Sermon notes October 19th, 2025
GENESIS 15
Chapter 15 Introduction
Overview
Hittite covenants were ancient political treaties, often called suz-er-ainty treaties, that established a relationship between a powerful "suzerain" king and a lesser "vassal" king.
Significance and connection to biblical covenants:
Structural similarity: The structure of Hittite treaties, with their historical prologues, stipulations, and blessings/curses, is remarkably similar to that of certain biblical covenants, most notably the one described in Deuteronomy.
- Theological template: The Hittite treaty form has been used as a template to understand how ancient Israelites might have expressed their covenant relationship with God.
- Loyalty and obligation: Both Hittite treaties and biblical covenants are built on the concept of loyalty and obligation, where a powerful party grant benefits in exchange for the subordinate party's obedience.
Example: There’s a mighty tribe of people who were warriors. We’ll call them the Burg tribe or family, they could hunt and they could fight. They were talented in making weapons and instruments for war. But they were not farmers. They could not grow anything successfully to feed their people.
Now there’s this other family or tribe of people. We’ll call them the Green family. A peaceable people, they were farmers, they could grow all kinds of food. What they needed was help with protection from people, raiding their fields and stealing their food.
- This is where the Hittite covenant was born. But please understand it was more than just a contract. It was a promise with your life that you would not break this covenant.
- Each family or tribe would bring their very best animals to be sacrificed. They would cut them into two (in half) placing the pieces opposite each other, creating an alley way of blood. Each party would walk through the blood reciting their covenant promises. KNOWING, if they break their covenant promises they will become like these animals. Dead.
- After the covenant ceremony they would exchange clothes, the farmers would wear skins and firs of the Burg family, so they would look more like warriors. The Green family gave them hats to protect them from the sun. The Green family promises to feed the Burg family to keep them strong so that they can protect them from all their enemies. In many cases they would take on each other’s name, they became the Greenburg nation. This is the covenant Abram understood. God didn’t have to teach it, but God knew He could use it.
In the theological view that God has complete knowledge of the future, God knew and understood Abram's heart and faith. God knew Abram would respond to this covenant because he had understanding of it. The Abrahamic covenant was established to reveal God's faithfulness and the reliability of His promises, serving as a basis for Abram’s belief and a model for future faith and understanding of God's character.
- In the wider ancient world, solemn covenants often included this ritualistic ceremony. This is the cultural context for the later covenant between God and Abram in Genesis 15. This is what Abram understands. He understands covenants between people groups. He had probably been involved in covenants between other tribes for food or protection. The covenant is different from contracts. People go into contracts usually for prophet reasons; the contract is a written document to remind them of their responsibilities to the contract.
- The covenant that Abram understood is a promise with your life.
- The Hebrew phrase for making a covenant literally means "to cut a covenant." This refers to the ritual of sacrificing and cutting an animal into two pieces, draining the blood into an alleyway.
- The participants would walk through this blood alleyway (bare foot) resisting their promises to their covenant partners. This covenant requires both parties to walk and promise.
This was a symbolic, self-curse oath that meant: "May I become like these animals if I break my oath". (examples of our marriage ceremony)
- God's unique role: Notably, during the covenant with Abram, God alone, symbolized by a smoking pot and a flaming torch, passed between the pieces. This signified that God bore the entire weight of responsibility for the agreement and swore by his own life to fulfill it.
Let’s look back so we get the context of where we’re at:
Genesis 14:21-24
21 Now the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself.”
22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth the not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich’—
24 except only what the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men who went with me: Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.”
Genesis 15:1-7 New King James Version
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
- There was a good reason for God to say this. Abram had just defeated a much larger army made up of a partnership of four kings. He had reason to be afraid, expecting an attack of retribution.
2 But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
- Eliezer of Damascus was Abram’s Chief of Staff; he ran his massive household. He was very deserving of an inheritance from Abram but he’s not the one God is speaking of.
3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
- Can you hear his stress? Abram’s bold honesty before the LORD is a wonderful example of prayer. Instead of holding in his frustration, he brought it before God with an honest heart.
- To some degree, this question doubted God. Yet we must discern the difference between a doubt that denies God’s promise and a doubt that desires God’s promise. Abram wanted to believe and looked to God to strengthen his faith.
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.”
5 Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
- When Abram put his trust in God, specifically in God’s promise to him (descendants leading to the Messiah), God credited (accounted) this belief to Abram’s account as righteousness.
- There are essentially two types of righteousness: one, righteousness we accomplish by our own efforts (we think), and righteousness accounted to us by the work of God when we believe. Since none of us can be good enough to accomplish perfect righteousness, we must have God’s righteousness accounted to us by doing just what Abram did: he believed in the LORD.
Genesis 15:7-12
7 Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.”
8 And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”
- The power and clarity of the promise make us somewhat surprised by Abram’s response. Abram boldly asked God for proof of the promise.
- Though God had just accounted Abram as righteous, Abram still demonstrates some degree of doubt, as indicated by his question, “How shall I know that I will inherit it?” Abram experienced what many of us who are accounted righteous do. It was as if he said, “I believe when I hear God say it, but five minutes later, I’m not sure — please prove it to me.” It reminds me of a scripture in Mark that latterly identifies me:
Mark 9:23-25 New King James Version
23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
25 When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!”
- “What! Abraham, is not God’s promise sufficient for thee? … Ah, beloved! faith is often marred by a measure of unbelief; or, if not quite unbelief, yet there is a desire to have some token, some sign, beyond the bare promise of God.” (Spurgeon)
- Abram had no title deed to the land, no certificate of ownership that another person would recognize. Abram had nothing to make anyone else believe he actually owned the land. All he had was the promise of God.
Abram prepares to make a covenant with God
9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
- This reads more like a shopping list for a strange pagan ceremony, than something the LORD would ask for. Yet Abram understood perfectly what God asked him to prepare for.
10 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.
11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.
- As evening came, God had not yet appeared to walk through the animal parts with Abram and seal the covenant. Instead, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Abram. Apparently, at least part of what followed came to Abram in a dream while he was under this deep sleep.
- Now many believe God can speak to you when you’re asleep. But why can’t Abram see God make this covenant? Listen to what God said to Moses.
- The phrase "horror and great darkness fell upon him" in the Bible, describing a vision experienced by Abram (later Abraham). It symbolizes a significant and solemn revelation from God, foreshadowing future hardships like the slavery of his descendants in Egypt, despite also containing promises of eventual freedom and a covenant being made between God and Abram
Exodus 33:19-20
19 Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
20 But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.”
Genesis 15:13-18
13 Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.
14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
15 Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.
16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 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.
- As Abram was either asleep or perhaps still groggy from the deep sleep, he saw God do an amazing thing in his dream. Abram saw God pass through the animal parts all by Himself, while Abram watched on the sidelines seeing this in a dream, however God did it, God wanted Abram to know.
18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—
- God, represented by the smoking oven and the burning torch, passed through the animal parts by Himself; as Abram watched, God showed this was a unilateral covenant. Abram never signed the covenant, because he passively watched while God signed it for both of them in the ritual.
- The smoking oven reminds us of the many times smoke or a cloud represented the presence of God:
- As the pillar of cloud with Israel in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21-22).
- As the smoke on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:18).
- As the cloud of God’s Shekinah glory (1 Kings 8:10-12).
i. Therefore, the certainty of the covenant God made with Abram is based on who God is, not on who Abram is or what Abram would do. This covenant could not fail, because God cannot fail. In a sense, the Father walked through the broken and bloody body of Jesus to establish His covenant with us, and God signed it for both of us. We merely enter into the covenant by faith; we don’t make the covenant with God.
ii. By entering this contract, there is a sense in which God said, “If I don’t keep My word, let Me be put asunder.” God put His Deity on the line as a confirmation of His oath to Abram.
- God alone signed this covenant; Abram did not haggle with God over the terms. God established and Abram accepted. Abram could not break a contract he never signed!
- “A Divine covenant is not a mutual agreement on equal terms between two parties, but a Divine promise assured.” I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates: By quoting the specific lands Abram’s descendants would inherit, God made it clear this was not a figurative spiritual promise. It was real, and through this promise, Israel would inherit real land.
Genesis 17:7 New King James Version
7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you
- Genesis 17:7 reveals the faithfulness of God in establishing His covenant with Abraham. This covenant, marked by the promise of descendants, land, and blessing, finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
Through Christ, God offers salvation to all who believe, making us heirs of the promises made to Abraham. But this salvation is not automatic; it requires a response of faith.
- For believers, this passage calls you to trust in God’s promises, just as Abraham did. Live in the assurance that God is faithful to fulfill His promises, even when circumstances seem impossible.
Let your life be marked by obedience, as a sign of your faith in the God who keeps His covenant. Share the good news of Christ with others, so that they too may become part of God’s redemptive plan.
Genesis 15:19-20
19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites,
20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
- This is a list of ancient peoples or tribes mentioned here, specifically in the book of Genesis 15:19–21, who were said to inhabit the land promised to Abraham.
