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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Genesis 15:12 - 15:12
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“And when the sun was just about to go down (on the construction, see Ges. §132), and deep sleep (תַּרְדֵּמָה, as in Gen 2:21, a deep sleep produced by God) had fallen upon Abram, behold there fell upon him terror, great darkness.” The vision here passes into a prophetic sleep produced by God. In this sleep there fell upon Abram dread and darkness; this is shown by the interchange of the perfect נפלה and the participle נֹפֶלֶת. The reference to the time is intended to show “the supernatural character of the darkness and sleep, and the distinction between the vision and a dream” (O. v. Gerlach). It also possesses a symbolical meaning. The setting of the sun prefigured to Abram the departure of the sun of grace, which shone upon Israel, and the commencement of a dark and dreadful period of suffering for his posterity, the very anticipation of which involved Abram in darkness. For the words which he heard in the darkness were these (Gen 15:13.): “Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them (the lords of the strange land), and they (the foreigners) shall oppress them 400 years.” That these words had reference to the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt, is placed beyond all doubt by the fulfilment. The 400 years were, according to prophetic language, a round number for the 430 years that Israel spent in Egypt (Exo 12:40). “Also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge (see the fulfilment, Exo 6:11); and afterward shall they come out with great substance (the actual fact according to Exo 12:31-36). And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age (cf. Gen 25:7-8); and in the fourth generation they shall come hither again.” The calculations are made here on the basis of a hundred years to a generation: not too much for those times, when the average duration of life was above 150 years, and Isaac was born in the hundredth year of Abraham's life. “For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Amorite, the name of the most powerful tribe of the Canaanites, is used here as the common name of all the inhabitants of Canaan, just as in Jos 24:15 (cf. Gen 10:5), Jdg 6:10, etc.).
By this revelation Abram had the future history of his seed pointed out to him in general outlines, and was informed at the same time why neither he nor his descendants could obtain immediate possession of the promised land, viz., because the Canaanites were not yet ripe for the sentence of extermination.