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GENESIS CHAPTER 15
A comfortable promise to Abram, Gen_15:1. His prayer for an heir, Gen_15:2,3. The promise of an answer to his prayer, Gen_15:4,5. Abram’s faith, Gen_15:6. He desires a sign, Gen_15:7,8. God gives him one, Gen_15:9. He observes it, Gen_15:10,11. God appears to him when in a deep sleep, Gen_15:12. A prediction of evil to befall his posterity, Gen_15:13. Their deliverance, Gen_15:14-16. The covenant concerning Canaan renewed, Gen_15:17-21.
God anciently revealed himself to men two ways; either,
1. When the man was asleep, in a dream; or,
2. In a vision, Num_12:6, when he was awake: and this either,
1. When he was rapt into an ecstasy, wherein his senses are idle, but his mind is active and elevated to the contemplation and understanding of what God reveals. See Num_12:6-8 24:4 Isa_1:1 Act_10:10,11. Or,
2. When the thing was manifested by an external representation. So here, God seems to have appeared to Abram in the shape of a man, as he did Gen_18:1-33, as may be gathered from Gen_15:5,10.
Fear not, Abram; neither the return of those enemies whom thou hast smitten and provoked, nor the envy of thy neighbours for this glorious victory, nor for thy own desolate condition. Seeing thou didst trust to my protection, I will be a shield or a protector to thee; and seeing thou didst so honourably and for my sake reject other rewards, taken by thyself, and offered by the king of Sodom, thou shalt be no loser by it; I will abundantly recompense all thy piety to me, and charity to thy afflicted kinsman Lot, and thy liberality towards others: I will bless thee with all sorts of good things, as well as defend thee from all evil; which two things make a man completely happy.