Genesis 15:13–16

This showed what lay ahead for Israel. The smoking furnace stood for their trial and affliction. The burning lamp that passed between the pieces stood for the hope of the deliverance that would rise out of the darkness. Such was God's dealing with them in righteous government.

This would seem to stand in the way of their blessing. But the very fact that God foretold it to Abram proves that God had this matter in as full control as He had their coming blessing. In other words, God's promise often means long waiting. That waiting is meant only as a needed trial of faith. God's purpose in blessing is not touched by the affliction.

This is the history of the first twelve chapters of Exodus… Even the anger of man is tied to the wheels of God's decrees. It was so when Christ was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God," and men crucified and killed Him (Acts 2:23).

Genesis 15:13 and Acts 7:6 say nothing about Egypt: "Your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs." God said this to Abraham. It may cover the whole period from Isaac's birth to the Exodus, which by the count above was four hundred and five years. That agrees with the round number of four hundred years. Exodus 12:40 is worded differently: "The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years." It is better to take the four hundred and thirty years as covering the sojourn of Abraham (after the promise), and of Isaac, and of Jacob.

God's promise to Abram in Genesis 15:13-16 mentions "four hundred years," and then the assurance that his descendants would return to the land of Canaan in the fourth generation. So the time of the sojourn, or pilgrimage, of the chosen family must be counted from the days of Abraham, and most likely from his entry into the land of Canaan.

Verses 40-42 show us how exactly God keeps to His own appointed time. He had mentioned 400 years to Abraham, as we see in Genesis 15:13. We are not told the exact point from which the count of the 430 years starts. But on the very day it ended the people went out of Egypt. They are called "the hosts of the LORD," though to all appearance they were only a large crowd of freed slaves.

In God's promise to Abram, the emblems that represent Him as He binds Himself to give the inheritance are the furnace of fire and the burning lamp. This is the pledge that the discipline they need will not be missing, when the "deep sleep" falling on His people may call for it. Later the burning bush answers to this, and it is not burned up because God is in the fire. So the Egyptian oppression, on its other side, was covenant mercy. And this is only one example of a constant principle in God's ways.

You reach the inheritance only through the furnace. The darker the smoke of the furnace, the brighter and more cheering the lamp of God's salvation will be… Jacob had to endure twenty-one years of hardship in the house of Laban. Joseph found his furnace of affliction in the dungeons of Egypt. Moses spent forty years in the desert. So it must be with all God's servants.

God foretold the condition of the children of Israel in Exodus 1 many years before, when He declared to Abraham... This is the history of the first twelve chapters of Exodus. So the first chapter brings us to the very edge of the fulfilment of God's ways with His people, as He foretold to Abraham. God harnesses even the anger of man to the chariot wheels of His decrees. So it was when He gave Christ up "according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God," to men to crucify and kill (Acts 2:23).

No doubt the Israelites were afflicted 400 years by the stranger; but the point of hope was the judgment of that nation, and Abraham's seed coming out with great substance.

As His mouth had threatened judgments on injurious enslavers, so did His hand perform in due season. And this dealing of the Lord the God of Israel fills the Law, and the Psalms, and the Prophets.

In truth their wages were long overdue and had never been paid. It is foolish to suppose that even the smallest wrong was done here... They were to plunder their oppressors by God's own authority, and there was no question at all of deceit or dishonesty. The Authorized Version gives the impression of "borrowing," but that impression is not necessary, and the passage does not call for it. Nothing here suggests that they had no right to what they took.

The smoking furnace had grown very hot under the pressure of the king's command. Here the Lord's own hand puts it out completely. And the burning lamp, which long before had passed in vision before Abram, now shines brighter and brighter, till its full glory breaks out. Now God fulfils the ancient word of promise for the seed of Abram (Gen. 15:14). The thankful, joyful praises of Moses and of Israel confess the love and faithfulness of the God of Abraham.

These children of Abram would suffer badly. They would pass through a horror of great darkness. Yet the end of it would be great substance. "THEY SHALL COME OUT." They were not to be wiped out or crushed in the furnaces. They were to go through it and come out of it, free and enriched. God had pledged Himself to that, and He would be with them to fulfil His pledge.

God's promise included His judging the nation that oppressed Israel, and not only freeing Israel, but blessing them with great substance. This came true at the exodus (Ex. 12:35-36). It is also a picture of the great blessing Israel will receive when the nation at last receives their Messiah. He will free them from the bondage to sin that has held them for centuries.

Here is God knowing what He means to do on earth, and giving a doubting friend the certainty of it. He secures and binds Himself, to comfort a faith that wanted unusual support. Yet there would still be affliction for his descendants. They would still serve a foreign nation. But in the end the LORD would bring them out in triumph. The vision is admirable, but it never looks up to the heights of God's glory, and it never goes down into the depths of His grace.

Now in verse 15 the Lord tells Abram himself that he would not remain on earth. He would go the way his fathers had — that is, through death — and be buried in a good old age. Indeed he would have a far better inheritance than his children, Israel.

Abraham was called to go out to a place which God would show him. So he had an earthly calling: the prospect set before him was a land on earth... But after he reached the land, God taught him clearly that his offspring would not really own it until the fourth generation (Gen. 15:15-16). He was to die without ever owning it himself. Would he be worse off through dying? No. He had a heavenly hope given him. He learnt that God had prepared for him a city, and he looked for that "city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God."

The history of Abraham is deeply instructive. It closes with a brief record of his peaceful end at "a good old age," and his burial by his sons Isaac and Ishmael in the cave of Machpelah. In striking contrast to poor Lot, Abraham finishes his pilgrim path with the respect and honour due to one who was "the friend of God" and "the father of all who believe."

In this life of faith and hope, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are one. Each in his day is gathered to his people. Each is "a handful of sacred dust" in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, laid up there in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to life and to the inheritance.

God is indeed "slow to anger." The evil of the Canaanite nations was great in Abraham's day. Even so, He held back their judgement for 400 years. "For," He said, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" (Gen. 15:16). From Rahab's words to the spies we learn that the guilty nations knew God's executioners were on their way. She said, "I know that the LORD has given you the land... and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you" (Joshua 2:9). They had heard of God's heavy hand on Egypt... Yet there was no repentance on their part.

God was going to permit the Amorites to fill up the cup of their iniquity before He drove them out and destroyed them. This is always the way He acts in His holy government. It explains the long-suffering He shows to the guilty world we live in. He knows the full nature of man's evil from the start. But He lets that evil come out in full. So when His judgment falls in full severity, every created being can see that it is right.

God is far from ending an arrangement as soon as man has failed to fulfil his duty under it. God uses long forbearance. He employs all sorts of means to recall man to his duty, until, as the word puts it, there is no remedy. He has shown this even towards those who had no covenant. He announced to Abraham that his offspring would go down into Egypt. And He added that they would not yet take possession of the promised land, because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete.

Every landlord has a perfect right to evict bad tenants. The nations of Canaan had not only failed to pay their rent, as we say. They had also damaged and defiled the property so badly that God could no longer put up with them... The iniquity of the Amorites had reached its highest point. Nothing remained but for judgment to take its course... To bear with them any longer would have meant approving the most terrible evils. That, of course, was morally impossible.

God clearly told Israel why He judged these nations: "Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you" (Deut. 9:5)... "But you shall keep my statutes... lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you." So God let this people ripen to their full height of wickedness. Then He used them to show His righteous anger and power.

After he reached the land, God taught him plainly that his offspring would not hold it until the fourth generation appeared (Gen. 15:15-16). He was to die without personally possessing it. Would he be worse off through dying? No. He had a heavenly hope given him. He learnt that God had prepared a city for him. He looked for that "city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." So he wanted a better country than Canaan — a heavenly one.

A much shorter period is implied in Gen. 15:16, which says of Israel in Egypt that "they shall come back here in the fourth generation"; and if we turn to Ex. 6:16-20 we find exactly four generations: Jacob's son Levi. Levi's son Kohath. Kohath's son Amram. Amram's son Moses.

Nothing could be more fault-finding than to take Gen. 15:16 as limiting the Israelites who sojourned in Egypt to just the fourth step in family birth, or to assume that they had no children beyond those named for special reasons.

A word may be needed on verse 16: "for the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full." So many of the Lord's people today have no idea that God allows iniquity to come to the full. They expect evil to lessen and slowly to stop. If we transfer this principle of the growth of evil from the Old Testament to the New... we may discover how unwilling our minds still are to face the character and growth of the evil described in 2 Thessalonians 2.