Free Bible Commentary
“Genesis 15:17-21”
Categories: Genesis“It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”
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“There appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.” (verse 17) God had instructed Abram to cut the animals into halves and separate the pieces from one another in verse 10. Then the smoking oven and flaming torch passed between the cuts. Nahum Sarna sees these two objects as representative of the Lord himself” “The principal party, here God, passes between the pieces. He is represented by the smoke and the fire, which are frequently symbols of the Divine Presence.”
Benson’s Commentary has as different take on this imagery: “This signified the affliction of his seed in Egypt: they were there in the furnace of affliction, and labouring in the very fire. They were there in the smoke, their eyes darkened that they could not see to the end of their troubles. And a burning lamp — This speaks comfort in this affliction: and this God showed Abram at the same time with the smoking furnace. The lamp notes direction in the smoke; God’s word was their lamp, a light shining in a dark place. Perhaps, too, this burning lamp prefigured the pillar of a cloud and fire which led them out of Egypt. The ‘passing of these between the pieces’ was the confirming of the covenant God now made with him.”
“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram…” Or literally “cut a covenant.” When the Lord passed through the severed animal pieces, he ratified His sacred pledge and promised unto Abram: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.” From the river of Egypt, which is not the Nile but the Wadi el-‘Arish on the southernmost border of the Promised Land and the Sanai desert, as far as the great river Euphrates—“The ideal limits of the Holy Land, which were practically reached under David and Solomon (...1 Kings 4:21; 2 Chronicles 9:26)” (Pulpit Commentary)
Vreses 19-21 – “This list constitutes a register of ten pre-Israelite peoples who presently inhabit the promised land. This is the most comprehensive of the seventeen such lists scattered among the historical books… The fact that the Jebusites invariably appear in the final position may betoken David’s capture of Jerusalem, which was the culmination of his conquests. The present register features some peculiarities. The Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, and Rephaim appear in no other list, while the Hivites, featured in all the others, are here inexplicably excluded. The extraordinarily complex ethnic situation that these lists reflect is matched by the no less than thirty-one city-states that Joshua encountered in this tiny country, as listed in Joshua 12.” (Nahum Sarna)
Please read Genesis 16:1-6 for tomorrow.
- Louie Taylor
