Smoking Oven and Burning Torch: Genesis 15:17

It has been observed that while the various religions of the world represent human efforts to get to God, Christianity affirms and celebrates the reality of God’s timely and effective effort reach man. In the Bible we see God’s taking the initiative to implement His plan of salvation, ultimately by sending HIs Son, Jesus, to live a holy life and to die on the cross for human sins. Jesus’ death and resurrection, however, represent the climax in a centuries-long process. In every step of the process, God was the initiator and orchestrator. We see this clearly in God’s relationship with Abraham, especially in the Lord’s call to the patriarch and His subsequent interactions with him.

Of special significance is the ceremony in Genesis 15:9-21. God already had appeared to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 and made significant promises to him. In 15:1-5, the Lord revealed Himself to Abraham again and reiterated and elaborated on those initial promises. Abraham was not without questions. For instance, because he still was childless, he wondered if his servant, Eliezer of Damascus, would be his heir. God assured Abraham that he indeed would have a child of his own and that ultimately his descendants would be as plentiful as the stars. Abraham responded by believing God, and God credited Abraham’s faith “to him as righteousness” (v. 6). God continued, saying, “I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess” (v. 7).

Abraham then asked how he could know that he would possess the land. God’s response to this question is critically important for us to understand. The Lord told Abraham, “Bring Me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon” (v. 9). Abraham did so. He slaughtered the livestock, divided their carcasses in half, and placed their remains in a line with corresponding pieces opposite each other.

God had asked Abraham to make preparations for a ceremony called the “cutting of a covenant.” In Abraham’s day, parties entering into a covenant would slaughter animals and arrange them on the ground as Abraham did. Then they would walk between the carcasses to show that, if either party didn’t keep the commitment he was making, he should experience the same fate that had befallen those animals.

Let us note that in the subsequent ceremony that unfolded, Abraham did not walk between the carcasses! Instead, once he had arranged the bodies of the animals on the ground, he had to drive away birds who were attracted to the flesh and the fresh blood. That evening, Abraham fell into a deep sleep, and God spoke to him. The Lord revealed to his spokesman that his people would be oppressed for four centuries but would be liberated and would return to the land God was promising Abraham. Abraham himself would die in peace after becoming an old man. Then, after sunset had occurred and darkness had set in, “a smoking fire pot [oven] and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals” (v. 17). So God Himself sealed the covenant He made with Abraham: “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘I give this land to your offspring, from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River: the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”