Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Genesis 15:13 - 15:21

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Genesis 15:13 - 15:21


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The founding of the Covenant

v. 13. And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;


v. 14. and also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
The Lord Himself gives the explanation of some of the symbolical acts connected with the establishing of the covenant between Him and Abram. The latter should know for sure that his descendants would be strangers in a strange land for a matter of four hundred years, until the Lord Himself would execute judgment in their behalf and bring them out of the house of bondage, not empty, but with considerable property.

v. 16. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
Abram himself would not be obliged to share in the afflictions which would come upon his children, but would die in peace, at an advanced age.

v. 16. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
The generations at that time were still reckoned at approximately one hundred years, and so four generations would represent, in round numbers, four hundred years. By that time the iniquity of the Amorites, here named as the representatives of all the Canaanites, would be fulfilled, and their annihilation by the children of Israel would come upon them as the judgment of the Lord.

v. 17. And it came to pass that, when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
These happenings completed the symbolical events connected with the founding of the covenant between the Lord and Abram. A smoking furnace, like that used in potteries, and a torch, or cresset, passed between the halves of the animals, symbols of the glory of the Lord in fire. The animals thus are a type of the descendants of Abraham, of the children of Israel, as they were tortured almost unto death, especially by the Egyptians. The birds of prey are pictures of these enemies of Israel. That these vultures were driven away indicates that the Lord would deliver His people for the sake of the promise made to Abram. The great darkness and the horror pointed to the severity of the miseries and tribulations which would strike the Israelites. But that finally the glory of the Lord passed between the halves of the animals showed that God would at the last bring help to His people and deliver them from the hands of all their enemies.

v. 18. In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates;
these two rivers would he the southern and northern boundary lines of the kingdom of Israel respectively, the brook of Egypt, the Wady el Arisch, or Rhinocolura, and the Euphrates:

v. 19. the Kenites,
in the southeastern part of Canaan, and the Kenizzites, probably west of them, and the Kadmonites, toward the Euphrates,

v. 20. and the Hittites,
especially numerous in what was afterward Northern Galilee, and the Perizsites, in what was later Eastern Samaria, and the Rephaims, in the Perean country east of the Jordan,

v. 21. and the Amorites,
in the region west of the Dead Sea, and the Canaanites, in the upper valley of the Jordan and in the plain of Sharon, and the Girgashites, west of the Sea of Galilee, and the Jebusites, in what was later Northern Judea. The Lord purposely enumerates peoples living in every part of Canaan, in order to impress upon Abram the completeness of the possession which his descendants would enjoy. His promises never return to Him void, and He has a way of overcoming our weak faith by the perfection of His fulfillment, beyond all that we ask or understand.