptures emphasize the truth that salvation comes from believing.
2. The foundation of faith is Gods promise. God had told Abram what He would do. Abrams faith consisted in believing that God would do just as He had said.
3. Obedience is an essential element in faith. Because Abram believed God he obeyed Him. It is, says Selden, an unhappy division that is made between faith and works. Though in my interest I may divide them, just as in the candle I know there is both light and heat, yet put out the candle and they are both gone; one remains not without the other. So is it betwixt faith and works.
4. Faith is the souls simplest act, and also its mightiest energy. To Abram, weak and sinful, what so simple as to trust, like a little child, in his heavenly Father? Yet thus he became mightier than a conqueror.
5. Faiths highest conquests are not at first. (P. B. Davis.)
Gods covenant with Abram
I. ABRAM HAD EXPOSED HIMSELF TO DANGEROUS REPRISALS BY HIS VICTORY OVER THE CONFEDERATE EASTERN RAIDERS. In the reaction following the excitement of battle, dread and despondency seem to have shadowed his soul. Therefore the assurance with which this chapter opens came to him. It was new, and came in a new form. He is cast into a state of spiritual ecstasy, and a mighty word sounds, audible to his inward ear. The form which it takes--I am thy shield--suggests the thought that God shapes His revelation according to the moments need. The unwarlike Abram might well dread the return of the marauders in force, to avenge their defeat. Therefore God speaks to his fears and present want. Abram had just exercised singular generosity in absolutely refusing to enrich himself from the spoil. God reveals Himself as his exceeding great reward. He gives Himself as recompense for all sacrifices.
II. MAKE THE TRIUMPHANT FAITH WHICH SPRINGS TO MEET THE DIVINE PROMISE. The first effect of that great assurance is to deepen Abrams consciousness of the strange contradiction to it apparently given by his childlessness. It is not distrust that answers the promise with a question, but it is eagerness to accept the assurance and ingenuous utterance of difficulties in the hope of their removal. God is too wise a Father not to know the difference between the tones of confidence and unbelief, however alike they may soured; and He is too patient to be angry if we cannot take in all His promise at once. He breaks it into bits not too large for our lips, as He does hove. The frequent reiterations of the same promises in Abrams life are not vain. They are a specimen of the unwearied repetition of our lessons, Here a little, there a little, which our teacher gives his slow scholars. So, once more, Abram gets the promise of posterity in still more glorious form. Before, it was likened to the dust of the earth; now it is as the innumerable stars shining in the clear eastern heaven. As he gazes up into the solemn depths, the immensity and peace of the steadfast sky seems to help him to rise above the narrow limits and changefulness of earth, and a great trust floods his soul. Belief as credence is mainly an affair of the head, but belief as trust is the act of the will and the affections. The object of faith is set in sunlight clearness by these words--the first in which Scripture speaks of faith. Abram leaved on the Lord. It was not the promise, but the promiser, that was truly the object of Abrams trust.
III. MARK THE FULL-ORBED GOSPEL TRUTH AS TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH WHICH IS IMBEDDED IN THIS RECORD OF EARLY REVELATION. He counted it to him for righteousness. A geologist would be astonished if he came on remains in some of the primary strata which indicated the existence, in these remote epochs, of species supposed to be of much more recent date. So here we are startled at finding the peculiarly New Testament teaching away hack in this dim distance. No wonder that Paul fastened on this verse, which so remarkably breaks the flow of the narrative, as proof that his great principle of justification by faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent Divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation to God into which, through it, Abram entered. He was not a perfectly righteous man, as some passages of his life show; but he rose here to the height of loving and yearning trust in God, and God took that trust in lieu of perfect conformity to His will.
IV. CONSIDER THE COVENANT WHICH IS THE CONSEQUENCE OF ABRAMS FAITH, AND THE PROOF OF HIS ACCEPTANCE. It is important to observe that the whole remainder of this chapter is regarded by the writer as the result of Abrams believing God. The way in which Gen_15:7 and the rest are bolted on, as it were, to Gen_15:6, clearly shows this. The nearer lesson from this fact is that all the Old Testament revelation from this point onward, rests on the foundation of faith. The further lesson, for all times, is that faith is ever rewarded by more intimate and loving manifestations of Gods friendship, and by fuller disclosures of His purposes. The covenant is not only Gods binding Himself anew by solemn acts to fulfil His promises already made, but it is His entering into far sweeter and nearer alliance with Abram than even He had hitherto had. That name, the friend of God, by which he is still known over all the Muhammadan world, contains the very essence of the covenant. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The covenant with Abram
I. ABRAMS APPREHENSION AND GODS ASSURANCE.
1. The Divine words, Fear not, suggest that Abram was now filled with apprehension.
2. There was strong ground for such apprehension.
3. In this opportune moment of apprehension, Gods gracious voice of assurance was heard in vision by Abram.
(1) Encouraging words. Do not fear!
(2) The ground of the encouragement. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.
(a) As his shield, an all-sufficient protection.
(b) As his exceeding great reward, better than all spoils of war or earthly good.
(c) A present help in every time of need is our covenant God.
II. ABRAMS QUESTIONING AND GODS ANSWER.
1. This question was natural.
2. This question was timely.
3. It has been quaintly said: The pious complaint of human weakness before God must be distinguished from impious murmurs against God.
4. Gods answer.
(1) Positive.
(2) All-assuring.
III. ABRAMS FAITH AND GODS ATTESTATION.
1. This act of faith seems to have risen to a sublimer height, and to have been more spiritually appropriating, than any previous act had been.
2. Gods special attestation of this act of faith is peculiarly significant Rom_4:18-25).
3. The solemn ratifying rite.
4. Abrams deep sleep, and accompanying revelation from God. Lessons:
1. The assurance of Gods grace should quiet all our fears, and give abiding strength to our faith in His promises.
2. Let us imitate Abrams sublime faith when (Rom_4:20).
3. Unbelief dishonours God; faith glorifies Him. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
The covenant with Abram
I. ABRAM QUESTIONING. He never doubted God. But his faith was tried. His question in Gen_15:2 is a prayer for more light, as afterwards, in Gen_15:8, he asks for some token from God to assure him.
II. ABRAM BELIEVING. He believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that Gods promise must be true. This faith, then, was simply trusting Gods word.
III. ABRAM ASSURED. Abram watched. Abram waited. Then deep sleep fell on him. Gods time often comes when His servants weakness is most felt.
1. God unveils to Abram a glimpse of the future.
2. God allows Abram to see a symbol of the Divine Presence. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Lessons
1. Gods infinite condescension. Will God in very deed become a contracting party with man? Shall only the breadth of a sacrifice separate the Most High God from a sinful creature such as even Abraham was? And yet so it was.
2. Let us see here again a type and emblem of the greater covenant between the Father and the Son, the covenant of grace.
3. And we ought, in fine, to enter into covenant, as Abraham did, with God. In every act of firm belief in God and Christ there is implied the idea of covenant obligation. We bind ourselves to be Gods forever; and He promises, not to us by ourselves (as is supposed in a personal covenant), but to us as in Christ, all those blessings, present and future, which are implied in Him. (G. Gilfillan.)
The word count used in two senses
At the last general election some millions of votes had to be counted. And the proceedings on that occasion illustrated the fact that the verb to count is used in two senses. The clerk counts the voting papers he takes out of the ballot box; but presently he comes to one which has been filled up by the voter irregularly, and, throwing it aside, he exclaims, That will not count, or I cant count that. He does not mean that there is any physical difficulty in adding that one vote to the number he has arrived at. He means that it must not be reckoned. The same distinction may be seen in the Bible. When David says of Gods precious thoughts, If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand (Psa_139:18), the word count is used in the ordinary sense of numbering; and the same Hebrew word is sometimes translated number, as in Davids numbering of the people. But when the Psalmist complains, We are counted as sheep for the slaughter Psa_44:22), he means not numbered, but regarded, or reckoned; and the Hebrew word used is elsewhere rendered reckoned, or imputed, as in Psa_32:2, Unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. So also in the Greek of the New Testament; and teachers should particularly note, in studying this lesson, that in the Authorised Version of Romans
4. the words count (which occurs twice), reckon (which occurs three times), and impute (which occurs six times), all stand for one Greek word, which is used eleven times in that chapter, and always means count in the second sense. In the Revised Version this is put right, and in no chapter is the revision more valuable. It renders the word by reckon in every case, and every reader feels the immensely increased strength of St. Pauls argument. Now these two senses of the word count both appear in Gen_15:1-21, in the fifth and sixth verses. (In the fifth verse the English words tell and numbered are the same in the Hebrew, and are, of course, equivalent to count and counted). And in both cases the use of the expression is very significant. (E. Stock.)
Faith takes the righteous character of its object
Just as the hand of a dyer that has been working with crimson will be crimson just as the hand that has been holding fragrant perfumes will be perfumed; so my faith, which is only the hand by which I lay hold on precious things, will take the tincture and fragrance of what it grasps. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Faith in Christ our Righteousness
Like as, in winter, we no sooner go from the fire but we are cold, nor out of light but we enter into darkness, even so we no sooner be parted from Jesus Christ, who is our Righteousness and our Life, but straight we are in sin and death; forasmuch as He is our Life that quickeneth us, the Sun that giveth us light, and the Fire that warmeth, comforteth, and refresheth all His members. (J. Spencer.)
He believed in God
For the first time is that sacred emotion recorded which forms the centre of religion; which confides in things promised but unseen; which conquers every doubt by reliance and resignation; which discovers, through the mists of the present, the sunshine of the future; and which recognizes in the discordant strife of the world the traces of the eternal mind that leads it to an unceasing harmony. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)
And He counted it to him for righteousness
1. From this confessedly weighty sentence we learn, implicitly, that Abram had no righteousness. And here the universal fact of mans depravity comes out into incidental notice as a thing usually taken for granted in the words of God.
2. Righteousness is here imputed to Abram. Hence mercy and grace are extended to him; mercy taking effect in the pardon of his sin, and grace in bestowing the rewards of righteousness.
3. That in him which is counted for righteousness is faith in Jehovah promising mercy. In the absence of righteousness this is the only thing in the sinner that can be counted for righteousness.
(1) It is not of the nature of righteousness. If it were actual righteousness, it could not be counted as such. But believing God, who promises blessing to the undeserving, is essentially different from obeying God, who guarantees blessing to the deserving. Hence it has a negative fitness to be counted for what it is not.
(2) It is trust in Him who engages to bless in a holy and lawful way. Hence it is that in the sinner which brings him into conformity with the law through another, who undertakes to satisfy its demands, and secure its rewards for him. Thus it is the only thing in the sinner which, while it is not righteousness, has yet a claim to be counted for such, because it brings him into union with one who is just and having salvation. It is not material what the Almighty and All-gracious promises in the first instance to him that believes in Him, whether it be a land, or a seed, or any other blessing. All other blessing, temporal or eternal, will flow out of that express one in a perpetual course of development, as the believer advances in experience, in compass of intellect, and capacity of enjoyment. Hence it is that a land involves a better land, a seed a nobler seed, a temporal an eternal good. The patriarchs were children to us in the comprehension of the love of God: we are children to those who will hereafter experience still grander manifestations of what God has prepared for them that love Him. The shield and exceeding great reward await a yet inconceivable enlargement of meaning. (Professor J. G. Murphy.)
The rationale of faith in God
I. FAITH IN GOD SUPPOSES A DIVINE REVELATION.
1. We must have a revelation of a personal God.
2. That revelation must exhibit God in loving relations to man.
(1) As able to protect him from all evil.
(2) As a sufficient portion.
II. THE ACT OF FAITH RESTS UPON A DIVINE PROMISE.
1. Faith is the present realization of some good which we hope for.
2. Without a Divine promise, faith becomes mere adventure.
III. THERE ARE DIFFICULTIES IN FAITH WHICH GOD IS READY TO MEET.
1. Such difficulties are part of our trial in this present state.
2. Such difficulties need not overtask our faith.
IV. FAITH IN GOD IS MANS ONLY RIGHTEOUSNESS.
1. Man has no righteousness of and from himself.
2. Man cannot attain righteousness by obedience to the works of the law.
3. Man can only possess righteousness by the gracious act of God. (T. H.Leale.)
The firmness of Abrahams faith -
I. GOD SPOKE TO ABRAHAM ABOUT HIS FEAR.
II. GOD SPOKE TO ABRAHAM ABOUT HIS CHILDLESSNESS.
III. ABRAHAM BELIEVED BEFORE HE UNDERWENT THE JEWISH RITE OF CIRCUMCISION.
IV. ABRAHAM BELIEVED IN FACE OF STRONG NATURAL IMPROBABILITIES.
V. HIS FAITH WAS DESTINED TO BE SEVERELY TRIED.
VI. HIS FAITH WAS COUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Justification by faith illustrated by Abrams righteousness
I. How was ABRAM JUSTIFIED?
1. He was not justified by his works.
2. This justification came to Abram not by obedience to the ceremonial law, any more that by conformity to the moral law.
3. The faith which justified Abram was still an imperfect faith, although it perfectly justified him.
(1) Imperfect beforehand. Prevarication as to wife.
(2) Imperfect afterwards. Taking Hagar in order to effect Divine purpose.
4. So far, then, all is clear: Abram was not justified by works, nor by ceremonies, nor partly by works and partly by faith, nor by the perfection of his faith--he is counted righteous simply because of his faith in the Divine promise. I must confess that, looking more closely into it, this text is too deep for me, and therefore I decline, at this present moment, to enter into the controversy which rages around it; but one thing is clear to me, that if faith be, as we are told, counted to us for righteousness, it is not because faith in itself has merit which may make it a fitting substitute for a perfect obedience to the law of God, nor can it be viewed as a substitute for such obedience. For all good acts are a duty: to trust God is our duty, and he that hath believed to his utmost hath done no more than it was his duty to have done. He who should believe without imperfection, if this were possible, would even then have only given to God a part of the obedience due; and if he should have failed in love, or reverence, or aught beside, his faith, as a virtue and a work, could not stand him in any stead. In fact, according to the great principle of the New Testament, even faith, as a work, does not justify the soul. We are not saved by works at all or in any sense, but alone by grace, and the way in which faith saves us is not by itself as a work, but in some other way directly opposite thereto.
II. Let us pass on to consider THE PROMISE UPON WHICH HIS FAITH RELIED when Abram was justified.
1. Abrams faith, like ours, rested upon a promise received direct from God. This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed by. Had this promise been spoken by any other, it would have been a subject of ridicule to the patriarch; but, taking it as from the lip of God, he accepts it, and relies upon it. Now, if you and I have true faith, we accept the promise, He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved, as being altogether Divine.
2. Abrams faith was faith in a promise concerning the seed. He saw Christ by the eye of faith, and then he saw the multitude that should believe in Him, the seed of the father of the faithful. The faith which justifies the soul concerns itself about Christ, and not concerning mere abstract truths.
3. Abram had faith in a promise which it seemed impossible could ever be fulfilled. The faith which justifies us must be of the same kind. It seems impossible that I should ever be saved; I cannot save myself; I see absolute death written upon the best hopes that spring of my holiest resolutions; In me, that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing; but yet for all this I believe that through the life of Jesus I shall live, and inherit the promised blessing.
4. This justifying faith was faith which dealt with a wonderful promise, vast and sublime. I do not hear him saying, It is too good to be true. No; God hath said it--and nothing is too good for God to do. The greater the grace of the promise, the more likely it is to have come from Him, for good and perfect gifts come from the Father of Lights. Canst thou believe that heaven is thine, with all its ecstasies of joy, eternity with its infinity of bliss, God with all His attributes of glory? Oh! this is the faith that justifies, far-reaching, wide-grasping faith, that diminishes not the word of promise, but accepts it as it stands.
5. Once more, Abram showed faith in the promise as made to himself. Out of his own bowels a seed should come, and it was in him and in his seed that the whole world should be blessed. I can believe all the promises in regard to other people. I find faith in regard to my dear friend to be a very easy matter, but oh! when it comes to close grips, and to laying hold for yourself, here is the difficulty.
III. In the third place, let us notice THE ATTENDANTS OF ABRAMS JUSTIFICATION.
1. With your Bibles open, kindly observe that, after it is written his faith was counted to him for righteousness, it is recorded that the Lord said to him, I am Jehovah that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. When the soul is graciously enabled to perceive its complete justification by faith, then it more distinctly discerns its calling. Now, the believer perceives his privileged separation, and discerns why he was convinced of sin, why he was led away from self-righteousness and the pleasures of this world, to live the life of faith; now he sees his high calling and the prize of it, and from the one blessing of justification he argues the blessedness of all the inheritance to which he is called.
2. Abram, after being justified by faith, was led more distinctly to behold the power of sacrifice. By Gods command he killed three bullocks, three goats, three sheep, with turtle doves and pigeons, being all the creatures ordained for sacrifice.
3. Perhaps even more important was the next lesson which Abram had to learn. He was led to behold the covenant. I suppose that these pieces of the bullock, the lamb, the ram, and the goat, were so placed that Abram stood in the midst with a part on this side and a part on that. So he stood as a worshipper all through the day, and towards nightfall, when a horror of great darkness came over him, he fell into a deep sleep. Who would not feel a horror passing over him as he sees the great sacrifice for sin, and sees himself involved therein? Can God forget a covenant with such sanctions? Can such a federal bond so solemnly sealed be ever broken? Impossible. Man is sometimes faithful to his oath, but God is always so; and when that oath is confirmed for the strengthening of our faith by the blood of the Only-begotten, to doubt is treason and blasphemy. God help us, being justified, to have faith in the covenant which is sealed and ratified with blood.
4. Immediately after, God made to Abram (and here the analogy still holds) a discovery, that all the blessing that was promised, though it was surely his, would not come without an interval of trouble. You are a justified man, but you are not freed from trouble. Your sins were laid on Christ, but you still have Christs cross to carry. The Lord has exempted you from the curse, but He has not exempted you from the chastisement. Learn that you enter on the childrens discipline on the very day in which you enter upon their accepted condition.
5. To close the whole, the Lord gave to Abram an assurance of ultimate success. He would bring his seed into the promised land, and the people who had oppressed them He would judge. So let it come as a sweet revelation to every believing man this morning, that at the end he shall triumph, and that those evils which now oppress him shall be cast beneath his feet. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Faith counted for righteousness
The expression counted for righteousness does not signify, considered as a righteous act; but it means, accepted for righteousness. Righteousness, such as would satisfy Gods holy law, he had not; but faith he had: and God takes this faith as a substitute for righteousness, and reckons it to him as righteousness.
1. This faith was an entire surrender of himself to God, and renouncing of his own will and wisdom.
2. It was an implicit confidence in the Divine faithfulness and veracity.
3. It looked to Gods promise; and that promise contained, in germ, the whole doctrine of the gospel.
4. This faith showed itself in holy obedience.
I. WE ARE BY NATURE, AND IN OURSELVES, UNRIGHTEOUS.
II. WE ARE NOT ABLE TO SAVE OURSELVES BY WORKS.
III. TO BE MADE RIGHTEOUS MEANS TO BE SET PERFECTLY RIGHT WITH GODS LAW.
IV. THIS CAN BE DONE FOR US ONLY BY FAITH. In other words, our salvation must be of grace; it must be accomplished for us by God; and we must acquiesce in His method, and surrender ourselves to His power.
V. FAITH, IN RESTING UPON GODS WORD, RESTS UPON A STATEMENT, A DOCTRINE, AND A PROMISE. The statement is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died, rose again, and now sitteth at Gods right hand. The doctrine is that His death was an express and all-sufficient atonement for our sins; so that God now, looking at it, can be just and the justifier of the ungodly. The promise is that all sin shall be remitted, and all righteousness imputed to him who truly repents and shelters in the atoning sacrifice of Christ.
VI. YET FAITH HAS A PRACTICAL RESULT. He who thus believes is saved. He is inspired with love to God; he is renewed in the Divine likeness, and made a partaker of the Holy Ghost; and therefore he must delight to keep Gods commandments and do His will. Application:
1. To the ungodly. Seek justification, and so flee from the wrath to come.
2. To those seeking to be righteous. Will you study Gods method of righteousness, which is by faith, and at once fall in with it?
3. To believers. Cultivate more faith, and rest confident of never perishing, but having eternal life. Beware of relapsing into the spirit of merit mongering and legalism. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
Abrahams faith counted for righteousness
To establish the doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ, it is not necessary to maintain that the faith of Abram means Christ in whom he believed. Nor can this be maintained; for it is manifestly the same thing, in the account of the Apostle Paul, as believing, which is very distinct from the object believed in. The truth appears to be this: It is faith, or believing, that is counted for righteousness; not, however, as a righteous act, or on account of any inherent virtue contained in it, but in respect of Christ, on whose righteousness it terminates. That we may form a clear idea, both of the text and the doctrine, let the following particulars be considered:--
1. Though Abram believed God when he left Ur of the Chaldees, yet his faith in that instance is not mentioned in connection with his justification; nor does the apostle, either in his Epistle to the Romans or in that to the Galatians, argue that doctrine from it, or hold it up as an example of justifying faith. I do not mean to suggest that Abram was then in an unjustified state; but that the instance of his faith which was thought proper by the Holy Spirit to be selected as the model for believing for justification, was not this, nor any other of the kind; but those only in which there was an immediate respect had to the person of the Messiah. By Him, all that believe (that is, in Him) are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. It is through faith in His blood that they obtain remission of sins--He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
2. This distinction, so clearly perceivable both in the Old and New Testament, sufficiently decides in what sense faith is considered as justifying. Whatever other properties the magnet may possess, it is as pointing invariably to the north that it guides the mariner: so whatever other properties faith may possess, it is as pointing to Christ, and bringing us into union with Him, that it justifies.
3. The phrase, counted it for righteousness, does not mean that God thought it to be what it was, which would have been merely an act of injustice; but His graciously reckoning it what in itself it was not; viz., a ground for the bestowment of covenant blessings.
4. Though faith is not our justifying righteousness, yet it is a necessary concomitant, and mean of justification; and being the grace which above all others honours Christ, it is that which above all others God delights to honour. Hence it is that justification is ascribed to it, rather than to the righteousness of Christ without it. Our Saviour might have said to Bartimeus, Go thy way, I have made thee whole. This would have been truth, but not the whole of truth which it was His design to convey. The necessity of faith in order to healing would not have appeared from this mode of speaking, nor had any honour been done, or encouragement been given to it: but by His saying, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole, each of these ideas is conveyed, Christ would omit mentioning His own honour, and knowing that faith having an immediate respect to Him, amply provided for it. (A. Fuller.)
Power of faith
He who walks by sight only, walks in a blind alley. He who does not know the freedom and joy of reverent, loving speculation, wastes his life in the gloomy cell of the mouldiest of prisons. Even in matters that are not distinctly religious, faith will be found to be the inspiration and strength of the most useful life. It is faith that does the great work in the world. It is faith that sends men in search of unknown coasts. It is faith that re-trims the lamp of inquiry, when sight is weary of the flame. It is faith that unfastens the cable and gives men the liberty of the seas. It is faith that inspires the greatest works in civilization. So we cannot get rid of religion unless we first get rid of faith, and when we get rid of faith we give up our birthright and go into slavery forever. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Firm religious belief
Sir Humphrey Davy used to remark, I envy not quality of the mind or intellect in others; nor genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes when all hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions and plains and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair.
Abram believed
This is the first time the word believed occurs in the Bible. How wonderful this chapter is in the matter of first uses of words! It seems to be a chapter of beginnings! Believed--what a history opens in this one word! The moment Abram believed, he was truly born again. We may see here some of the great meanings of the word. Paul says of Abram that against hope he believed in hope, and that he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Here, then, we may study the word at the fountain head. Believed means supported, sustained, strengthened; Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God; Abram hid his life and his future in this promise, as a child might hide or nestle in a mothers breast. That is faith. He took the promise as a fulfilment; the word was to him a fact. Thus he was called out of himself, out of his own trust, out of his own resources, and his life was fostered upon God--he by-lived, lived-by, believed, God! It was surely a perilous moment. Appearances were against the promise. Doubt might well have said, How can this thing be? But Abram staggered not. Gods love was set before him like an open door, and Abram went in and became a child at home. Henceforward the stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and his greatness. They were henceforward not stars only but promises, and oaths, and blessings. Thus dust is turned into flesh; bread into sacramental food; and stars become revelations and prophecies. This act of believing in the Lord was accounted unto Abram for righteousness. From the first, God has always made much of faith. In no instance has it been treated as a mere matter of course, but rather as a precious thing that called for approbation and blessing. Faith was counted unto Abram for character; it added something positive to his being; he became more than merely harmless; he became noble, dignified, righteous. To believe, is not simply to assent; it is to take the thing promised as if it were actually given; and this action on the part of man is followed by an exactly corresponding action on the part of God, for he takes the faith as righteousness, the act of belief as an act of piety, a mental act as a positive heroism. What Abram did, we ourselves have to do. He rested on the word of God; he did not wait until the child was born, and then say, Now I believe; that would not have been faith, it would have been sight. It is thus that I must believe God; I must throw my whole soul upon Him, and drive all doubt, all fear, from my heart, and take the promise as a fact. (J. Parker, D. D.)
And he believed in the Lord
Scarcely any event of the Old Testament is more frequently celebrated than this, and made the subject of more lengthy comment. Abraham believed God; and it was counted unto him for righteousness. It is a story as beautiful as it is blessed, if we can but tell it as it should be told. Let us listen, longing that Abrahams faith may be ours. After these things the word of the Lord came upon Abram in a vision, saying--So it ever begins. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Do not let us begin to think of Abrahams advantage in the vision. We have the Word of God as he never had it, or could have it. Above all, we have the Word made flesh, the Only-Begotten, full of truth and grace. A thousand precious promises ever wait to welcome us, and pledge to us the blessing of our God. And it is from the Word that faith springs. Fear not, Abram. Abram was fearing and fretting. And well he might. I am thy shield, come in under My presence, I will screen thee, and I will be thy portion, thy reward exceeding great. Thus God draws His mournful child to Himself that He may comfort him. I am. What God is, is our blessedness. To know Him is rest; to know Him is to rejoice. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless? Give thee indeed, Abraham! Surely thou art forgetting how much He has given thee. Has He not given thee already more than enough? Wealth does but leave me poor indeed; lands and fame yield no comfort if He be not mine! O blessed longing, O holy discontent, to find no rest, no satisfaction, except in Christ! No complaint is so welcome to our God as that which comes from a longing for Christ. Then comes the promise of a son distinct and assured. And not spoken only, but God led him forth and bade him look into the heavens. And Abraham believed in the Lord. Unbelief has plenty of ground for the sole of its foot, and might very well have said: My Lord, that is impossible. Unbelief might have whispered again: I do not see hew it can be? Unbelief makes much of that: I do not see how it can be. But what of that? Are there not ten thousand things which I have not sense enough to understand, but which I am glad to be sure of for all that! Of all follies the supreme folly is unbelief. Abraham listened, and God spake. Abraham looked, and all about him was the pledge and measure of this promise: And Abraham believed in the Lord. If God had said it should be, why of course it must be--must be. There is no room for doubt. For thee and me there is a vision brighter than that Syrian sky and the glory of the heavens. We see Jesus. To be like Him--is our high colling and the glorious promise of God. What shall we say? Shall we look at ourselves, at our failings, at our folly? Shall we go through the list of our hindrances and difficulties? Shall we begin to argue about the possibility of it all? Or shall we boldly take hold of the Almighty power of God and rest in the assurance of the word that cannot be broken? The servant shall be as his Lord. See further. The impossibility was Gods possibility. The relation of Abraham to the Messiah was not of nature, but by a new creation, a resurrection. So then for us here is the great secret of the blessed life: It is an utter and absolute surrender of ourselves to God for the fulfilment of His purposes; and then an abiding confidence in Him that He will assuredly fulfil the word wherein He hath caused us to hope. (M. G.Pearse.)
Look now toward heaven
You may be hemmed in on every side; but you are not hemmed in overhead. If you cannot see a great way before you, or on either hand, you can see far enough straight up. When you question what God can do, look above, and see what God has done. This looking at obstacles, fixing our eyes on the hills or the bogs, on the lions or the bad men in our pathway, is discouraging business. It makes us believe that there is no way out of our difficulties. But to look up into the clear sky, and to see the moon and the stars in their marvellous beauty, inspires us to the feeling that there are no difficulties out of which their Maker cannot find the way for us. What is it that has discouraged you? Is it your empty purse; or the business outlook of the times; or the rumours of impending war; or the misdoing or the lack of your wayward boy; or the suspicious looks of those who used to trust you; or the sense of your own poor health; or a fresh conviction of your lack of mental power? Whatever it is that has made you anxious, look now toward heaven: there is nothing discouraging in that direction. If the Lord who made the heavens, and keeps the moon and the stars in their places, has given you a promise, you may be sure that He can make that promise good. (H. C. Trumbull.)
So shall thy seed be
That the Lord assumed any visible form is not likely, and it would lessen the sweetness, solitude, and sublimity of the incident. No! Abraham stands there alone, like a grey granite rock glimmering in the light of stars. Behind him are his tents, where every eye is closed in slumber. Around stretches the wide solitary plain, with the hills of Hebron in the distance. Above is the illimitable firmament, not, as in this climate, spotted here and there with patches and streaks, and points of splendour, but hanging down like a roof of solid and compacted gold; the points, and streaks, and patches being those of the darkness, and serving to relieve the intensity, and to measure the depth of the surrounding glory. In the clear air of the Eastern night, the breeze of midnight blowing and increasing the transparency, as well as the coolness of the atmosphere, the stars look myriads and millions, the Pleiades appear, not as to us, a nest of fireflies tangled in a silver braid, but a hundred distinct particles of glowing light; Orion seems not to us a giant half seen through wisps of mist, but like Nebuchadnezzars golden image in the plain of Dura, blazing equally from every limb; constellations unknown to, or dimly seen in our latitudes, here sparkle like gems of various colours, red, blue, purple, and green; and although only a section of the Great Bear looms above the northern horizon, the southern man is not conscious of the mutilation, and sees instead--oh! rapturous object to the Christian heart, although Abraham is not yet aware of the import of the solemn symbol--the Cross of the South, with its unequal and tremulous, but beautiful angles, appearing like a tree of glory on the remotest verge of the horizon. And while Abraham is gazing at this mass of heavenly splendour, and vainly trying to number its bright atoms, there comes a whisper from above the stars, which, as it passes along, hushes the breeze of night, the voice of distant streams, and the roar of wandering lions, and pierces the very core of his heart--So shall thy seed be. There are their numbers already registered in the book of heaven. (G. Gilfillan.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v7 Gen_15:9. Take me.] Heb. Take for me, i.e., Take…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_15:9. Take me.] Heb. Take for me, i.e., Take and offer for me. Three years old. Denoting, say Kalisch, “the perfection of their species.”
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Gen_15:10. Divided them.] In this manner animals were prepared for the ratification of a covenant. Hence the Heb. for to make a covenant is, to cut a covenant. The custom was to cut the animals intended for sacrifice in two, and then to pass between the parts (Jer_34:18-19, Psa_50:5). “It consisted in cutting the throat of the victim, and pouring out its blood. The carcass was then divided length-wise, as nearly as possible into two equal parts, which being placed opposite to each other at a short distance, the covenanting parties approached at the opposite ends of the passage thus formed, and meeting in the middle, took the customary oath.” (Bush). Laid each piece one against another. Heb. Gave every one’s part, or piece, against his fellow, i.e., laid head against head, shoulder against shoulder, etc., so that the covenanting parties might pass between them. The birds divided he not. As there were two birds, they could be separated so as to make a space between them, without the necessity of their division. It was afterwards commanded in the Law not to divide birds in sacrifices. (Lev_1:17). Fowls were regarded as mere appendages to the sacrifices.
Gen_15:11. Fowls came down upon the carcases.] Ravenous birds of prey, such as eagles, vultures, kites, etc., which feed upon dead bodies.
Gen_15:12. Deep sleep.] The same expression is used of Adam: Gen_2:21. The LXX has ecstasy—a supernatural trance.
Gen_15:13. Know of a surety.] Heb. Knowing know. A stranger. This refers chiefly to Egypt; but their sojourn in Canaan, where they lived as strangers, is also included. Four hundred years. “400 years is the manner of speech of prophecy, taking the greater and round numbers. It was really 430; see Exo_12:40. The devices resorted to in order to produce exact agreement are beneath notice.” (Alford).
Gen_15:16. Fourth generation.] “The fourth generation of the Isaaelites who went down to Egypt should return and possess Canaan. This was the result. Caleb was the fourth from Judah, Moses was the fourth from Levi; or Isaac, Levi, Amram, Eleazar, may represent the four generations.” (Jacobus). “In the fourth, age. An age here means the average period from the birth to the death of one man. This age or generation ran parallel with the life of Moses, and therefore consisted of 120 years. Joseph lived 110 years. Four such generations amount to 480 or 440 years.” (Murphy). Amorites. The general name for the Canaanitish tribes.
Gen_15:18. River of Egypt.] Some suppose the Nile is meant; but to this others object that the region from the Nile to the Euphrates includes a wider dominion than Israel ever attained. Hence it has been conjectured that the reference is to the Wady el Arisch, which is called the “Brook of Egypt.” “It is true that the domain of Israel never reached exactly to the river Nile. But nothing between them and the Nile was independent of them. Virtually this was the extent; and as Kurtz remarks, these two rivers are considered here as the representatives of the two great powers of the East and the West; and the meaning of the promise is, that the land and commonwealth of the descendants of Abram should be independent, and continue by the side of and between these two empires, and that no other empire or nation should permanently bear independent sway in the districts which lay between Judea and these two great empires.” (Jacobus).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_15:7-21
THE CONFIRMATION OF FAITH
Abram had now that faith by which he was regarded righteous in the sight of God. But faith is only the beginning of the spiritual life, which, as in the case of all life, is a season of weakness. Therefore it must be strengthened and encouraged and brought into further development. God graciously confirmed the faith of His servant, so that he might have entire confidence in His ability to accomplish the word of promise. He who gives spiritual life to the soul is ready to give it more abundantly. We may learn from the instance of Abram how, when once we have faith, we may reasonably look to God for the further assurance of it. How was Abram’s faith confirmed? The answer to this question will be a guide and comfort to believers in all ages.
I. Faith is confirmed by the remembrance of God’s past dealings. The soul that has believed has already passed through some stages of spiritual history in all which the Divine goodness and leading were manifest. When faith wavers, or its life is in danger of growing feeble, it is well for us to review the past and to remember what God has been to us. We may use memory to stimulate both faith and hope. This was the use the Psalmist made of the past mercies of God: “Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings I rejoice” (Psa_63:7). The several parts of this act of remembrance may be gathered from God’s dealings with Abram in this solemn transaction.
1. We should call to mind what God is. Abram was reminded of the majesty, the glory, and unchangeable nature of that Being with whom he had to do. The Lord announced His own awful name, “I am JEHOVAH” (Gen_15:7). God’s name is Himself, and could we learn and know the mysterious secret of it, we should see an end to all our soul’s fears. God is the All-sufficient One, and if we but know that, we need want no more. But such is the frailty of our nature that we are under the necessity of ever reminding ourselves of fundamental truths. If the life of faith is to be maintained, the soul must frequently cast itself upon God. In the presence of His power and unchangeable purpose of goodness, we can have no fear that His promise shall fail.
2. We should consider the steps by which we have arrived at what we are already. Abram, now, for several years was conscious of God’s dealings with him. He had ordered his life by God’s direction. He had experienced many proofs of His favour, and of His power to deliver in the time of danger. The Lord reminded him of these things. “I am JEHOVAH, that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees” (Gen_15:7). That journey was long, leading through various prospects, and through paths of chequered experience; but God was with him and led him on. Abram may now confirm his faith by looking at the steps which God had already taken to secure to him the land of promise. Part of the Divine plan had been already accomplished, for God brought him out of Ur that he might give him possession of Canaan. This was surely enough. Will God now falter or fail in the midst of His work, and not go on unto the end? The believer can look back upon all that God has done, and upon all the way by which he has been led, and take courage.
3. We should keep that purpose of God before us in reference to which we first exercised our faith. “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it” (Gen_15:7). Abram’s attention is called to the purpose which God intended for him from the very first. God had promised him the land, and on that word he had ventured to hope and trust. All God’s dealings were tending towards the fulfilment of this promise. “I called thee, and promised to bless thee; and whatever may be the darkness of the troubled scene now to be set before thee, it is thy privilege still to know that He who brought thee out of Ur to inherit this land is ‘the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever’ ” (Candlish). All God’s dealings with believers now tend to the working out of His original purpose concerning them, which is to unite them to Himself and bring them to glory. If we remember what is the end of our high calling of God, we have no cause to fear. We have no need to be discouraged because of the way. Our faith, like that of Abram, rests upon the promise of God that He hath provided for us a better place.
II. Faith is confirmed by covenant. The Lord had entered into covenant with Adam and with Noah, but this is the first time that He makes a covenant with Abram. The patriarch needed encouragement. He was not yet in possession of the land which was promised, and the disclosures of the future of his race, which were shortly to be submitted to him, were not altogether cheering. A covenant is granted, not that God requires it for Himself, but for our sakes. We require the definite word, and that it should be confirmed by some act. God thus makes agreement with man, and ties Himself down to conditions. Consider the exact place which this covenant held in the spiritual history of Abram.
1. It was a token and pledge of God’s promises, not a concession to unbelief. Abram desires that his faith should be confirmed by some sign or token. “And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (Gen_15:8). This request was made after he had exercised genuine faith, and had been accounted righteous and accepted in the sight of God. This was not the demand of doubt or of unbelief, made in the spirit of an evil and adulterous generation which seeked after a sign. To require a sign before believing, and as a necessary condition of that act, is a sin. It is presuming to dictate to God, as if we had made up our minds not to agree to His terms until we heard them, or until He should come round to ours. But when we first rest our faith upon God’s bare word, we then may humbly hope for some token and pledge of His promises. That living thing called faith yet needs an atmosphere constantly renewed, fresh and invigorating. The fitting frame of mind for every child of God is, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.” So it was with Abram. He believed, and had acceptance and peace; but the future was dark and he was compassed about with infirmity. “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit the land?”
2. It was a covenant made by sacrifice (Gen_15:9-10). In every covenant, some token or sign must be given as a common point of meeting for God and man. Thus, in the case of Noah there was a sign or token, but this is the first time in which God prepares for a covenant with man with all the formality of a sacrificial transaction. This shows that the gospel idea had now reached a farther stage of development. This transaction pointed to the sacrifice of Christ. Abram’s sacrifice was to consist of animals of three years old, which was the time of full vigour. They were to be unblemished, and of the best. Such was “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” He was cut off in the time of his full strength. He was holy, and without spot. He was the flower and perfection of the race—the new and better beginning of humanity. In the tokens of this covenant there are two principles recognised, as bearing upon the great sacrifice for sin.
(1.) That life comes through death. These animals were slain, as plainly to set forth that death is the consequence of sin. It is also the means of life, for God’s covenants convey the gifts of mercy and salvation. Through the death of God’s Great Sacrifice we have life. In human experience we have some imperfect analogies to this. The sufferings, and even the death of men, are often the hard conditions securing the good of the race. The death of the mother is often the life of the child. Death for death is the stern requirement of our salvation, but He who saved us had strength beyond the power of death, and rose again for our justification. He brought life from the dead.
(2.) That this sacrifice pointed to a greater whose intent was to bring man into union with God. The animals were divided, according to the custom in such solemnities (Gen_15:10). The parties were to pass together between the parts of the sacrifice, as denoting that they were thus at one. “The unity laid down in the covenant is hereby expressed. The division of the sacrifices into two portions represents the two parties to the covenant. As these portions constitute in reality one animal, so these two parties to the covenant are joined into one” (Kurtz). The form of the word “atonement” shows that it signifies that we are made one with God. To knit together again the broken relations between God and man is the great work of Christ.
3. It was a covenant which was so ordered as to give a further exercise to faith. When the sacrifice was all made ready, there followed a time of silence and suspense. Abram can only with difficulty keep off the devouring birds of the air which fall upon the divided fragments. He watches anxiously till the close of day, when he becomes weary and falls into a heavy slumber. A mysterious darkness surrounds him. Light at last shines forth out of it, and the symbols of the Divine glory appear, but still the waiting for them was a trial. While mankind was waiting for Christ, it was a time of darkness, suspense, and trial. While the Deliverer was only promised, it was difficult to keep even the most prophetic souls always awake.
III. Faith is confirmed by a further discovery of the Divine will. Abram was a prophet, and it was necessary that he should know what was the mind of God, that he might be able to interpret it for the benefit of the Church. It was necessary that God should reveal His will. But the principle still holds good in the case of each believer, that God always rewards obedience by a further discovery of His will. “If any man,” says Jesus, “will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.”
1. This discovery was preceded by a revelation of the awful majesty of God. There was an “horror of great darkness” upon Abram (Gen_15:12). This produced a state of mind which is proper when God is about to grant an audience with His creature. This feeling of awe and horror was often an attendant upon special prophetic revelations (Job_4:13-14; Dan_10:8).
2. The future was unfolded. Not for the benefit of Abram alone, as an individual, but for that of the Church. Israel for four hundred years afterwards would have these words to ponder, and even after that to contemplate the still further issues which would be prepared. Of the future, which was here unfolded to the prophet, it may be observed—
(1) That it was not altogether a cheering prospect. Abram’s seed were to be strangers in a land that is not their own, to be condemned to a debasing and cruel servitude for four hundred years. The immediate future of his race was drawn in sad colours. Prosperity would only be granted after many years of grievous trouble. This is a picture of what the Church is, and will be throughout history. Her life is a transcript of that of her Lord’s. It was necessary that He should first suffer, and afterwards enter into His glory, and so His church must pass through weary seasons of darkness and trial before she sees full prosperity and enters into her joyful reward. God’s revelation does not hide from believers the troubles they may expect in this life. But—
(2). It would be bright in the end. After a previous affliction for four hundred years Abram’s posterity were to be delivered from the House of Bondage (Gen_15:14). The afflictions of God’s saints are intended to issue in blessing. The “horror of great darkness” which fell upon the patriarch was a picture of the prospects of his race, which at first were discouraging, but afterwards joyous. God was about to create a people for Himself, and as in the creation of the world so it was here, there was darkness first and then light. This is also the order of the spiritual history of the individual. The new life of souls begins in sorrow, but ends in blessedness. In that prophetic picture of the afflictions of his posterity there were two things which would comfort and assure the mind of Abram. One was that God would punish the instruments of their affliction, “Also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge” (Gen_15:14). Those who afflict God’s people bring down upon themselves His judgments in the end. Such is the terrible law of retributive providence as seen in the course of human history. God may use a nation as a rod to afflict His people, but afterwards He breaks the rod in pieces. No weapon that is formed against them can prosper. The Church is too strong to be broken by the powers of this world, for those who have opposed her have either been brought to submission, or have been blotted out of the family of nations. Another consolatary thought was that there were reasons for the delay of the promised blessings. “For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Gen_15:16). He who is Lord of all must rule over the wicked as well as the righteous. His longsuffering towards sinners is often a reason why He delays the deliverance of His people. They must abide the time of God’s forbearance with those who afflict them. It should reconcile us to the prosperity of the wicked to remember that God allows evil in this world sufficient time to work out its own recompense. It is enough for us to know that what is right and true shall triumph in the end, and what is wrong and false shall be destroyed after it has had a fair trial. The Church cannot enter into her complete reward until the measure of the world’s iniquity is full.
IV. Faith is confirmed by the display of the Divine glory. “And it came to pass that when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces” (Gen_15:17). Here was a twofold symbol of the glory of God.
1. The Divine glory in the overthrow of evil. The smoking furnace was a symbol of the Divine wrath, and would represent God’s vindictive judgments upon their oppressors. This was the smoke of destruction—the consuming fire of God’s anger which burns up all evil. When the Lord comes it will be to take vengeance upon sinners as well as to reward His saints. God is true to His nature when He punishes, for nothing that is unholy can live in His sight.
2. The Divine glory in salvation. The burning lamp was a symbol of the light of salvation—of Christ, the Saviour of the world. This is that glory of God, the contemplation of which gives joy. Without this the thought of God would be terrible to the soul. We might admire God’s wisdom, and stand in awe of His power and justice; but it is only when we know Him as the God of Salvation that our meditation of Him can be sweet. Our souls could not endure under the awful majesty of God unless we had the comforting light of His salvation. It is observable that God alone passed between the sacrifice. Abram had but to stand by and do nothing. He had asked a sign, and must wait for God. The covenant was one of grace, and God must first give before He requires any work on man’s part. He alone will have the glory of our salvation.
V. Faith is confirmed by the prospect of a peaceful death, and of re-union with the spirits of the just. Faith in God cannot content itself with the present life. He who is our covenant God is ours for ever, and holds an eternal relation to our souls. Those to whom God gives Himself can never die. The words spoken to Moses, “I am the God of Abram, and of Isaac, and of Jacob,” are quoted by our Lord as a proof of the immortality of man. They imply that the real life of these men had not been extinguished by death; they were all living in the sight of Him from whose eye no human being could wander. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him.” To Abram, God gave the promise, “Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace” (Gen_15:15). To go from one place to another, and there to join companionship with others, is not annihilation. It may imply a change in the mode of existence, but the continuity of it is not broken. The Fathers were still living, and Abram was to join their company when God had prolonged his life to a “good old age.” He would come slowly and late to the grave, but his end would be peace, and that rest which God grants His people when they have laid down the burden of this life. God confirmed the faith of Abram by promising him this blessedness hereafter. Faith must fasten upon the future. To every faithful believer God gives the promise of a peaceful end, and of reunion with the spirits of the just.
1. This prospect renders the life of the believer independent of the earthly fortunes of the Church. The children of Abram, after much affliction, were at length to see prosperity. Abram would not live to enjoy it, and that melancholy thought may have oppressed him. But now he is assured that it shall all be well with himself. His own being was safe amidst all the varied fortunes of his people’s history. It is but poor comfort if we only believe in the immortality of the race, and not of the individual soul. Unless we have the blessed prospect of seeing the goodness of the Lord in what is truly “the land of the living,” our souls may well faint under the mystery of an existence, which without that blessed hope is meaningless and vain.
2. This prospect deprives the grave of its terrors. Abram, like all his fathers before him, must go to the grave, but it would be in peace. He would enter the assembly of those who were living in God’s sight. No alarm on meeting God in that world where the soul must be conscious of His presence. Thus faith transfigures that terrible thing, death, and makes it the gate of life. This, the first mention of the grave in the Bible, is cheerful and friendly, because the promise of God lighted it up with the life beyond.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_15:7. In that early age of the world the name of God was no mere designation of some mysterious Power, of which men were vaguely conscious, nor was it a convenient abstraction, but a solemn reality to those simple-minded but earnestly religious souls who used it. That name signified what God was, and who.
Enough for faith to know that God is by necessity what He is. This knowledge affords a stable centre where the heart can rest, and the intellect can afford to wait for such increase of knowledge as God may be pleased to grant.
He saith unto him—God expressly making out his mind to Abram—I am Jehovah who now speak unto thee, who was, is, and is to come, who calls that which is not as if it were, and can make to be what and when I please; so that thy faith need not stagger concerning anything that I speak unto thee. All being is within the compass of mine.—(Hughes.)
In this passage, God does seem to lay emphasis on his name, Jehovah, notwithstanding what is said afterwards: “I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them” (Exo_6:3). Nor is there any real inconsistency here. It cannot be meant in that passage that the name Jehovah was literally unknown to the patriarchs, or that God in his intercourse with them never appealed to it. The idea rather is, that as God appeared in their days chiefly in the giving of promises, whereas in the time of Moses He appeared to fulfil them, His attribute of power was that principally concerned in the former case, and His attribute of faithfulness in the latter. The patriarchs had to look to Him as God Almighty, able, in due time, to accomplish all His promises which He was then giving them. Moses and the Israelites were to know Him as Jehovah, unalterably faithful after the lapse of ages, and fulfilling His promises given long before. Still, it does not follow that the view of God implied in His name Jehovah was altogether concealed from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or, that it was never used to impart to their souls strong consolation and good hope through grace. On the contrary, the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, expressly tells us that to Abraham God sware by Himself; or, as he explains it, in support of His unchangeable word, appealed to His unchangeable nature or name. (Heb_6:13-18.) And if, on any occasion, His name of immutability was likely to be thus used, it was at the opening of such a revelation as this.—(Candlish.)
The record of God’s gracious dealings with His saints is an encouragement to all who shall hereafter believe. Hence the value of sacred biography.
What God had already done for Abram ought to strengthen and confirm his faith.
1. God brought him out of the land of his birth, which was defiled by idolatry.
2. All the events of his life were working towards the end contemplated by the promise.
3. God had deposited in his mind the seeds of religion, which would grow into a church.
Let the remembrance of what I have done for thee confirm thy confidence, since every former mercy is a pledge of a future. God giveth after He hath given, as the spring runneth after it hath run. And as the eye is not weary of seeing, nor the ear of hearing, no more is God of doing good to His people. “Draw out thy loving kindness,” saith David (Psa_36:10, marg.), as a continued series or chain, where one link draws on another to the utmost length.—(Trapp.)
Gen_15:8. The same request may be made with two different minds. Zacharias (Luk_1:18) asked this in unbelief; the Blessed Virgin (Luk_1:34), as Abram here, in faith, humbly yearning for further assurance. God, who sees the heart, answers accordingly.—(Alford.)
Abram grants God to be Jehovah, showing that his faith was still strong. The sign was needed, not for his own sake, but for the sake of his posterity, who might be tempted to despair on account of the slow realisation of the promise. In His dealings with individual saints God has often in view the future welfare of His Church.
Many instances are recorded where God has been graciously pleased to give signs to His people for the confirmation of their faith when there was not any doubt upon their minds respecting either His faithfulness or power. When He appeared to Gideon (Jdg_6:14-21), and told him that He should deliver his country from the yoke of Midian, Gideon said, “If now I have found grace in Thy sight, then show me a sign that Thou talkest with me.” In answer to which, God caused a fire to come out of the rock and consume the kid and cakes which Gideon had prepared for Him; and presently afterwards (Jdg_6:36-40) He gave him another sign, making the dew to fall alternately on the fleece and on the ground, while the other remained perfectly dry. In the same way He gave to Hezekiah a choice of signs, offering to make the shadows on the sundial go backwards or forwards ten degrees, according as he should desire. (2Ki_20:8-11.) From hence it appears that the inquiries which proceed from faith are good and acceptable to God.—(Bush.)
Even where faith is real it has a right to seek for its full assurance.
He desires a sign, not that he believed not before, but that he might better believe. How great is God’s love in giving us sacraments, and therein to make Himself to us visible as well as audible.—(Trapp.)
We should be anxious to make our inheritance in the heavenly Canaan sure. It shall be given to those for whom it is prepared, but we may well be concerned as to whether we ourselves shall have part or lot in it.
Gen_15:9. Abram must be prepared for the revelation which God was about to give him, by being reminded that he was not fit to approach God, except through an appointed way of mercy.
The outward signs of our faith, and the means of our redemption, are not left to man’s device. God Himself appoints them.
The animals prescribed are of the three kinds afterwards allowed by the law for sacrifice; and the birds are those repeatedly mentioned in the law as those to be brought for offerings. The animals were to be each three years old, denoting the perfection of their species. But we Christians cannot shut our eyes to a deeper symbolism in this sacred number, especially when we remember that this part of the covenant symbolism was to be “for ME,” i.e., to signify God’s part of it. (Alford.)
The soul believes that it shall be even as God has promised, but it does not yet understand how or through what experiences the blessing is to come. In answer, therefore, to the promise it says, “Whereby shall I know,” etc. The Lord replies by a command to sacrifice, and in this worship and sacrifice His way is manifested. Beside the altar light breaks in. Faith may be strong while yet in outward things; but light comes while we stand before the Lord, by the holy altar of burnt-offering. At every stage we prove this. Noah is taught much beside his offering. (Ch. Gen_8:20-22.) So, too, is David in later days. (Psa_73:16-17.) Abram, no less, by the altar learns the reasons for the delay in the possession of the inheritance. There is opened the experience of his seed; there again the covenant is renewed and added to. (Jukes: “Types of Genesis.”)
Gen_15:10. The universal Eastern custom was to divide the sacrifices, as Abram did, and both the contracting parties passed between the halves. Here one alone of the parties, Jehovah, thus passed. Abram’s part of the covenant was the obedience of faith; and God on account of this entered, He, the righteous God, into bond with Abram, thus made a contracting party with God, and therefore accounted righteous. (Alford.)
In the Gospel covenant the only-begotten Son passes through between God and us. Christ gathers together in one all those things which sin has sundered and scattered.
Gen_15:11. Having made ready the sacrifices, he waited, perhaps, for the fire of God to consume them, which was the usual token of acceptance. But meanwhile the birds of prey came down upon them, which he was obliged to drive away. Interruptions, we see, attend the Father of the Faithful in his most solemn approaches to God; and interruptions, though of a different kind, attend believers in their devotions. How often do intruding cares, like unclean birds, seize upon that time and those affections which are devoted to God? Happy is it for us, if by prayer and watchfulness we can drive them away, so as to worship Him without distraction.
Evil thoughts have a terrible power to come down upon us and enter our minds, even when we are able to shut out other influences.
Evil thoughts, unless we make an effort to drive them away, must spoil our sacrifice, which should be kept pure.
No sooner are the bodies of the beasts offered, and the parts laid open before the eye of God and the worshipper, than the fowls came down to mar the offering. So when the believer has set before him the sacrifice, and in the contemplation of it would fain learn to see and feel with God, the fowls, “evil spirits in heavenly places,” powers within or without subject to the wicked one, messengers of “the prince of the power of the air,” come to distract our communion. He that has stood beside his offering knows what distractions these winged messengers cause, while we rise up like Abram to drive them away.—(Jukes: “Types of Genesis.”)
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv5–7 Gen 15:5 - Gen 15:18.
Genesis
GOD’S COVENANT WITH ABRAM
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Gen 15:5 - Gen 15:18.
1. Abram had exposed himself to dangerous reprisals by his victory over the confederate Eastern raiders. In the reaction following the excitement of battle, dread and despondency seem to have shadowed his soul. Therefore the assurance with which this chapter opens came to him. It was new, and came in a new form. He is cast into a state of spiritual ecstasy, and a mighty ‘word’ sounds, audible to his inward ear. The form which it takes-’I am thy shield’-suggests the thought that God shapes His revelation according to the moment’s need. The unwarlike Abram might well dread the return of the marauders in force, to avenge their defeat. Therefore God speaks to his fears and present want. Just as to Jacob the angels appeared as a heavenly camp guarding his undefended tents and helpless women; so, here and always, God is to us what we most need at the moment, whether it be comfort, or wisdom, or guidance, or strength. The manna tasted to each man, as the rabbis say, what he most desired. God’s gifts take the shape of man’s necessity.
Abram had just exercised singular generosity in absolutely refusing to enrich himself from the spoil. God reveals Himself as ‘his exceeding great reward.’ He gives Himself as recompense for all sacrifices. Whatever is given up at His bidding, ‘the Lord is able to give thee much more than this.’ Not outward things, nor even an outward heaven, is the guerdon of the soul; but a larger possession of Him who alone fills the heart, and fills the heart alone. Other riches may be counted, but this is ‘exceeding great,’ passing comprehension, and ever unexhausted, and having something over after all experience. Both these aspects of God’s preciousness are true for earth; but we need a shield only while exposed to attack. In the land of peace, He is only our reward.
2. Mark the triumphant faith which wings to meet the divine promise. The first effect of that great assurance is to deepen Abram’s consciousness of the strange contradiction to it apparently given by his childlessness. It is not distrust that answers the promise with a question, but it is eagerness to accept the assurance and ingenuous utterance of difficulties in the hope of their removal. God is too wise a father not to know the difference between the tones of confidence and unbelief, however alike they may sound; and He is too patient to be angry if we cannot take in all His promise at once. He breaks it into bits not too large for our lips, as He does here. The frequent reiterations of the same promises in Abram’s life are not vain. They are a specimen of the unwearied repetition of our lessons, ‘Here a little, there a little,’ which our teacher gives His slow scholars. So, once more, Abram gets the promise of posterity in still more glorious form. Before, it was likened to the dust of the earth; now it is as the innumerable stars shining in the clear Eastern heaven. As he gazes up into the solemn depths, the immensity and peace of the steadfast sky seems to help him to rise above the narrow limits and changefulness of earth, and a great trust floods his soul. Abram had lived by faith ever since he left Haran; but the historian, usually so silent about the thoughts of his characters, breaks through his usual manner of narrative to insert the all-important words which mark an epoch in revelation, and are, in some aspects, the most significant in the Old Testament. Abram ‘believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.’
Observe the teaching as to the nature and object of faith in that first clause. The word rendered ‘believed’ literally means to steady oneself by leaning on something. So it gives in a vivid picture more instructive than many a long treatise what faith is, and what it does for us. As a man leans his trembling hand on a staff, so we lay our weak and changeful selves on God’s strength; and as the most mutable thing is steadied by being fastened to a fixed point, so we, though in ourselves light as thistledown, may be steadfast as rock, if we are bound to the rock of ages by the living band of faith. The metaphor makes it plain that faith cannot be merely an intellectual act of assent, but must include a moral act, that of confidence. Belief as credence is mainly an affair of the head, but belief as trust is an act of the will and the affections.
The object of faith is set in sunlight clearness by these words,-the first in which Scripture speaks of faith. Abram leaned on ‘the Lord.’ It was not the promise, but the promiser, that was truly the object of Abram’s trust. He believed the former, because he trusted Him who made it. Many confusions in Christian teaching would have been avoided if it had been always seen that faith grasps a person, not a doctrine, and that even when the person is revealed by doctrine, it is him, and not only it, which faith lays hold of. Whether God speaks promises, teachings of truth, or commandments, faith accepts them, because it trusts Him. Christ is revealed to us for our faith by the doctrinal statements of the New Testament. But we must grasp Himself, as so revealed, if we are to have faith which saves the soul. This same thought of the true object of faith as personal helps us to understand the substantial identity of faith in all ages and stages of revelation, however different the substance of the creeds. Abram knew very little of God, as compared with our knowledge. But it was the same God whom Abram trusted, and whom we trust as made known in His Son. Hence we can stretch out our hands across the ages, and clasp his as partaker of ‘like precious faith.’ We walk in the light of the same sun,-he in its morning beams, we in its noonday glory. There has never been but one road to God, and that is the road which Abram trod, when ‘he believed in the Lord.’
3. Mark the full-orbed gospel truth as to the righteousness of faith which is embedded in this record of early revelation, ‘He counted it to him for righteousness.’ A geologist would be astonished if he came on remains in some of the primary strata which indicated the existence, in these remote epochs, of species supposed to be of much more recent date. So here we are startled at finding the peculiarly New Testament teaching away back in this dim distance. No wonder that Paul fastened on this Gen 13:1-13">, which so remarkably breaks the flow of the narrative, as proof that his great principle of justification by faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation to God into which, through it, Abram entered. He was not a perfectly righteous man, as some passages of his life show; but he rose here to the height of loving and yearning trust in God, and God took that trust in lieu of perfect conformity to His will. He treated and regarded him as righteous, as is proved by the covenant which follows. The gospel takes up this principle, gives us a fuller revelation, presents the perfect righteousness of Christ as capable of becoming ours by faith, and so unveils the ground on which Abram and the latest generations are equally ‘accepted in the beloved.’ This reckoning of righteousness to the unrighteous, on condition of their faith, is not because of any merit in faith. It does not come about in reward of, but by means of, their faith, which is nothing in itself, but is the channel only of the blessing. Nor is it a mere arbitrary act of God’s, or an unreal imputing of what is not. But faith unites with Christ; and ‘he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,’ so as that ‘in Him we have redemption.’ His righteousness becomes ours. Faith grafts us into the living Vine, and we are no longer regarded in our poor sinful individual personality, but as members of Christ. Faith builds us into the rock; but He is a living Stone, and we are living stones, and the life of the foundation rises up through all the courses of the great temple. Faith unites sinful men to God in Christ; therefore it makes them partakers of the ‘blessedness of the man, . . .to whom the Lord will not impute sin,’ and of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord reckons his faith for righteousness. That same faith which thus clothes us with the white robe of Christ’s righteousness, in lieu of our own tattered raiment, also is the condition of our becoming righteous by the actual working out in our character of all things lovely and of good report. It opens the heart to the entrance of that divine Christ, who is first made for us, and then, by daily appropriation of the law of the spirit of life, is made in us, ‘righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.’ May all who read these lines ‘be found in Him,’ having ‘that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith!’
4. Consider the covenant which is the consequence of Abram’s faith, and the proof of his acceptance.
It is important to observe that the whole remainder of this chapter is regarded by the writer as the result of Abram’s believing God. The way in which Gen 15:7 and the rest are bolted on, as it were, to Gen 15:6, clearly shows this. The nearer lesson from this fact is, that all the Old Testament revelation from this point onward rests on the foundation of faith. The further lesson, for all times, is that faith is ever rewarded by more intimate and loving manifestations of God’s friendship, and by fuller disclosure of His purposes. The covenant is not only God’s binding Himself anew by solemn acts to fulfil His promises already made, but it is His entering into far sweeter and nearer alliance with Abram than even He had hitherto had. That name, ‘the friend of God,’ by which he is still known over all the Mohammedan world, contains the very essence of the covenant. In old days men were wont to conclude a bond of closest amity by cutting their flesh and interchanging the flowing blood. Henceforth they had, as it were, one life. We have not here the shedding of Abram’s blood, as in the covenant of circumcision. Still, the slain animals represent the parties to the covenant, and the notion of a resulting unity of the closest order as between God and Abram is the very heart of the whole incident.
The particulars as to the rite by which the covenant was established are profoundly illuminative. The significant division of the animals into two shows that they were regarded as representing the contracting parties, and the passing between them symbolised the taking up of the obligations of the covenant. This strange rite, which was widely spread, derives importance from the use of it probably made in Heb 9:16 - Heb 9:17. The new covenant, bringing still closer friendship and higher blessings, is sealed by the blood of Christ. He represents both God and man. In His death, may we not say that the manhood and the Godhead are parted, and we, standing as it were between them, encompassed by that awful sacrifice, and enclosed in its mysterious depths, enter into covenant with God, and become His friends?
We need not to dwell upon the detailed promises, of which the covenant was the seal. They are simply the fuller expansion of those already made, but now confirmed by more solemn guarantees. The new relation of familiar friendship, established by the covenant itself, is the main thing. It was fitting that God’s friend should be in the secret of His purposes. ‘The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’ but the friend does. And so we have here the assurance that faith will pierce to the discernment of much of the mind of God, which is hid from sense and the wisdom of this world. If we would know, we must believe. We may be ‘men of God’s counsel,’ and see deeply into the realities of the present, and far ahead into what will then become the certainties of the future, if only we live by faith in the secret place of the Most High, and, like John, lean so close on the Master’s bosom that we can hear His lowest whisper.
Notice, too, the lessons of the smoking furnace and the blazing torch. They are like the pillar of fire and cloud. Darkness and light; a heart of fire and a wrapping of darkness,-these are not symbols of Israel and its checkered fate, as Dean Stanley thinks, but of the divine presence: they proclaim the double aspect of all divine manifestations, the double element in the divine nature. He can never be completely known; He is never completely hid. Ever does the lamp flame; ever around it the smoke wreathes. In all His self-revelation is ‘the hiding of His power’; after all revelation He dwelleth ‘in the thick darkness.’ Only the smoke is itself fire, but not illumined to our vision. The darkness is light inaccessible. Much that was ‘smoke’ to Abram has caught fire, and is ‘light’ to us. But these two elements will ever remain; and throughout eternity God will be unknown, and yet well known, pouring Himself in ever-growing radiance on our eyes, and yet ‘the King invisible.’
Nor is this all the teaching of the symbol. It speaks of that twofold aspect of the divine nature, by which to hearts that love He is gladsome light, and to unloving ones He is threatening darkness. As to the Israelites the pillar was light, and to the Egyptians darkness and terror; so the same God is joy to some, and dread to others. ‘What maketh heaven, that maketh hell.’ Light itself can become the source of pain the most exquisite, if the eye is diseased. God Himself cannot but be a torment to men who love darkness rather than light. Love and wrath, life and death, a God who pities and who cannot but judge, are solemnly proclaimed by that ancient symbol, and are plainly declared to us in the perfect revelation in Christ Jesus.
Observe, too, the manner of the ratification of the covenant. The symbol of the Divine presence passed between the pieces. No mention is made of Abram’s doing so. Why this one-sided covenant? Because God’s gracious dealings with men are one-sided. He seeks no oaths from us; He does not exchange blessings for our gifts. His covenant is the free result of His unmotived love, and is ratified by a solemn sacrifice, which we do not offer. We have nothing to do but to take what He gives. All ideas of barter and bargain are far from Him. Our part is but to embrace His covenant, which is complete and ratified whether we embrace it or not. What a wonderful thought that is of a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God! We do not hear so much of it as our fathers did. The more is the pity. It means that God has, as it were, buoyed out across the boundless ocean of His possible modes of action a plain course, which He binds Himself to keep; that He has frankly let us into the very secret of His doings; that He has stooped to use human forms of assurance to make it easier to trust Him; that He has confirmed His promise by a mighty sacrifice. Therefore we may enter into closest friendship with Him, and take for our own the exultant swan-song of Abram’s royal son: ‘Although my house be not so with God [although my life be stained, and my righteousness unfit to be offered to His pure eyes]; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v7 The covenant Sacrifice
The covenant Sacrifice
v. 7. And He said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. In preparing to give Abram a special sign of the covenant’s consummation and to assure him of the fact that his descendants would be the possessors of the land of Canaan, the Lord introduces Himself as He whose conduct in the past is a guarantee of His faithfulness in the future.
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v. 8. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? This was not a question of doubt, but of a desire for some assurance in the case of this promise which transcended all human understanding. He was asking for a covenant sign.
v. 9. And He said unto him, Take ye an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. All of these were sacrificial animals, which, although they were not burned as sacrifices to Jehovah, yet were to be consecrated to Him, Lev 1:2-14.
v. 10. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another; but the birds divided he not.
v. 11. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
v. 12. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. At the direction of God, Abram prepared the sacrificial animals, the heifer, the ram, and the goat being cut in half lengthwise and the several pieces laid over against one another, by pairs, while the birds were not divided. The entire proceeding filled Abram with the deepest awe. When the birds of prey, eagles and vultures, came down to feed on the carcasses, Abram turned them away, drove them off. The ceremonial which was here enacted was that in use from ancient times, the contracting parties passing between the halves of the dead animals to indicate their reconciliation to a unity. The culmination of the strange scene came when, as the sun was setting, Abram was overcome by a deep sleep and a great horror fell upon him.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 6 Then, behold
Then, behold
The word "behold" emphasizes the fact that the word of Yahweh came to Abraham again.
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the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, "This
The idiom "The word of Yahweh came to" is used to introduce a special message from God. See how you translated this idiom in Genesis 15:1. AT: "Yahweh gave him a message. He said, 'This" or "Yahweh spoke this message to him: 'This" (See: Idiom)
This man
This refers to Eliezer of Damascus.
the one who will come from your own body
"the one that you will father" or "your very own son." Abram's own son would become his heir.
number the stars
"count the stars"
So will your descendants be
Just as Abram would not be able to count all the stars, he would not be able to count all his descendants because there would be so many.
translationWords
word of God
heir
heaven
descend
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 6, 7 15:4-6 God affirmed that the promise was for Abram’s…
15:4-6 God affirmed that the promise was for Abram’s own offspring and showed him the stars as a promise of the vast number of descendants that he would have (22:17; 26:4). Paul quotes this promise in Rom 4:18 to underscore the strength of Abram’s faith.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.