Abrahamic Covenant

In Gen. 15 Abram needed assurance that the promises of Yahweh would be honored. It had been several years, and Abram still had no child. To assure Abram of His promises, Yahweh made a blood covenant with Abram.

In the ancient Near East, when two kings would make a covenant with each other, they would both offer up an animal for sacrifice. They would cut the animals in half, laying a half on either side of a pathway. Then, one would carry a smoking pot and the other a flaming torch, and they would walk between the animals. They would each then swear that they would honor the covenant—or that what had happened to the cleaved animals would happen to them.

Yahweh made a covenant with Abram in the same way. Abram was put into a deep sleep because he could not physically walk with Yahweh and survive. Some have said that because he did not walk with Yahweh the covenant was unconditional. However, this does not seem to fit the text (the covenant does become unconditional, but not until Gen. 22). Abram sees both the smoking pot and the flaming torch, which represent two parties, not one. And, most importantly, Yahweh still uses the language of a conditional covenant after this event. In Gen. 17:1-2 Yahweh says that if Abram walks with Him, then He would confirm His covenant. This imperative to keep the commands in relation to the covenant is repeated again in Gen. 17:9. That obedience is necessary for the covenant to continue and that it still needs to be confirmed suggest that at this point the covenant is conditional.

The Requirements

• Walk with Yahweh (obey Him).
• Be blameless (repent of sins quickly).

The Blessings

• He would be given a land of his own.
• He would be given many children who would become a great nation.
• He would receive personal blessings and protection.
• The world would be blessed through him.

It was during the cutting of this covenant that Yahweh informed Abraham that his descendants would go into Egypt as slaves for four hundred years. However, they would come out of slavery with the wealth of Egypt, and then Yahweh would make them into a great nation (Gen. 15:13-14; Ex. 12:36).