Back to Basics Bible Study Handout • St. Elizabeth Seton, Carmel, Indiana Father Brian Doerr • [email protected] CHAPTER 3 Part II - ABRAHAM (45-59) John Bergsma: “The difference between a promise and a covenant is like the difference between an engagement ring and a wedding ring. One symbolizes a strong hope, a firm intention; the other symbolizes an unbreakable commitment.” Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.’” • See Genesis 10 for a list of the “family of nations” that are dispersed in Genesis 11 at the tower of Babel. God gives Abraham (Abram) three promises that he will be solemnized with three covenant occurrences: 1. The Great Nation: the sacrifice of the animals (Genesis 15:12-21). 2. The Great Name: the circumcision of Abraham (Genesis 17:1-27). 3. The Universal Blessing: the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:15-18). Galatians 3:15-18 “To give a human example, brethren: no one annuls even a man's will, or adds to it, once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many; but, referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ which is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.” Promise = Covenant. Matthew 1: 1-2 “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers … and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” Prelude Genesis 12, 13, 14 detail the chaos resulting from several situations in the narrative of Abram’s life, including the Tower of Babel, family strife and war. These chapters end with the blessing of Melchizedek. Genesis 15:1 “After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’” • These words confirm the blessing given by the priest/king Melchizedek following Abram’s victory over the pagan king occupying the Promised Land. Genesis 15:2-4 “But Abram said, ‘O Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘Behold, thou hast given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir.’ And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’” • Abram’s first recorded words to the LORD… after chapters of obedient silence, he verbally protests. • Since Abraham has no sons, his nephew Lot becomes his heir; but after Lot and Abram depart ways, Abram’s steward becomes his heir. Genesis 15:5-6 “And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.” • God reassures Abram that he will, indeed, be the father of a multitude. Significantly, Abram responds in faith: And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:7-8 “And he said to him, ‘I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.’ But he said, ‘O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?’” • Now, just after the teXt proclaims, “And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” he demonstrates a lack of trust by questioning the LORD. How will he know he will possess the land? Because the LORD has declared so. Nonetheless, the LORD chooses to solemnize his promise. • “I am the LORD who brought you out…” prefigures, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Egypt…” Genesis 15:9-11 “He said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ And he brought him all these, cut them in two, and laid each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.” • “In this instance, Abram’s doubt is to be assuaged by a formal pact. Covenants in which the two parties step between cloven animal parts are attested in various places in the ancient Near East as well as Greece. The idea is that if either party violates the covenant, his fate will be like that of the cloven animals. The Hebrew idiom karat bereit, literally to “cut a covenant” (see verse 18), may derive from this legal ritual” (Alter, 75). • “To move between the pieces while uttering promises as a ceremonial way of stating: ‘If I do not keep my commitments, may I be slain like these animals’” (A Catholic Introduction to the Bible, 136) • John Bergsma: “[This] was like calling down a curse of death on yourself if you didn’t do what was promised…” (Bible Basics, 49). Genesis 15:12-15 “As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him. Then the LORD said to Abram, ‘Know of a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be slaves there, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation which they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.’” • Andre Feuillet: “Abram, like Adam [using the same Hebrew word, tardemah, used for Adam’s sleep], is gifted with a supernatural sleep (slumber) which brings to him, not an Eve, the mother of the living, but a posterity that inherits the promises he received. After a time of subjection, they will possess the land. But the true heir will not be the first- born (not Ishmael, but Isaac). • Note that the “sun was going down,” indicating this is another day as it was already dark in verses 5-6. Genesis 15:16 “And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” • Amorite Kings (King Og of Bashan), remnant of the Rephaim, will be defeated by Moses in Deuteronomy 3:6. Also, see Psalm 135:11 and 136:20. Genesis 15:17 “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” • “By commanding Abram to acquire animals for sacrifice, the Lord is in essence instructing Abram to transform the promise of the land [heard first as a promise in Genesis 12:1-3] into a solemn covenant by means of a blood sacrifice” (A Catholic Introduction to the Bible, 136). Genesis 15:18-21 “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” • Jean Danielou: “You might say that until the coming of Christ, [the covenant] was the most important thing that had happened, and that is what gives Abraham his outstanding place in the religious history of man… a place outstanding in the history of mankind because this was the first time God had intervened in history to bind mankind to Himself in a special bond… To believe is to hold that God does things of this sort. Men do not believe if they think in a general way that God eXists, but do not for one moment think that God takes any part in history… The Covenant was, then, a bond set up between God and Abraham. But it is important to understand what kind of bond it was. It was not a bilateral contract by which two parties are so bound that if either fails in his engagements, the other is absolved from keeping his. … The Covenant was in fact a divine disposition whereby God freely shared what belonged to him with a people because He had chosen them, and not because they had any right to it” (Advent, 35). Prelude: Genesis 16 2 “Abram’s acquiescence to Sarai’s plan shows a lack of faith on his own part that God’s promises will be fulfilled without human assistance, and it produces an unintended heir who complicates the line of covenant succession” (A Catholic Introduction to the Bible, 138).