Genesis 15.17-21-Abrahamic Covenant Ceremony

Thursday December 15, 2005

Genesis: Genesis 15:17-21-Abrahamic Covenant Ceremony

Lesson # 78

Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 15:1.

This evening we will complete our study of Genesis 15 by studying the Abrahamic covenant ceremony, which is recorded in Genesis 15:17-21.

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.

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.’”

“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.

Genesis 15:14, “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.”

“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.

“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.

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).

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.

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).

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.

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).

Genesis 15:17, “It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.”

The “smoking oven” speaks of Egypt and the tribulations through which Abram’s descendants would pass through.

Deuteronomy 4:20, “But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as today.”

The “flaming torch” signifies God’s presence among His people in the midst of their adversities.

The smoke and the fire foreshadow the pillar of cloud and fire over the Tabernacle in Israel, which symbolized God’s presence at the Exodus (Ex. 19:18; 20:5; 24:17; 34:5-7; Deut. 4:11, 24, 33).

Therefore, the flaming torch symbolizes the Lord’s presence and the fact that the torch alone passes through the pieces teaches Abram that this covenant that the Lord is making with him is “unconditional” meaning its fulfillment is totally and completely dependent upon the Lord’s faithfulness.

The fulfillment of this covenant was based entirely upon the death of Christ, which is portrayed in the sacrificed animals.

The fact that the Lord made this covenant with Abram when it was very dark teaches that out of darkness and adversity will come blessing to Abram and his descendants, out of death, would come resurrection and the fulfillment of the covenant.

Genesis 15:18, “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.’”

“Your descendants” refers to the “regenerate” Israel or Jews racially who are saved who entered into this covenant that the Lord made with Abram by believing in Promised “Seed,” as their Savior namely, Jesus Christ.

Never in Israel’s history has she secured these boundaries and thus this promise awaits its fulfillment during the millennial reign of Christ.

According to Genesis 15:18, the boundaries of Israel during the millennial reign of Christ would be the river of Egypt on the south and the Euphrates River in Iraq in the north.

The river of Egypt refers to most easterly branch of the Nile River that emptied into Lake Sironbis, not far from Port Said.

The promise for the Messiah is that He will rule from sea to sea and from the River Euphrates to the ends of the north (Zech. 9:10; Ps. 72:8).

Genesis 15:19, “the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite.”

The “Kenites” were a group of metalsmiths who traveled throughout the mineral-bearing region in the Wadi Arabah and descended from the Midianites and developed extraordinary skill in metalwork.

They initially settled down early along the southwest shore of the Dead Sea, southeast of Hebron (Judg 1:16) but were nomadic as suggested in the Old Testament by numerous individual Kenites described as living in various places.

The “Kenizzites” dwelt somewhere in the southern part of Canaan and were related to the Kenites and like them were skilled metalworkers of the copper-rich Jordan Valley and the Arabah.

The name “Kadmonite” means, “easterner” and were the same as “the children of the east,” whose wisdom was celebrated (1 Kings 4:30).

Qedhemah, “the East,” was a son of Ishmael (Gen 25:15; compare verse 6) and in an Egyptian story describing the adventures of a political refugee who fled from Egypt in the time of the 12th Dynasty, it is said that he found a refuge in Canaan in the land of Kaduma or Kedem.

Genesis 15:20, “and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim.”

The “Hittites” were present in the land of Canaan during the time of Abraham according to Genesis 15:19-21 and they reached the zenith of their power sometime later and still possessed great power at the time of Solomon a thousand years later according to 2 Chronicles 1:17.

The “Perizzites” refers to a tribe of people who inhabited the mountainous region eventually taken over by the tribes of Ephraim and Judah (cf. Josh. 11:3; 17:5; Judg. 1:4f.) and because they were related to the Canaanites, the term “Perizzites” often refers to this entire group (cf. Gen. 13:7; 34:30).

The “Rephaim” lived in Canaan and east of the Jordan (Gen. 15:20; Josh. 12:4; 13:12; 17:15) and were of giant stature, such as the king of Bashan (Deut. 3:11, 13).

Genesis 15:21, “and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”

The “Amorite” means literally “the Westerner,” and thus the name Amorites is generally supposed to mean “western highlanders” (cf. Num 13:29; Deut 1:7-20; Josh 10:6), or “tall ones” (cf. Amos 2:9; see also Num 13:33; Deut 2:10).

The Amorites were so prominent that their name seems sometimes to be used for Canaanites in general (e.g., Josh 24:8).

In Abraham's day the Amorites lived west of the Dead Sea, in Hazazon-tamar (Gen 14:7), “that is Engedi” (2 Chron 20:2) and about Hebron (Gen 14:13, cf. 13:18).

The term “Canaanite” denotes those individuals descended from Canaan who lived in the land west of the Jordan River before the conquest of Joshua and whose western border was the Mediterranean Sea, especially in the lower and coastal regions (Gen. 13:12; Num. 33:51).

The northern border of the land of the Canaanites went as far as Sidon, which is 120 miles north of Jerusalem and the southern border extended to Gerar, which is about 11 miles south-southeast of Gaza, which was on the coast 50 miles southeast of Jerusalem.

The Canaanites who lived in the highland regions were often called “Amorite.”

At times the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, were called “Canaanites” but strictly speaking the nations who dwelt on the coasts or river lowlands were called “Canaanite” (Nm. 13:29).

The “Girgashite” were descendents of Canaan according to 1 Chronicles 1:14 and according to Joshua 24:11, they lived west of the Jordan River.

The “Jebusite” settled in “Jebus,” which is the name of Jerusalem when this tribe held it (Josh. 15:63; Judg. 19:10) and it wasn’t until David’s reign that they were finally driven out (2 Sam. 5:6-7; cf. 1 Kings 9:20).

The ten nations listed in Genesis 15:19-21 are summarized by one name in Genesis 15:16, “the Amorites,” and are sometimes summarized by three (Ex. 23:28) or by six (Ex. 3:17) or by seven (Josh. 24:11; Acts 13:19).

Ten nations are listed in Genesis 15:19-21 since ten is the number of completeness and indicates that the entire tract of land promised by the Lord to Abram and his regenerate descendants would be permanently possessed by them during the millennial reign of Christ.