Genesis 15

After these things, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision. He said, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great reward."

1After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

Note"The word of the LORD" is a set phrase for a message delivered directly by God, not for a written scripture. (LORD printed in capitals stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew, four letters usually written YHWH; Jewish tradition avoided saying it aloud, and English Bibles mark it this way to distinguish it from the ordinary word "lord.") The last phrase is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew: it can mean "I am your shield and your very great reward," or "I am your shield; your reward will be very great."

2Abram said, "Lord GOD, what can you give me, since I have no children, and the manager of my household is this Eliezer of Damascus?"

2And Abram said, LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

Note"Lord GOD" renders two Hebrew words together, the ordinary word for master and the personal name YHWH; printers distinguish them by using capitals for the second. In this period a childless man could make a trusted senior servant his legal heir, so that the household property stayed intact and someone was obliged to bury him and maintain his name. Eliezer holds that position: he runs the estate and, as things stand, will inherit it.

3Abram also said, "Look, you have given me no children, and so a man born in my household will be my heir."

3And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

4Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir. Instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir."

4And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

5He brought Abram outside and said, "Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "That is how many your descendants will be."

5And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

6Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted this to him as being right.

6And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Note"Counted" is a bookkeeping word: an amount entered in someone's account. "Righteousness" here is not private virtue but standing in a relationship, being in the right, as a judge would declare of someone whose case is sound. The Hebrew leaves open who credits what to whom, though it is normally read as God crediting Abram's trust to him.

7He said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to have as your own."

7And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

NoteUr was a major city in southern Mesopotamia, in what is now southern Iraq, far to the east of Canaan. "Of the Chaldeans" identifies the region by the name of a people who lived there much later than Abram, the way one might say "Ur in modern Iraq."

8Abram said, "Lord GOD, how can I know that I will have it?"

8And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

9He said to him, "Bring me a young cow three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."

9And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

NoteThese five are the animals later Israelite law accepts for sacrifice. Three years old means fully grown and at peak value, the most costly form of each.

10So Abram brought him all of these. He cut them in half down the middle and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half.

10And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

NoteThis is the standard way of making a binding agreement in the ancient Near East. The Hebrew idiom for making an agreement is literally to "cut" one. Animals were killed and split, the halves laid out with a path between them, and the party swearing the oath walked down that path, in effect calling down the animals' fate on himself if he broke his word.

11When birds of prey came down on the dead bodies, Abram drove them away.

11And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.

12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and a terrible, deep darkness came over him.

12And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

NoteThe word for "deep sleep" is a rare one used for a sleep sent by God rather than ordinary tiredness; it is the same word used of Adam in Genesis 2.

13Then he said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. They will serve the people there, and those people will treat them harshly for four hundred years.

13And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

NoteFour hundred years is a round figure. Exodus 12:40 gives the time in Egypt as 430 years, and Genesis 15:16 here speaks of four generations; the numbers are not harmonized within the text itself.

14But I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will come out with a great amount of goods.

14And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

15As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age.

15And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

Note"Go to your fathers" is a normal Hebrew way of saying "die," drawn from burial in a family tomb where the bones of earlier generations already lay. It carries no claim about what follows death.

16But in the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, because the sin of the Amorites is not yet complete."

16But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

NoteA "generation" in Hebrew can mean a lifetime rather than the gap between a parent and a child, which is how four of them can cover the long span just mentioned. ("Not yet complete" uses the image of a measure being filled up: the Amorites' wrongdoing has not yet reached the point at which action against them would be warranted.) "Amorite" names a specific people, but the Hebrew Bible also uses it loosely for the inhabitants of Canaan in general.

17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking furnace and a burning torch appeared and passed between those pieces of the animals.

17And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

NoteThe "smoking furnace" is a portable clay firepot, the kind used for baking, and the "burning torch" an open flame. Fire and smoke are how God's presence is regularly represented in these narratives. Note who walks the path between the halves: God alone passes through, and Abram, asleep, does not, the obligation sworn is one-sided.

18On that 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 Euphrates River:

18In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

NoteA covenant is a formal, binding agreement between two parties, of the same kind used for treaties between a king and a lesser ruler, and sealed by a ritual rather than a signature. ("The river of Egypt" is disputed: the word used here normally means a great river, which would point to the Nile, but the same boundary is elsewhere marked by a seasonal desert stream at the edge of Sinai, the Wadi el-Arish.) The Euphrates runs through modern Syria and Iraq; the two limits together describe the largest extent ever claimed for the land.

19the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,

19The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,

NoteWhat follows is a list of the peoples living in the region at the time. The Kenites were metalworking desert nomads to the south; the Kenizzites and Kadmonites are barely known outside lists like this one, "Kadmonite" means roughly "easterner."

20the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,

20And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,

NoteThe Hittites here are a local Canaanite group, not necessarily connected to the empire of that name in Asia Minor. The Perizzites appear to be village-dwellers rather than city people. "Rephaim" is used both for a people remembered as unusually tall and, elsewhere, for the dead, here it means the people.

21the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."

21And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

NoteThe Canaanites are the general population of the land; the Jebusites held the hill settlement that later became Jerusalem. Ten peoples are named, more than in any other such list, which is a way of saying the whole territory without exception.