(BA) Notes on Genesis 15

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"After these things", that is, after the rout of Chedorlaomer, Yahweh appears to Abram in a vision, promising great things, including an heir. Yahweh guarantees his promise through an encounter that involves a sacrifice at night. He also reveals to Abram that his descendants will be slaves for "four hundred years" or until "the fourth generation", but that they will then return to the promised land and possess it.

Skinner's commentary showed that there was a great deal of difficulty in analyzing the sources used in composing this chapter, and Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? likewise considers the problem difficult.

(15:1) "After these things". According to Skinner this expression is "frequent in E ... but also used by J".

(15:1) "a message from Yahweh came". Or, "the word of Yahweh was". As Driver notes, this is language that tends to be characteristically used in describing how prophets receive divine messages. According to Skinner, this chapter is the only place the Hexateuch where "the word of Yahweh came" is used, and Skinner sees this as one of many things of comparatively late authorship to be found in this chapter. Compare Genesis 20:7, in which Abraham is explicitly referred to by God as a prophet.

(15:1) "vision". Hebrew maḥazeh, a word used exclusively in the Bible for a way that divine messages were received.

(15:1) "I am your shield. Your reward is exceedingly great." The Septuagint and Peshitta side with this interpretation. Another interpretation is, "I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward" (as in KJV, ASV, Vulgate^[1]). Instead of "Your reward is exceedingly great" or "your exceedingly great reward", the Samaritan Pentateuch has "I will greatly increase your reward", by a difference of one Hebrew letter.

(15:2) "go". ASV marginal note: "Or, go hence". The question is whether the sense is "go childless", that is Abram is simply living in a state of not having had a child, or whether the sense is "go away [toward death] childless", that Abram senses he is nearing his death without having had a son. According to Skinner, all the ancient versions translate in a way that suggests Abram had his death in mind.

(15:2) ben-mešeq. While ben is the common word "son", mešeq occurs only here, and I myself don't know what it means. According to Skinner, none of the ancient versions seem to have known what it means either. A reasonable guess is the idea that mesheq has something to do with inheritance, as Abraham's complaint is that he does not have a biological heir, and that this "Dammeseq Eliezer" is in some sort of position in Abraham's household which, we might guess, Abraham would not want to have Eliezer in.

Curiously, it looks a bit like dmšq, "Damascus", which appears later in the verse. Perhaps this might be taken as an indication that some kind of copying error is here. Gesenius read mšq as "possession". One might take "son of posession of my house" then as meaning "my heir". Another option is to read ben-mešeq as meaning "steward". Kittel thought here there was probably a mistake of some sort; he suggested perhaps moving the word "son" from standing before mešeq to standing before dammeśeq. Thus, "and the mesheq of my house is Eliezer ben-Damascus", that is, Eliezer the Damascene.

One possibility, an opinion that can be found in Gesenius in his Lexicon, is that some kind of wordplay is involved, and that the remaining corpus of ancient Hebrew is simply not large enough for us to have other examples of the word mesheq that would clear this up.

An illustration of just how confusing this verse is in Hebrew can be found in the Septuagint, which reads,"And I, I am going away childless; as for the son of Masek, my famale homebred, he is Damascus Eliezer." -- New English Translation of the Septuagint.

Or take Skinner's conclusion: "2b is absolutely unintelligible ... The [Versions] agree in reading the names Eliezer and Damascus, and also (with the partial exception of [the Septuagint]) in the general understanding that the clause is a statement as to Abram's heir. This is probably correct; but the text is so corrupt that even the proper names are doubtful, and there is only a presumption that the sense agrees with 3b." See Skinner for a survey of the many interpretations proposed.

(15:2) "Damascus Eliezer". Hebrew dammeśeq eliʿezer, dammeśeq being the name of Damascus. Commonly translated "Eliezer of Damascus", it might seem strange then that this would not be in reversed order, eliʿezer dammeśeq, a construct. But perhaps it is the case, as some say, that a proper name like Eliezer cannot be put in the construct. This sort of grammatical question also effects the name "Yahweh Sabaʾoth", which if--it is allowable to read a name as in the construct--would be something like "Yahweh of Armies".

(15:3) "one born in my house". Hebrew ben-beiti, or more literally, "a son of my household". According to Skinner the phrase refers to "a member of the household, but not necessarily a home-born slave".

(15:6) This verse has become important in Christian exegesis, in that it is Abram's trust (or "faith") that is "credited" to him "as righteousness". Though there is nothing like an explicit Christian doctrine of faith in Genesis, Paul in Romans 4 uses this verse as a proof-text for the idea that the believer is justified by faith, and not by works. A plain reading of the Genesis text, however, demands nothing more than that Yahweh approved of Abram's trust in him as being a righteous attitude. Compare NJPS -- "And because he put his trust in the Lord, He reckoned it to his merit."

Instead of "he believed", the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Peshitta read "Abram believed" (Skinner). Another translation is "he trusted".

(15:7-8) According to Skinner, most critics (i.e. most critics in Skinner's time) saw verses 7-8 "as an interpolation", because "The promise of the land, .. Abram's request for a pledge, ... and the self-introduction of Yahwe (which would be natural only at the commencement of an interview), are marks of discontinuity difficult to reconcile with the assumption of the unity of the narrative."

(15:7) "Yahweh". The Septuagint reads, "the god" (Kittel₁₉₀₉).

(15:7) "Ur Kasdim". It is often presumed that "Ur Kasdim" is a city, which might be translated "Ur of the Chaldeans". There is an argument, however, that a proper noun cannot be placed in the construct state, and if this argument is correct, then perhaps the "Ur" is a common noun of some kind. The Septuagint takes such a route, reading "the region of the Chaldeans".

(15:9) "three years old". Throughout the verse, the Hebrew term here is mešulaš, which I am translating following the majority opinion, as three years old. But it is worth noting that if this is the meaning of the term in this context, this verse is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the word is used in this way. HALOT shows as precedent for the usual translation an Akkadian term of similar meaning. On the other hand, DCH expresses doubt.

According to Skinner, it "obviously" means three years old. In support, Skinner refers to the agreement of all the ancient versions except for the Targum Onkelos. In the Targum Onkelos instead of "a three year old heifer", it is "three heifers", and so on.

(15:9) "fledgling". Hebrew, gozal. If one went to BibleHub and merely looked through the translations, one would have the strong impression that there was a general agreement that gozal means "young pigeon". But gozal appears only twice in the Hebrew Scriptures. Here there is nothing in the context to give the specific species of bird involved. And in Deuteronomy 32:11, the word must refer to young birds of prey. But birds of prey would be a strange choice for a sacrifice, so I think we should take it as a general term for a young bird, as NJPS has it.

(15:10) "But the birds he did not divide". This is reminiscent of the sacrificial regulation in Leviticus 1:17, although according to Skinner the use of these animals in Genesis 15 is not "strictly sacrificial".

(15:11) According to Dillmann, the swooping down of birds of prey upon sacrifices is an evil omen, as in Virgil's Aeneid, book 3, when the harpies swooped down upon the sacrifices. The parallels are striking: the hero (Abram, Aeneas), traveling in a strange land (Canaan, Strophades), offers meat to his highest deity (Yahweh, Jupiter), but unclean predatory birds swoop down to eat it. The hero -- either Abram alone or Aeneas with his fellow soldiers -- drives the birds away, after which a prophecy is revealed that the hero's people will travel to a far-away land (Egypt, Italy), and that before they can take settle in their promised destination (Canaan, Italy) they will endure terrible suffering. There are also striking differences between the two tales, so the similarities should not be pressed too far.

(15:12) "deep sleep". Or perhaps, "a trance". Hebrew tardemah. A tardemah is often in Hebrew a state of sleep or something similar that comes upon humans for supernatural reasons.

(15:12) "a horror of great darkness". According to Skinner we should omit the term "darkness" as a later addition, and so simply read "a great horror", which Skinner surmises is "caused by the approach of the deity".

(15:13) "and will serve them". The Septuagint reads, "and they shall enslave them" (NETS).

(15:13) "oppress them". The Septuagint reads, "maltreat them and humble them" (NETS).

(15:13) "four hundred years". A round version of the same timeline found in Exodus 12:40, in which the Israelites spend 430 years in Egypt. However, there is also a set of indications that at least one of the biblical authors envisioned a much shorter time in Egypt. For example, we read that Moses, who left Egypt at 80 years old, was the nephew of a man who went down into Egypt with Jacob.

(15:14) "they will come out with great wealth". Compare Exodus 12:36.

(15:15) "go to your fathers". A biblical idiom for dying. The Targum Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan, along with the Peshitta, read "be gathered to your fathers", which means the same thing (Kittel₁₉₀₉).

(15:16) "in the fourth generation". There seem to be two schemes in the biblical text with regards to how long the Israelites were to be in Egypt: one in which they spent four generations there, and one in which they spent four hundred years. There are related issues for those who try to construct a biblical chronology relating to how long the Israelites were supposed to have spent in Egypt. See Chronology of the Exodus and The curious chronology of Moses' birth.

(15:16) "iniquity ... not yet full". The idea is that the native people of the land of Canaan had committed various evil deeds that eventually justified their displacement and genocide.

(15:16) "Amorites". The author of this verse seems to be using "Amorites" as a general term for the inhabitants of Canaan. In some other places, the native inhabitants are referred to by the umbrella term "Canaanites".

(15:17) "went down". More literally, "went in", but the term clearly refers to sunset.

(15:17) "and it was dark". The Septuagint reads, "there was a flame". The Hebrew word translated here as "dark" is ʿlṭh, while a Hebrew word for "flame" is lhṭ (Kittel), implying that a copying error of one kind or another is at work here.

(15:17) The "smoking oven", according to Driver, is "a portable earthenware stove, such as is still used in the East for baking bread, about 3 ft. high, of the shape of a truncated cone, and heated by the burning embers being placed in it at the bottom. ... The stove, with smoke and flames issuing from the top, symbolized Jehovah: by passing between the divided pieces, it signified the ratification on His part of the terms of the covenant. The ritual is no doubt that by which a solemn covenant was actually ratified in ancient Israel: comp. esp. Jer. xxxiv. 18 f." Skinner points to the parallel of the "cloud and fire of the Exodus and Sinai narratives" to argue that the furnace and flaming torch represent a theophany.

(15:17) "passed between these pieces". Symbolically, then, Yahweh solemnizes his covenant with Abraham by passing between two halves of broken animals. Compare the stock phrase "to cut a covenant". Given the invocation of punishments in making oaths, it would seem reasonable to take the dead and cut animals as representing the punishment to fall on one who fails to uphold the terms of the covenant.

This basic outline of what covenant cutting means can also be found in Jeremiah 34:18-20, which reads, "And I will give the men who transgressed my covenant, who have not uphold the words of the covenant which they cut before me, the calf which they cut in two, and passed between its parts: the notables of Judah and notables of Jerusalem, the officials, and the priests, and all the people of the land, who passed between the parts of the calf; I will give them into the hand of their enemies, into the hands of those who seek their lives, and their corpses will be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth."

(15:18) "made". Literally, "cut" (Hebrew krt).

(15:18) "river". All three instances of this word in this verse are in the Hebrew nhr, a term used most often of the Euphrates. Kittel thought that in the expression "the river of Egypt", the Hebrew should instead read nḥl, a word more often used of wadis or rivers that only exist part of the year, leaving behind a dry riverbed during drier times. There has been some debate over what exactly this "river of Egypt" was that the Bible uses in one of its definitions of the southern boundary of the Promised Land. Driver held that the nhr of Egypt is the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, while the nḥl of Egypt is the Wadi el-Arish, although he did not seem confident which should be read in this case.

(15:18) "the river Euphrates". Kittel suggests that this phrase might be a later addition. Skinner goes farther and says, "it is generally thought, however, that the closing words, along with 19-21, were added by a Deuteronomic editor, and that in the original J the promise was restricted to Canaan proper."

(15:19) "Kadmonites". According to Skinner this term appears only here, but may refer to the same people called bny qdm in Genesis 29:1

(15:21) Here Kittel says we should follow the Samaritan Pentateuch in inserting "and the Hivite". The Septuagint also inserts its equivalent of "the Hivite", but does so before the word "Girgashite".