Genesis 15.12-16-Prophecy Of Israel's Suffering In Egypt
Wednesday December 14, 2005
Genesis: Genesis 15:12-16-Prophecy of Israel’s Suffering In Egypt
Lesson # 77
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 15:1.
This evening we will study Genesis 15:12-16, which records the Lord’s prophecy of the suffering of Abram’s descendants (nation of Israel) in Egypt.
Genesis 15:1, “After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.’”
Genesis 15:2, “Abram said, ‘O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’”
Genesis 15:3, “And Abram said, ‘Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.’”
Genesis 15:4, “Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, ‘This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.’”
Genesis 15:5, “And He took him outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’”
Genesis 15:6, “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
Genesis 15:7, “And He said to him, ‘I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.’”
Genesis 15:8, “He said, ‘O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?’”
Genesis 15:9, “So He said to him, ‘Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’”
Genesis 15:10, “Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.”
Genesis 15:11, “The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.”
Genesis 15:12, “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.”
The “sun going down” symbolizes and anticipates the declining fortunes of Abram’s descendants who were eventually enslaved in Egypt.
As we will see his descendants will be the nation of Israel who will be enslaved in Egypt for over four hundred years.
The “deep sleep” symbolizes and anticipates that the promise of the land would not be fulfilled until after Abram has died and been raised from the dead and inherits the land with the Promised Seed, Jesus Christ during His millennial reign.
Arthur Pink, “By this deep sleep we learn how God was showing the patriarch, symbolically, that not during his natural life would he inherit the land; instead, he must go down into the grave and inherit it together with the Promised Seed. In his awakening from this ‘deep sleep’ Abram received a veiled promise of resurrection from the dead and the horror of great darkness as of the grave (cf. Heb. 2:15) from which he recalled again to the light of day. In a word, the way of blessing, to the inheritance, was through death and resurrection” (Gleanings in Genesis, page 170, Moody Press).
The “terror and great darkness” symbolizes and anticipates Israel’s future enslavement and mistreatment in Israel.
Genesis 15:13, “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.’”
“Know for certain”: (1) Qal infinitive absolute complement form of the verb yadha (yaw-daw) (2) 2nd person masculine singular qal imperfect form of the verb yadha.
The infinitive absolute stands before the finite verb of the same root in Genesis 15:13 in order to intensify the certainty or force of the verbal idea.
Thus indicating that the Lord wants Abram to “know for sure or for certain” that his descendants would be strangers in the land of Egypt and in fact enslaved there and oppressed for over four hundred years.
So to the English speaking person this construction literally means, “knowing, you shall know” but to the Hebrew mind, it simply means, “know for certain.”
The Lord is presenting a prophecy of the future enslavement of the nation of Israel which would be descended from Abram.
This prophecy is a revelation and based upon the Divine Decree of God.
The decree of God is His eternal and immutable will regarding the future of the descendants of Abram.
This decree is simply a declaration of God’s sovereign will that is based upon His omniscient knowledge of all the facts concerning what will take place in the future concerning Abram’s descendants who would be the Israelites.
The Lord knew that Abram’s descendants would be enslaved in Egypt since He is omniscient meaning He knows perfectly, eternally and simultaneously all that is knowable, both the actual and the possible and thus has all knowledge of every event in human and angelic history.
“Your descendants” is a reference to the nation of Israel and the “land” in which the nation of Israel would be strangers in and would be enslaved to and oppressed for four hundred years is Egypt.
“Four hundred years” is a “round” number for the more precise figure of four hundred thirty years appears in Exodus 12:40-41; Acts 7:6; Gal. 3:16-17.
Exodus 12:40, “Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.”
Exodus 12:41, “And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.”
Acts 7:6, “But God spoke to this effect, that his DESCENDANTS WOULD BE ALIENS IN A FOREIGN LAND, AND THAT THEY WOULD BE ENSLAVED AND MISTREATED FOR FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.”
Genesis 15:14, “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.”
“The nation” is a clear reference to Egypt (Ex. 6:6; 7:4; 12:12).
“I will judge the nation (Egypt)” is a reference to the Lord judging Pharaoh and the nation of Egypt through the ten plagues for not letting Israel leave as God had commanded Pharaoh as recorded in Exodus 6-14.
Exodus 6:6, “Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.’”
Exodus 7:4, “When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments.”
Exodus 12:12, “For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments -- I am the LORD.”
“They will come out with many possessions” was literally fulfilled as recorded in Exodus 12:35-39 and demonstrates that the Lord is just and gives retribution to those who have been unjustly treated and enslaved.
Exodus 12:35, “Now the sons of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, for they had requested from the Egyptians articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing.”
Exodus 12:36, “and the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have their request. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.”
Exodus 12:37, “Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children.”
Exodus 12:38, “A mixed multitude also went up with them, along with flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock.”
Exodus 12:39, “They baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not become leavened, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.”
Genesis 15:15, “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.”
“You shall go to your fathers in peace” is a figure of speech called “euphemy” by which a harsh or disagreeable expression is changed for a pleasant and agreeable one.
The Lord employs the expression “you (Abram) shall go to your fathers in peace” instead of the more harsh expression “die” since the Lord considers physical death an enemy, which He will destroy with the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:51-57; Heb. 2:14-15).
The term “sleep” is often used by the New Testament writes for death (Jn. 11:11, 13; 1 Cor. 11:30; 1 Thess. 4:14-16).
Abram would “not” see the promise of the land fulfilled in his lifetime but would have to accept the promise by means of faith and receive the fulfillment of this promise when he will be in a resurrected body during Christ’s millennial reign.
Hebrews 11:13, “All these (those listed in Hebrews 11:4-12: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah) died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”
Hebrews 11:14, “For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.”
Hebrews 11:15, “And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.”
Hebrews 11:16, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”
Although Abram would not see the fulfillment until he was raised from the dead, the Lord assures Abram that he would enjoy a long life and would be spared the afflictions that his descendants would go through in Egypt.
The phrase “old age” literally means, “gray-headed” and “good” denotes a prosperous life (Jdg. 8:32; 1 Chr. 29:28).
Genesis 15:16, “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
“They” is a reference to Abram’s descendants, namely, the Israelites who will return from the slavery of Egypt to the land promised to Abram and his descendants.
“Generation” is the noun dor (rw{D) (dore), which denotes a “cycle of time, a life span,” which in the context of Genesis 15 is calculated to be one hundred years since Abram had his first child at one hundred years of age (Gen. 21:5).
Therefore, the “fourth generation” indicates that after four hundred years Abram’s descendants, i.e., the nation of Israel would come back into to the land of Canaan promised to Abram by the Lord.
Exodus 6:16-26 records that it was exactly in the fourth generation that the children of Israel left Egypt and returned to Canaan.
The Lord gives the reason for the delay in Abram’s descendants possessing the land of Canaan, namely, that the “iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
The “Amorite” is a figure of speech called “synecdoche of the part” where a part is put for the whole, thus the term “the Amorite” is put for the ten nations listed in Genesis 15:19-21, of which “the Amorite” was a part of (cf. Gen. 48:22; Nm. 13:29; 21:21).
Discoveries at the ancient Ugarit, north of Tyre and Sidon, have revealed Canaanite religion promoted child sacrifice, idolatry, prostitution in the name of religion and all kinds of occultic and immoral practices.
Therefore, it was an act of justice in the Lord dispossessing the Amorites, also known as the Canaanite.
The Lord does not dispossess and judge a nation immediately until He has given it grace in the sense of giving it a sufficient amount of time to repent.
2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
Once a nation has completely rejected God’s grace and every opportunity to repent and accept Christ as Savior, it will become totally and completely saturated with evil (see Lev. 18:24-28; 20:23) and then the Lord sends judgment.
Also, the Lord gave grace to the antediluvians and used Noah to preach the gospel to them for over a hundred years and once they rejected the gospel, the Lord sent the Flood (Gen. 6:5, 12; 1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5).
The Lord also did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah until He was satisfied Himself not even a quorum of righteous were left in those cities (Gen. 18-19).
Therefore, Israel’s conquest of Canaan is based upon the Lord’s absolute justice and not on naked aggression.
Bob Deffinbaugh, “Here is an important principle, and one that governs the possession of the land of Canaan. God owns the land of Canaan (Leviticus 25:23), and He lets it out to those who will live according to righteousness. When Israel forgot their God and practiced the abominations of the Canaanites (cf. II Chronicles 28:3, 33:2), God put them out of the land also.” (Genesis, page 118).
Later on Israel’s history, the Lord justly permits her to be driven from the land of Canaan as well by Assyria, Babylon and Rome (Deut. 28:36-37; 2 Kgs. 24:14; 25:7).
The judgment and dispossessing of these ten nations called the “Amorite” who are also called the “Canaanite” would be a fulfillment of Noah’s prophecy in Genesis 9:24-27.
