09/21/2017
Today I read Genesis 15. It is a portion of scripture that I find extremely interesting. I have read it many times now and it always strikes me as a strange story.
It starts out with Abram doubting that the LORD, Yahweh in Hebrew, will remember or keep his original promise to provide Abram with an heir.
Yahweh's response to Abram's concern has always intrigued me: if I were God, it would irritate me to have to be constantly reassuring people that I am who I say I am and that I will keep my word.
This is not Yahweh's response though, far from it. He is gracious and patient. He takes Abram outside and tells him to count the stars which Abram, of course, cannot do. Yahweh tells him that he will not be able to count his offspring anymore than he can count the stars. How cool is that?!
Abram believes Yahweh's promise and his belief is "credited to him as righteousness" (v.6). The story is still far from over though...
Yahweh instructs Abram to gather a variety of animals and to cut them in two arranging them in two isles. Now this scene seems a little bit excessive and gruesome and in our day and age it would be but in that day and age it had huge significance. When two people made a covenant, they would set arrange animals in this manner, join hands and walk between the animals. The covenant makers were saying, "if I break my covenant, so shall it be with me," or "I would rather be cut in two than break my covenant with you."
Very. Heavy. Stuff.
When it comes time to make the covenant though, Abram is overtaken by a deep sleep. The language implies that Yahweh forced the slumber upon Abram. Then Yahweh tells Abram that his descendants will be sojourners in a foreign land and will be slaves for 400 years but that he will lead them out from oppression and that they will come away with great possessions. This we see come to fruition in the book of Exodus. Yahweh also tells Abram that he will live to be an old man and die peacefully.
After he says this, Yahweh, in the form of a torch of fire passes between the animals...without Abram.
What? I thought that covenants are between two parties? What is Yahweh doing?
He is taking full responsibility for this covenant. Abram has nothing to uphold and Yahweh is showing that he will keep this covenant to death.
This is the God we serve.
He is gracious.
He is generous.
He is powerful.
He keeps his covenants.
