See how that which was the doom of the Canaanites ch. Those whom they serve shall afflict them; see Ex. Note, Those that are blessed and beloved of God are often sorely afflicted by wicked men; and God foresees it, and takes cognizance of it.
The continuance of their sufferings- four hundred years. This persecution began with mocking, when Ishmael, the son of an Egyptian, persecuted Isaac, who was born after the Spirit, ch. It continued in loathing; for it was an abomination to the Egyptians to eat bread with the Hebrews, ch. This was a long time, but a limited time. The judgment of the enemies of Abram's seed: That nation whom they shall serve, even the Egyptians, will I judge, v.
This points at the plagues of Egypt, by which God not only constrained the Egyptians to release Israel, but punished them for all the hardships they had put upon them. Though God may suffer persecutors and oppressors to trample upon his people a great while, yet he will certainly reckon with them at last; for his day is coming, Ps.
The punishing of persecutors is the judging of them: it is a righteous thing with God, and a particular act of justice, to recompense tribulations to those that trouble his people. The judging of the church's enemies is God's work: I will judge. God can do it, for he is the Lord; he will do it, for he is his people's God, and he has said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay.
To him therefore we must leave it, to be done in his way and time. The deliverance of Abram's seed out of Egypt. That great event is here foretold: Afterwards shall they come out with great substance. It is here promised, 1. That they should be enlarged: Afterwards they shall come out; that is, either after they have been afflicted years, when the days of their servitude are fulfilled, or after the Egyptians are judged and plagued, then they may expect deliverance.
Note, The destruction of oppressors is the redemption of the oppressed; they will not let God's people go till they are forced to it. That they should be enriched: They shall come out with great substance; this was fulfilled, Ex.
God took care they should have, not only a good land to go to, but a good stock to carry with them. Their happy settlement in Canaan, v. They shall not only come out of Egypt, but they shall come hither again, hither to the land of Canaan, wherein thou now art. The discontinuance of their possession shall be no defeasance of their right: we must not reckon those comforts lost for ever that are intermitted for a time.
The reason why they must not have the land of promise in possession till the fourth generation was because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. Israel cannot be possessed of Canaan till the Amorites be dispossessed; and they are not yet ripe for ruin. The righteous God has determined that they shall not be cut off till they have persisted in sin so long, and arrived at such a pitch of wickedness, that there may appear some equitable proportion between their sin and their ruin; and therefore, till it come to that, the seed of Abram must be kept out of possession.
The measure of sin fills gradually. Those that continue impenitent in wicked ways are treasuring up unto themselves wrath. Some people's measure of sin fills slowly. The Sodomites, who were sinners before the Lord exceedingly, soon filled their measure; so did the Jews, who were, in profession, near to God. But the iniquity of the Amorites was long in the filling up. That this is the reason of the prosperity of wicked people; the measure of their sins is not yet full.
The wicked live, become old, and are mighty in power, while God is laying up their iniquity for their children, Job , See Mt. Abram's peaceful quiet death and burial, before these things should come to pass, v. As he should not live to see that good land in the possession of his family, but must die, as he lived, a stranger in it, so, to balance this, he should not live to see the troubles that should come upon his seed, much less to share in them.
This is promised to Josiah, 2 Ki. Note, Good men are sometimes greatly favoured by being taken away from the evil to come, Isa. Let this satisfy Abram, that, for his part, 1. He shall go to his fathers in peace. Are we greater than our father Abram, who is dead? The former thought helps to take off the terror of death, the latter puts comfort into it. If the way be piety, the end is peace, Ps.
Outward peace, to the last, is promised to Abram, peace and truth is his days, whatever should come afterwards 2 Ki. He shall be buried in a good old age.
Perhaps mention is made of his burial here, where the land of Canaan is promised him, because a burying place was the first possession he had in it. He shall not only die in peace, but die in honour, die, and be buried decently; not only die in peace, but die in season, Job It is promised in the fifth commandment; it is pleasing to nature; and it affords a great opportunity for usefulness.
Theirs may be called a good old age, First, That are old and healthful, not loaded with such distempers as make them weary of life. Secondly, That are old and holy, old disciples Acts , whose hoary head is found in the way of righteousness Prov. Gen Here is, I. The covenant ratified v. The smoking furnace signified the affliction of his seed in Egypt. They were there in the iron furnace Deu. They were there in the smoke, their eyes darkened, that they could not see to the end of their troubles, and themselves at a loss to conceive what God would do with them.
Clouds and darkness were round about them. The burning lamp denotes comfort in this affliction; and this God showed to Abram, at the same time that he showed him the smoking furnace. Light denotes deliverance out of the furnace; their salvation was as a lamp that burneth, Isa.
When God came down to deliver them, he appeared in a bush that burned, and was not consumed, Ex. The lamp denotes direction in the smoke. God's word was their lamp: this word to Abram was so, it was a light shining in a dark place. Perhaps this burning lamp prefigured the pillar of cloud and fire, which led them out of Egypt, in which God was. The burning lamp denotes the destruction of their enemies who kept them so long in the furnace. See Zec. The same cloud that enlightened the Israelites troubled and burned the Egyptians.
The passing of these between the pieces was the confirming of the covenant God now made with him, that he might have strong consolation, being fully persuaded that what God promised he would certainly perform.
It is probable that the furnace and lamp, which passed between the pieces, burnt and consumed them, and so completed the sacrifice, and testified God's acceptance of it, as of Gideon's Jdg. So it intimates, 1. That God's covenants with man are made by sacrifice Ps.
God's acceptance of our spiritual sacrifices is a token for good and an earnest of further favours. And by this we may know that he accepts our sacrifices if he kindle in our souls a holy fire of pious and devout affections in them. The covenant repeated and explained: In that same day, that day never to be forgotten, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, that is, gave a promise to Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, v.
Here is, 1. A rehearsal of the grant. He had said before, To thy seed will I give this land, ch. But here he says, I have given it; that is, 1. I have given the promise of it, the charter is sealed and delivered, and cannot be disannulled. Note, God's promises are God's gifts, and are so to be accounted. The possession is as sure, in due time, as if it were now actually delivered to them.
What God has promised is as sure as if it were already done; hence, it is said, He that believes hath everlasting life Jn. A recital of the particulars granted, such as is usual in the grants of lands. He specifies the boundaries of the land intended hereby to be granted, v.
And then, for the greater certainty, as is usual in such cases, he mentions in whose tenure and occupation these lands now were. Ten several nations, or tribes, are here spoken of v.
They were not possessed of all these countries when God brought them into Canaan. The bounds are fixed much narrower, Num. But, 1. In David's time, and Solomon's, their jurisdiction extended to the utmost of these limits, 2 Chr. It was their own fault that they were not sooner and longer in possession of all these territories. They forfeited their right by their sins, and by their own sloth and cowardice kept themselves out of possession.
The land granted is here described in its utmost extent because it was to be a type of the heavenly inheritance, where there is room enough: in our father's house are many mansions.
The present occupants are named, because their number, and strength, and long prescription, should be no hindrance to the accomplishment of this promise in its season, and to magnify God's love to Abram and his seed, in giving to that one nation the possessions of many nations, so precious were they in his sight, and so honourable, Isa. Donate Contact. Blue Letter Bible is a c 3 nonprofit organization.
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Password Must be at least 6 characters. Re-type Password. Thank you for registering. A verification email has been sent to the address you provided. Please enter your account email below. Continue Cancel. Remind Me. Old Testament. Back Psalms 1. Bible Search. Retrieve Adv. These are words to Abram as much as they are to his promised seed. And, as there in Exodus, it is important to note the covenant opens with grace.
The covenants of God are made not to perfect people who have something to give but to imperfect people who have only need. God makes covenants with former slaves whom he miraculously rescues. He frontloads the relationship with total newness in him, complete forgiveness through Christ, and utter comfort by his Spirit.
The covenant making God proves himself worthy of worship. There are attachments. He will give Abram the land to possess. Naturally, Abram wants to know how this might happen. How can God give him this inhabited land? Abram complains to God, but those complaints are not acts of unfaith. How could he? So God shows him the future, making him a prophet for the seed to come.
But before that, he makes a covenant to establish the promise. During ancient covenant-making ceremonies, two parties would take animals, cut them in half, and each party would walk through the separated pieces of flesh. But Abram then falls asleep. Or, rather, a deep sleep falls on Abram. He was, as it were, caught up in a vision. Abram becomes a prophet like the many Israel would have in the days to come. God appears to him with a word about the future.
At the time when both parties would traditionally walk through the separated flesh together, God walks alone through the flames. You Abram, are not held responsible for this promise. This is mine to bring about. You are the benefactor, not the guarantor. Do you see the grace in this? God is not asking Abram to hold up some end of the deal.
God makes the promise alone, seals the covenant alone, and becomes the guarantor alone. Abram received both. It was a promise to his offspring, to his seed. In the vision, Abram becomes a prophet, speaking of the future of his people. God will send them to a land that is not theirs to be servants for four hundred years.
He will bring them out and give them the land he promised to Abram. All of this will happen. It is not vague promise, and the readers of this narrative at the time of its writing would look around them and see what God said to Abram had been done as it was foretold. Abram lived inside the story God is creating for his people out in the future. In a sense, we all do. The promises of God in the Bible are not mere hopes of a better future; they are guarantees sealed by the Spirit of what is to come.
No one can alter the plans of God. And he aims to prove it, even if he must do so over and over again to our wondering hearts. The boundaries are set before the people of the land are driven away.
How can this be? Because God is sovereign over them all. No one goes where he forbids, and no one leaves where he commands. The people around Abram are as under the control of God as Abram himself, though they do not know it and do not recognize it. Truly, God has the whole world in his hands. No, it is very logical, and can be thought through and defended by those willing to take the time to study and learn. Abram has been given this promise, and now he wants some evidence.
I love what God does in verses As soon as God began describing to Abram the animals Abram was supposed to gather, Abram knew what was going to happen.
In that day, when you wanted to make a treaty, or make a binding oath with another person, you would gather the animals listed here, cut them in two, and then walk through the divided animals together. By doing so, you were saying that if either of you go back on your word, may you become like these animals. This was how they made biding agreements back then. A covenant made in such a way was deadly serious.
We get witnesses. We get lawyers. We sign a document. It is sealed by a notary. This is what God tells Abram to prepare. So that is what Abram does. 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.
Once this was done, all Abram had to do was wait. How do I know Abram waited? Because of Genesis And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
There are several things to recognize about this verse. First of all, Genesis is telling us is that Abram had to wait a long time for God.
Generally, it takes a vulture at least twenty-four hours to find a dead carcass because many of them rely on the smell of the gases that a decaying carcass produces. Most vultures, especially those of the Mid-East, will almost never eat a fresh carcass. Because their beaks are so soft, they must wait until the carcass begins to decompose.
We know it was not more than a day because of what we read later. So Abram gets everything ready just as God commanded. Then he waits. He twiddled his thumbs. He checked his watch. He stood up. He sat down. He paced around. He had done his part, but where was God? Had God stood Him up? Had God lied to Abram all along? I know this has happened to you as it has happened to me. God tells us to do something, and so we do it, and then — nothing happens. We wait.
We watch. We twiddle our thumbs. Doubts begin to creep in. Maybe I angered God somehow. Maybe God decided not to show up. You must, like Abram, drive them away. Egypt did this by trying to keep the people of Israel from the land. Then the birds of Canaan tried to keep the people from entering the land.
Then the birds of Assyria, Greece and Rome carried off the people from the land. The birds of Islam have cawed against the Jews, and today, the Arabs oppose their possession of Palestine.
A bird of prey has landed again. For years now, the birds of prey have been landing. The descendants of Abram are weary from trying to fend them off. God has still not given them their land. He still, in their thinking, has not shown up. But what we see in verse 12 is that when God shows up, Abram falls asleep; a troubled sleep.
A deep, yet fitful, sleep. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. This terminology is similar to what God did with Adam in the Garden of Eden. Here, a similar thing is about to happen. Though Abram has prepared the animals for the covenant making ceremony, God causes Abram to fall into a deep sleep. What God is about to do, He is going to do by Himself, without any help from Abram.
The main thing that is different between this account at Genesis 2 is the horror and great darkness that falls upon Abram. I think this is what happened to the Jewish people.
Jesus Christ showed up, and they were asleep, but it has been a fitful, horror-filled sleep. The prophets are full of prophecies about the terror and horrors that will come upon Jerusalem and Judea when their enemies gather around them to carry them off and steal their land.
This is the kind of terror and horror comes upon Abram here. He is horrified that God might not show up to keep His promise. The horror Abram goes through also reminds me of Christ. Matthew says that as Christ hung on the cross, the sky was filled with darkness, and then the sin of the world was laid upon His shoulders.
He who knew no sin, became sin for us. Can you imagine the horror Christ felt at that time? We are used to the feeling of sin. We are born with it. But Christ had never felt it. Never experienced it. The rot. The decay. The putrid filth of sin. That is horror. Jesus and God the Father had an intimate connection, they were both persons of the Trinity.
And now, Jesus has been forsaken by God because of sin. Darkness and horror. There is a wonderful picture of salvation in this passage. Abram believed God in verse 6.
And then, he tried to make a covenant with God, but he wore himself out trying to keep the birds of prey at bay. But now, God has delayed too long, so that Abram can see that this is not a covenant between two parties. This is a promise from God to Abram. But God has delayed in order to show Abram, and show the Israelite people, that it is not by their effort and their watchfulness that His covenant will be fulfilled. It is by His effort and His faithfulness alone that He will fulfill His promises to them.
God explains all of this to Abram in verses This is what Genesis are about. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. This is a prophecy about the future. God tells Abram that his descendants will go to a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there for years.
When that time is up, the nation they serve will be judged. Before all of this happens, Abram will die in peace. Why is God telling Abram all of this? Back up in verse 8, Abram was basically asking when he was going to get the land. The reason for this is because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. The Amorites is a generic term for all the people listed in verses A lot of people often make accusations against God and Israel when they enter into the land in the book of Joshua for killing the people who lived there.
But as God reveals here, those who lived in the land were becoming more and more wicked every year. The destruction God brings upon them is just judgment for their sin. When Joshua and the Israelites enter the land, it is not filled with a bunch of innocent nations, but with sinful and wicked nations, full of idolatry and wickedness.
I do not think we can imagine how sinful and wicked they were. They were involved in orgies to worship Ashtaroth, and frying their babies in the red hot arms of Molech.
God gave them years to turn away from their sin, but they only got worse. They were killing themselves and polluting the world, therefore God told Israel to destroy them. But this is what He does in verse 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. The smoking oven and the burning torch symbolize God passing between the pieces. The most important thing to realize is that God walks through alone.
Normally, both parties of the covenant would walk through together, showing that they both had responsibilities to keep in order to maintain the covenant. But when God walks through alone, He shows Abram that there is absolutely nothing Abram or his descendants have to do in order for God to keep this covenant.
It is a one sided covenant. God takes all the responsibility for fulfilling it upon Himself. No matter what Israel has or has not done in history, God will keep His promise. There are many who say that God has abandoned Israel and His promises to her, and have transferred those promises to the church. But if this has happened, Genesis is a lie, and God is a covenant breaker. One of the reasons I love this passage is because this is the way our salvation is in Jesus Christ.
God asked Abram to bring the animals, which Abram did. But God walked through them alone. Similarly, God asks us to believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life. But God paid the penalty, bought salvation, and guarantees it all by Himself. He does not ask anything of us. He does not demand anything of us. Eternal salvation is an eternal, one-sided covenant which cannot be broken, or it makes God a liar and a covenant breaker. Furthermore, not that there can be degrees of promises with God, but this promise He makes with Abram is based on the blood of bulls and goats, whereas the covenant God makes with us about salvation is based on the blood of Jesus Christ.
Up to this point, the covenant with Abram, I believe, was conditional upon his obedience. But now that Abram has believed God, and God credited him with righteousness, the covenant is made unconditional and God guarantees its fulfillment. The boundaries are from the Nile to the Euphrates, a total of , square miles.
People often ask what our view is on the situation in the West Bank. And a time is coming, very soon I believe, when God will give all that land back to them.
In fact, Jesus says in Matthew that the generation which sees the budding of the fig tree will see the end. Israel, the fig tree, budded in In Scripture, a generation is somewhere between 40 and years. If we have understood prophecy correctly, we are close.
God has promised it.
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