Genesis 15:7-21

The Making of the Covenant. In this scene Abraham is told that he is to inherit Canaan. He asks for confirmation of the promise. Yahweh bids him select three animals and two birds, such as were eligible for sacrifice, though they were not to be used precisely for this purpose. The animals were divided into two equal portions, but in conformity with later sacrificial usage (Leviticus 1:17) not the birds. Presumably the turtle dove was placed on the one side, the pigeon on the other. The carrion birds, ominous of evil, descend on the carcases, but their attack is foiled. At sunset a trance-sleep falls upon Abraham, and a great darkness, or, as the companion document puts it, a horror. It is the coming of Yahweh that freezes him with supernatural dread, a state suggested here with concise power, but portrayed with incomparable skill in the description of Eliphaz's experience in Job 4. The scene is a vivid transcript of primitive religious experience. The bloody ceremony just described was no perfunctory piece of symbolism; it touched the mind below the level of consciousness; and that impression (heightened in this case by the growing darkness) induced a susceptibility to psychical influences readily culminating in ecstasy or vision (Skinner, p. 281). In Genesis 15:13 the inner meaning of Genesis 15:11 is laid bare. As the birds of prey swooped on the carcases, so the seed of Abraham should be oppressed four hundred years, but as Abraham succeeded in driving them away, so his seed should return in the fourth generation. When the sun had set, Abraham sees through the darkness a smoking stove and a flaming torch passing between the pieces (Genesis 15:17). This was a manifestation of Yahweh (Numbers 9:15 *, Bennett compares Exodus 19:18; Exodus 24:17; Psalms 18:8). His action gives us a clue to the meaning of the ritual. The cutting of the victim in two is not a form of imprecation symbolising the fate invoked on themselves by the parties to the covenant should they prove unfaithful (cf. 1 Samuel 11:7). The division into equal halves, the arrangement of each opposite to the other, above all the passing between the two, are not accounted for in this way. Robertson Smith (RS 2, 480f.) explains that originally the victim was divided and each party took its share. When it ceased to be eaten they stood between the portions to symbolise that they were taken into the mystical life of the victim (see on Jeremiah 34:18 in Cent.B). The terms of the covenant follow in Genesis 15:18. The land promised is defined as stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, limits which were not actually realised; possibly we should read brook of Egypt, the Wady el-Arish, the usual SW. limit. The chapter closes with an exceptionally long list (Genesis 15:10) of peoples to be dispossessed by Israel. Briefer lists are numerous (Exodus 3:8 *). The Kadmonites are not mentioned elsewhere· possibly they dwelt in the desert E. of Palestine; Kenites and Kenizzites lived in the Negeb and were absorbed by Judah. The Hittites were a great people in the N. (pp. 53, 55f.); here some branch must be meant. On the Perizzite cf. Genesis 13:7 *, the Rephaim Genesis 14:5 *, the Amorite Genesis 14:7 *. The Girgashites are often mentioned in these enumerations, but we have nothing to fix their locality. The Jebusites were the people of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8; Joshua 15:63 *, Judges 12:1; Judges 19:10 *).

Genesis 15:13. The duration of the Egyptian bondage is here described as 400 years. Since in 16 the return is to take place in the fourth generation, it would seem as if a generation was reckoned as 100 years, i.e. if the two statements come from the same hand; but more probably 400 years is due to the editor, for P reckons the stay of the Hebrews in Egypt as 430 years (Exodus 12:40). Four generations are given from Levi to Moses in Exodus 6:16. stranger: sojourner (gç r) the technical term for resident alien (p. 110, Leviticus 17:8 f.*, Deuteronomy 1:16 *, Psalms 15*).

Genesis 15:16. Amorite: used here for the inhabitants of Canaan as a whole; the delay in the fulfilment of the promise is due to the fact that as yet they have not filled up the measure of their sin to the point at which Divine punishment will be inflicted.