The Covenant with Abram
Genesis 15:1-17
The Biblical text from the NRSV is always found in the first column.
The reflection by Fr. Dennis Chriszt, CPPS is always found in the second column.
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”
But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”
He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.”
But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
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.”
He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.
And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.
And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
God made a covenant with Abram. God promised him a land where his descendants would dwell and prosper. The sign of the covenant was the animals cut in half. It was a pledge that if God where to fail to keep God’s part of the covenant, God would be cut in half. It doesn’t matter that God could not actually be cut in half; the symbolism speaks to the seriousness with which God enters into covenant with Abram.
When God enters into covenant with us, God takes it seriously. God pledges to keep the covenant no matter what. God pledges to forfeit God’s own life should God fail to keep up God’s part of the covenant. Now, that’s a serious commitment!
As part of the covenant God makes with Abram, God reveals that the road will not always be easy. There will in fact be difficult times – four hundred years of slavery in a foreign land. Yet throughout that time, God promises to be faithful to the covenant, to watch over the people in good times and in bad, and to ultimately give them everything God has promised to Abram.
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