Knowing The Word in Genesis 15:7-21, Animals to Sacrifice for a Covenant

7 And he [God] said to him [Abram], “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.

11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell [suggests awe-inspiring divine activity and presence] upon him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years [prophecy of the Egyptian bondage and subsequent exodus after 400 years]. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. [This is fulfilled in 25:8.] 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation [suggests an idealized generation is 100 years], for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” [Divine judgment in the form of Israel’s conquest must wait until they are sufficiently wicked to deserve their fate.]

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

[In this account of God’s covenant with Abram, covenants at that time were enacted by the parties walking between splayed, sacrificial animals. The symbolism of the splayed animals represented what should happen to a covenant maker if he were to fail to keep covenant. That God alone ends up walking between them, after putting Abram in a deep sleep, communicates that God alone will die for failing to keep covenant. It also points forward to the crucifixion where God did die to end an old covenant and begin a new one. Jesus died instead of us, whom the Bible calls “children of Abraham.” The rest of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Old Testament—insists that it is this promise to Abram that is the ground for the exodus.]