Damariscotta Baptist Church

 

 

Genesis 15:7-21

We are reading through the book of Genesis. Up to this point, God has promised Abram two things: 

Future Seed and Land

Last week, in the beginning of chapter 15 Abram was asking God what was going on with his future seed. Abram didn’t have any children so he suggested a servant he had named Eliezer as an option. God told Abram he didn’t need to worry. God would be his reward and would provide what Abram needed in the time that he needed it. 

Abram said he would trust God on that one. 

God continues His conversation with Abram, in the second part of chapter 15, verse 7, with the second part of His promise, talking about the land,  

“I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

Abram responds with, 

“But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

Here we go again. First God talked with Abram and settled the doubt about the promise of the seed. And Abram trusted God on that one. God brings up the part about His promise of land, and as if it’s any more or less impossible than the seed, but Abram responds with a doubt filled question. God’s response to the second statement of doubt was for Abram to get some animals,

“…a heifer, 

a goat and a ram, each three years old, 

along with a dove and 

a young pigeon.”

Abram doesn’t seem to have an issue with this. We are told Abram brought all of these animals and even cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other. Although, he didn’t cut the birds in half. It didn’t take long for birds of prey to come along and try to eat the carcasses. Abram was described as having to shoo the birds of prey away. These stories are so realistic.

Notice what has occurred thus far. At the beginning of their conversation God and Abram discuss the promise of seed. God made a promise, Abram responded with doubt. 

Second part of the conversation, God tried an object lesson and took Abram outside at night. They discussed the stars. At this point, Abram trusts and God claims they were in a right relationship. God demonstrated great patience for Abram and his doubt. 

In today’s conversation, God takes Abram out at night again, this time to discuss the land. God repeats His promise and something else happens. Their conversation doesn’t lead to trust and righteousness, but again, Abram expresses doubt. Yahweh’s response? He formalized His promise with a covenant oath. 

One has to stop and wonder, why the contrast? Why does God come up with a covenant to Abram’s doubt on the second go around? 

It’s not that covenants are a bad thing, they do formalize the procedure. 

But which do you think is more ideal? 

God tells Abram to trust Him and Abram does, or 

God has to put into writing “Here’s what I am going to do so you can trust me?”

This is the second covenant God has made so far in the narrative. The first one was through Noah with all creation. That covenant was God’s ceasefire treaty. Humans had filled the land with the blood of the innocent who cried out to God. God’s response was to undo creation. Noah manages to survive, gets off the ark, surrenders through a sacrifice and God agrees to work with this righteous guy on behalf of everybody else. Then to confirm His promise that He would never let the cosmos collapse on itself again, God makes a covenant. 

Covenants become the thing used, when a relationship isn’t going so great and there is some need to formalize it. Rather than just stating, “We’re good, I’ll trust you and you can trust me,” and going with that, there comes a time when in order to make sure each side does their part, we have to write it down. 

Which isn’t actually a bad thing, because when you think about it, we might promise not to hurt someone but inadvertently end up doing so. Covenants often have a way of sustaining a relationship, but it’s not like they are ideal. Unfortunately, when dealing with humans, covenants are a necessity. 

So what does God do when dealing with Abram? 

God wants him to trust, but Abram’s track record hasn’t been very good so far, so God creates a covenant. 

An interesting word play is also going on here. The Hebrew word for “halving, or splitting in half” is the verb that’s the same three letters as the noun for “covenant.”

The noun “covenant” is “berit” and to split something in half is the same three letters but swapped around, “batar.” 

Hebrews who were listening to this began hearing the Hebrew word for “covenant” in the “halving” of the animals. They knew a covenant was coming. 

At this point in the story it’s as though some kind of sacrifice is being made. The covenant being made involved the death of these animals. 

What exactly is going on?

Well, things get interesting in verse 12, 

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

This wasn’t a normal type of sleep. The last time somebody fell asleep like this was the human in the garden. Yup, back to Eden. Remember when Adam couldn’t find a suitable partner, so God puts the human asleep and creates another human by splitting him?

This is the image that is presented here. In this deep stupor-sleep there was a “thick and dreadful darkness” that fell upon him. Then God starts talking to him about the future seed he had trusted God for. His seed would become immigrants in a land that was not their own. Not only that, while in that land, they would become slaves to the people who owned the land. Not only that, the seed would be oppressed for centuries, for 400 years. Oh, and after that, that nation that oppressed his seed, God said He would bring judgment upon it. Oh, and at that point, his seed will come out of the land with many possessions. 

That story rings a bell. 

Oh, and as for Abram, he was to live to a ripe old age. His fourth generation would return because of the crookedness of the Amorites and the Canaanites, who were the ones inhabiting the land. 

By this time, the sun had set and there was darkness, and we are told a smoking fiery flame appeared and began passing between the pieces. 

The chapter ends with the narrator explaining what had just happened on that day. Yahweh was cutting a covenant with Abram, who was passed out on the ground. Yahweh promised, 

#1 – That to your seed

#2 – He would give the land

From the river of Egypt down south all the way to the great river Euphrates, that runs along Babylon. So from Egypt to Babylon, the land would be given to Abram’s seed, along with all the Canaanites that live in the middle, times ten, as Yahweh goes on to list 10 nations. 

The end of the chapter. 

What just happened?

In this scene Yahweh presents some bad news and some good news. The bad news was Abram’s seed would go through a real difficult season of oppression and exile in a land that was not their own. The good news, God would eventually vindicate them and bring judgment on their oppressors. In the process they would get rich off the deal. 

This would occur long after Abram was gone. Then once this seed had been liberated, Yahweh was going to give them an amazing stretch of land that exceeded Abram’s wildest dreams. From the empire of Egypt down south, who thinks they rule the world,  up to the northern empire of Babylon, who thinks they rule the world. 

This first covenant that God makes with Abram provides the very narrative that we can read way into the book of Joshua. Do you recognize it? 

This story covers the Biblical narrative into the exodus, to the deliverance out of Egypt, to the possession of the promised land. 

There are some key images in this chapter. It starts with a guy who is unable to provide an “ezer” or helper that falls asleep on the ground. Clearly a solid Eden image. Abram was in no state to help himself, lying on the ground in a stupor sleep. Check out what’s lying next to him, a bunch of bloody, halved animals. That’s rather gross. 

Next, Yahweh appears as a flaming fire and passes through the halves of the animals. Again, the splitting of the animals takes us back to Eden with the splitting of Adam. But what does the splitting of animals mean at this point? The narrator helps us out a little bit by telling us this was some sort of covenant. But what sort of covenant is it? 

The answer to that question is found in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 34. In this chapter God mentions a group of people who had broken a covenant with Him, they were the rulers of Jerusalem and Judah, verse 18,

“Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.”

God was describing an ancient cultural ritual that goes something like this,

“Promises had been made between two parties. 

Both parties demonstrate their agreement by walking between the broken animals demonstrating that should the promises be broken, by either party, then the fate of the one who broke the promise will be like that of animals that were lying there, halved on the ground.”

This makes sense when two are in the agreement together, but did you notice in this covenant story one of the partners was passed out on the ground? It wasn’t like it was Abram’s fault, God was the one who caused Abram to sleep. 

But this does seem to be a strange type of delivering help. 

Yahweh then comes in the form of a fire cloud, which in itself is a little seed planting here, because Yahweh shows up later on at the tabernacle and at Mount Sinai as a fire cloud as well. 

But in this instance, Yahweh is the only one that passes between the pieces of animals. In order for the ancient cultural ritual to work, both parties need to pass through the halved animals, representing that each party bears a responsibility to upkeep their side of the bargain. It’s almost like Yahweh knows just how unlikely it would be for Abram to be faithful to such a covenant. It’s like Yahweh offers an amazing amount of mercy by putting Abram asleep. Because were someone to break such a covenant it would be gruesome. God is aware that if Abram were to have to bear the responsibility for the weight of his failures, his life would be over. 

There is both judgment and mercy provided by God in this covenant. Yahweh bears responsibility for both parties. The narrative doesn’t come right out and state it, but it does provide this vivid scene where God takes on the role of both covenant partners. 

God takes on both the success of the covenant as well as the responsibilities for the failure of the covenant. This means, at this very moment, God was signing Himself up to suffer and to participate in the suffering of His faithless people. 

This is the first covenant God makes with and for Abram. 

The gospel authors understood it this way. Notice the setting, 

As the sun was setting ….. and a thick and dreadful darkness 

It takes us directly to the crucifixion, which then brings us directly back to what this story is all about. The meaning of Jesus’ death begins right here. This story helps us understand what was happening on the cross. 

That’s who God is….

He’s aware of our humanness and our inability to meet Him equally in any sort of covenant or promise. We cannot bear the full responsibility for the weight of our failures. God has known this from the beginning. Since the narrative began, God has been bearing responsibility for both parties. 

Like Abram, 

all He asks is 

that we have faith.