Renewal of Promises to Abram

Ver. 7. The Lord having promised Abram a numerous offspring, goes on to renew the promise of the land of Canaan for an inheritance; and this by a reference to w hat had been said to him when he first left the land of the Chaldees. It is God’s usual way, in giving a promise, to refer to former promises of the same thing, Tlhich would shew him to be of one mind, and intimate that he had not forgotten him, but was carrying on his designs of mercy towards him.

Jer. 8. Abram, however, ventures to ask for a sign by which he may know that by his posterity he shall inherit the laud. This request does not appear to have arisen from unbelief;

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but having lately experienced the happy effects of a sign, (ver. 5.) he hopes thereby to be better armed against it.

Ver. 9. The purport of the answer seems to be, ‘Bring me an offering, which I will accept at thy hand, and this shall be the sign.’ It is in condescension to our weakness that the Lord has given us sensible signs, as in the ordinance of baptism and the supper, in addition to his promises. If it were desirable to Abram to know that he should inherit the earthly Canaan, it must be much more so to us to know that we shall inherit the heavenly Canaan; and God is willing that the heirs of promise should on this subject have strong consolation, and therefore has confirmed his word with an oath.

V€7 10. Abram, obedient to the divine command, takes of the first and best of his animals for a sacrifice. Their being divided in the midst was the usual form of sacrificing when a covenant was to be made. Each of the parties passed between the parts of the animals; q. d. thus may I be cut asunder, if I break this covenant! This was called, making a covenant by sacrijcc* This process therefore, it appears, m as accompar

* Jcr. xxxiv. 18, 19. Psal. 1. 5.

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nied with a solemn covenant between the Lord and his servant Abram.

Ve7 11. Having made ready” the sacrifices, he waited, perhaps, for the fire of God to consume them, which was the usual token of acceptance; but meanwhile the birds of prey came down upon them, which he was obliged to drive away. Interruptions, we see, attend the father of the faithful in his most solemn approaches to God; andj interruptions of a different kind attend believers in theirs. How often do intruding cares, like unclean birds, seize upon that time, and those affections, which are devoted to God 1 Happy is it for us, if by prayer and ?atch fulness, we can drive them away, so as to worship him without distraction.

Ver. 12 — 1(5. By the account taken together, it appears as if this was a day which Abram dedicated wholly to God. His first vision was before day-light, while the stars were yet to be seen: in the morning he prepares the sacrifices, and while he is waiting, the sun goes down, and no immediate answer is given him. At this time he falls into a deep sleep, and now we may expect that God will answer him as he had done before, “by vision.” But what kind of vision is it? Not like that which he had before; but

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*’lo, an horror of great darkness falls upon him.*’ This might be “designed in part to impress his mind with an awful reverence of God; for those who rejoice in him must rejoice with trembling: and partly to give him what he had asked for, a sign.; not merely that his seed should inherit the land, but of the way in which this promise should be accomplislicd; namely, by their first goingdown and enduring great affliction in Egypt. The light must be preceded by darkness. Such appears to be the interpretation given of it in the words which follow: ‘’Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a lantl that is not theirs, and shall serve ihem, and they shall afflict them Jour hundred years.’”’* Egypt is not named, for prophecy requires to be delivered with some degree of obscurity, or it might tend to defeat its omu desio-n: but the thins: is certain, and God will in the end avenge their cause. It is remarkable how the prophecies gradually open and expand, beginning with what is general, and proceeding to particulars. Abram had never had so much revealed to him before, as to times and circumstances. He is civen to un-

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* These four hundred years are reckoned by Ainsworth to have commenced from the time of Isaac’s being weaned, when the sun of Ilagar, ,the Egyptian, mocked. So that as soon as Abram’s seed, according to the promise, was born, he began to be aflided, ui.d that by one of Egyptian extraction.

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derstand that these things shall not take place in his day; but that he should first “go to his fathers,” and that ‘’in peace, and be buried in a good old age;” but that “in the fourth generation” after their going down, they should return. It is enough to die such a death as this, though we see not all the promises fulfilled. The reason givn for their being so long ere they were accomplished, is, that “the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.” There is a fitness in all God’s proceedings, and a wonderful fulness of design, answering many ends by one and the same event. The possession of Canaan was to Israel a promised good, but to the Canaanites a threatened evil. It is deferred towards both till each be prepared for it. As there is a time when God’s promises to his people are ripe for accomplishment, so there is a time when his forbearance towards the wicked shall cease, and they often prove to be the same. The fall of Babylon Mas the deliverance of Judah; and the fall of another Babylon will be the signal for the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ.

Ver. 17. After this, when the sun was set, and it Mas dark, Abrara, perhaps still in vision, has the sign repeated in another form. He sees a “smoaliiig furnace,” and a “burning lamp.”

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The clesfgn of these, as well as the other, seems to be to shew hun what should take place hereafter. The former was an emblem of the affliction which his posterity should endure in Egypt, that “iron furnace;’“* and the latter might denote the light that should arise to them in their darkness. If, like the pillar of fire in the wilderness, it were an emblem of the divine Majesty, its “passing through” the parts of the divided sacrifices would denote God’s entering into covenant with his servant Abram, and that all the mercy which should come upon his posterity would be in virtue of it.

Ver. 18. That which had been hinted under a figure, is now declared in express language. “The same day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram,” making over to his posterity, as by a solemn deed of gift, the whole land in which he then was, defining with great accuracy its exact boundaries; and this notwithstanding the afflictions which they should undergo in Egypt. Thus the burning lamp would succeed and dispel the darkness of the smoaking furnace.

Deut. iv. 20.