God’s Covenant with Abram

After Abraham's great victory and the blessing by Melchizedek, the LORD came to Abraham, as if to encourage him or to give him confirmation of the actual blessing from God. The fact that God starts of with "Do not be afraid" suggests there were some reason for Abraham to be afraid, perhaps due to the possible revenge by the defeated kings. In any case, God reassures Abraham and promises him greater things, to which Abraham replied that he had no heir at the moment.

God's reply to Abraham was the specific promise of his own child and descendents too many to count. This leads to the all important action of "Believe" by Abraham, to which God credits that as righteousness. This is one of the first indication of God's system in which he "accounts" our Believe in Him (in what he says and what he promises) and sees us righteous in His eyes. It is this righteousness that allows us to be in relation and communion with him. It is this same righteousness that is credited to us when Jesus takes our sins upon himself and we believe in Him.

Abraham then had a dream in which details Abrahams descendents going into captivity in Egypt and then being delivered out of Egypt. Then God made a clear covenant promise to Abraham exactly which land will be given to his descendents. Those lands, which is the Holy Land in the Middle East of today still belonged to the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacon. Although politically not all those lands are under modern Israel, when God made a promise, that promise lasts forever.

One interesting note is from v16 that "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete". It is for this reason that God let the Hebrews remain in Egypt for 400 years, and until the exact time when the wickedness of the Amorites reached a level that God decided to put a stop to it. So as Israel comes out of Egypt, Israel becomes God's agent to bring judgement by conquering the promised lands inhabited by the Amorites and others.

Genesis 15

 1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Lord GOD, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
4 And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.”
5 Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
6 And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
7 Then He said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.”
8 And he said, “Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”
9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.
11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.
13 Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.
14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
15 Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.
16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.
18 On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying:
“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—
19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites,
20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”