Genesis 15:1 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.”
"Christ, the essential Word, appeared to Abram in an human form, visible to him, and with an articulate voice spoke unto him: saying, as follows: fear not, Abram; calling him by his name, the more to encourage him, and to dissipate his fears to which he was subject; which might be, lest the nations that belonged to the four kings he had conquered and slain should recruit their armies, and come against him with greater force; and the brethren and relations of those he had slain should avenge themselves on him, as the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem suggest; and therefore the Lord bids him not give way to those fears…” (Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)
Saying , do not be afraid,"I am thy shield; or, I am a shield to thee, present with thee, actually caring for thee. The consideration that God himself is, and will be a shield to his people, to secure them from all evils, a shield ready to them, and a shield round about them, should silence all perplexing, tormenting fears.” (Matthew Henry)
Saying... I am… your exceedingly great reward. "This promise opens out to general truth that God Himself is the true reward of a devout life. There are many recompenses for all sacrifices for God, some of them outward and material, some of them inward and spiritual, but the reward which surpasses all others is that by such sacrifices we attain to greater capacity for God, and therefore possess more of Him. This is the only Reward worth thinking of-God only satisfies the soul. With Him we are rich; without Him poor; ‘exceeding great’-’riches in glory,’ transcending all measure.” (MacLaren's Expositions)
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?” 3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
"Notwithstanding the unbounded grandeur and preciousness of the promise, or rather assurance, now given, Abram is still childless and landless; and the Lord has made as yet no sign of action in regard to these objects of special promise. 'Lord Jehovah (Yahweh).’ The name אדני 'ǎdonāy is here for the first time used in the divine records. It denotes one who has authority; and, therefore, when applied to God, the Supreme Lord. Abram hereby acknowledges Yahweh as Supreme Judge and Governor, and therefore entitled to dispose of all matters concerning his present or prospective welfare. 'What wilt thou give me?' Of what use will land or wealth be to me, the immediate reward specified by the promise? Eliezer of Damascus is master of my house. 'To me thou hast given no seed.' This was the present shield mentioned also in former words of promise. There is something strikingly human in all this. Abram is no enthusiast or fanatic. He fastens on the substantive blessings which the Lord had expressly named.” (Barnes' Notes on the Bible)
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.”
"There is no reason for regarding this as a poetical description of a merely mental emotion. With his senses dormant, but alive to every spiritual impression, Abram feels himself led forth [perhaps actually by the incarnate Christ] from the tent into the open space around, and is there commanded to count the stars. As a matter of fact, the stars visible to the naked eye are not very numerous, but they have ever been a received metaphor for an infinite multitude, probably because, as men gaze, they perpetually see the faint radiance of more and more distant constellations. Thus they cannot be counted, and Abram’s seed was to be countless, because of the vastness of its number.” (Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers)
6 And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
"Thus, at length, after many throes of labor, has come to the birth in the breast of Abram 'faith in Yahweh,' on his simple promise in the absence of all present performance, and in the face of all sensible hinderance.” (Barnes' Notes on the Bible)
"Abram believed in the Lord, and the Lord was graciously pleased to account this full consent of heart for righteousness. The exposition of St. Paul is, that by faith he became heir of the righteousness of faith, or the righteousness which is of God by faith; that is, all the blessings of the Messiah’s kingdom; the righteousness which God should rain down from heaven, the gift of Christ, with pardon, adoption, and eternal life.” (Sutcliffe)
Eternal life is not granted through the works of the law, but rather through the vehicle of faith. "Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.” (Rom 4:23-25) Delivered up for our offenses... "Namely, to make an atonement for them... And raised for our justification — That is, for the perfecting of our justification; and that in three respects: 1st, To show us that the sacrifice which he offered for the expiation of our sins was accepted by the Father. Having, as our surety, engaged to pay our debt, he was arrested for it by divine justice, and thrown into the prison of death and the grave. If he had been detained in that prison, it would have been a proof that he had not paid it: but his release from that prison was the greatest assurance possible that God’s justice was satisfied, and our debt discharged. 2d, He was raised that he might ascend and appear in the presence of God, as our advocate and intercessor, and obtain from the Father our acquittance. And, 3d, That he might receive for us the Holy Spirit, to inspire us with the faith whereby alone we can be justified, to seal a pardon on the consciences of believers, and sanctify their nature; and thus to entitle them to, and prepare them for, a resurrection, like his, to immortal life and felicity." (Benson Commentary)
Abram was finally thoroughly converted. The Lord had appeared to him before, as well as spoken to him, but I suspect that something was different this time as he gazed up at the stars. He likely felt warmth and a trust that he had not experienced before. Likewise, John Wesley had preached the Gospel to the heathen of Georgia. Yet deep down, he thought that salvation must be earned by righteous, holy living. He reported, "My chief motive to which all the rest are subordinate, is the hope of saving my own soul. I hope to learn the true sense of the Gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathens." Yet, it was not until one evening at a house on Aldersgate Street that he actually heard the Word of God. After someone read from Luther's preface to the book of Romans, he recorded that he felt his heart strangely warmed: "In that moment; I felt I did believe." He experienced the presence of God’s Holy Spirit and, by right knowledge, he exclaimed: "Believe and you will be saved. He that believes is passed from death onto life. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. O Thou Savior of men, save us from trusting anything but Thee. All my works, my righteousness, my prayers need an atonement in themselves. So that my mouth is stopped; I have nothing to plea. God is Holy, I am unholy, God is a consuming fire; I am altogether a sinner, meet to be consumed." The next morning when he awoke, testifying: "Jesus, Master was in my heart and in my mouth, and I found my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed on Him."
Genesis 15: 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?”
"Still Abram seeks reassurance (v. 8). Faith never exists in a vacuum.” (Asbury Bible Commentary) "This inquiry did not proceed from distrust of God’s power or promise, but he desired a token for the strengthening of his own faith, and for the ratifying of the promise to his posterity, that they also might believe it.” (Benson Commentary) “Nor is it culpable to ask a sign of God with such a view; good men have done it, as Gideon, Judges 6:36, and Hezekiah, 2 Kings 20:8, without being blamed for it; yea, Ahaz is blamed for not asking one, Isaiah 7:10.” (Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)
"Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 'Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above.' But Ahaz said, 'I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!' Then he said, 'Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.’” (Isaiah 7:10-14)
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.”
“Take Me a Heifer. Perhaps Abram expected some sign from heaven, but God gives him a sign upon a sacrifice. Those that would receive the assurances of God’s favour, must attend instituted ordinances, and expect to meet with God in them.” (Benson Commentary) “Take me a heifer of three years old. The Jews paid great attention to this sacrifice. The young cow, then in the perfection of its nature, was a whole burnt-offering for the expiation of original and actual sin. The goat took away the daily sin. The ram, partly ate, and partly burned, was, with the dove, a peace-offering. This is a full oblation; for God, on this disclosure of futurity, would not be approached with a defective sacrifice.” (Sutcliffe's Commentary)
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.
It was a custom in that day to divide the pieces of the victims and pass between them, when they made a covenant with each other. “Israel did so at Horeb. Jeremiah 34:18. Parties seeking to cut covenant were to pass between the pieces; and by this solemn act men consented to be cut in pieces like the victims, if they should ever violate the covenant.” (Sutcliffe’s Commentary) "The birds divided he not, either because there were two birds, and the one was laid against the other, which answered to the division of the larger creatures; or because they belonged not to the ceremony of the covenant, but were for the use of sacrifice, wherein they were to be offered whole, as afterwards was prescribed, Leviticus 1:15,17.” (Matthew Poole)
11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
"The birds of prey represented the foes of Israel, who would seek to eat up, i.e., exterminate it. And the fact that Abram frightened them away was a sign, that Abram's faith and his relation to the Lord would preserve the whole of his posterity from destruction, that Israel would be saved for Abram's sake (Psalm 105:42).” (Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament) "Having prepared according to God's appointment, he set himself to wait for the sign God might give him. A watch must be kept upon our spiritual sacrifices. When vain thoughts, like these fowls, come down upon our sacrifices, we must drive them away, and seek to attend on God without distraction.” (Matthew Henry)
12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. 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.”
“And when the sun was going down — About the time of the evening oblation; for, he abode by them, praying and waiting till toward evening; a deep sleep fell upon Abram — Not a common sloop through weariness or carelessness, but a divine ecstasy, that, being wholly taken off from things sensible, he might be wholly taken up with the contemplation of things spiritual. And lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him — This was designed to strike an awe upon the spirit of Abram, and to possess him with a holy reverence. Holy fear prepares the soul for holy joy; God humbles first, and then lifts up.
Thy seed shall be strangers — So they were in Canaan first, Psalms 105:12, and afterward in Egypt: before they were lords of their own land, they were strangers in a strange land. The inconveniences of an unsettled state make a happy settlement the more welcome. Thus the heirs of heaven are first strangers on earth. And they shall serve them — So they did the Egyptians, Exodus 1:13. See how that which was the doom of the Canaanites, Genesis 9:25, proves the distress of Abram’s seed: they are made to serve; but with this difference, the Canaanites serve under a curse, the Hebrews under a blessing. And they shall afflict them — See Exodus 1:11. Those that are blessed and beloved of God are often afflicted by wicked men...
That nation whom they shall serve, even the Egyptians, will I judge — This points at the plagues of Egypt, by which God not only constrained the Egyptians to release Israel, but punished them for all the hardships they had put upon them. The punishing of persecutors is the judging of them; it is a righteous thing with God, and a particular act of justice, to ‘recompense tribulation to those that troubler his people.'"(Benson Commentary)
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. 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— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
"The oven of smoke and lamp of flame symbolize the smoke of destruction and the light of salvation. Their passing through the pieces of the victims and probably consuming them as an accepted sacrifice are the ratification of the covenant on the part of God, as the dividing and presenting of them were on the part of Abram. The propitiatory foundation of the covenant here comes into view, and connects Abram with Habel and Noah, the primeval confessors of the necessity of an atonement." (Barnes Notes on the Bible)
"So God graciously and dramatically binds himself to this righteous one and thereby illustrates his commitment to the covenant promises he has made... The rather strange perspective of this particular covenant lies in the fact that it is God who unilaterally binds himself to the promise. Nowhere is Abram asked to walk through the body parts of the beasts. This is an act of God's sovereign grace and demands nothing more of Abram than his trust. And, as if to prepare him for experiences when such trust may not be easy and to alert Abram to the fact that the realization of the promise will not be realized immediately, God rehearses a short synopsis of Israel's future (vv. 13-16). But even though the promise will tarry, Abram is encouraged to wait. Its advent is certain (cf. Hab 2:3).” (Asbury Bible Commentary)