Genesis 15:18: A grant with two rivers on it, and nothing said about the edges in between
Read it →Commentary on Genesis 15:18
That same day, God counted Abram's faith to him as righteousness. Then He went further. He bound Himself by a formal covenant and drew the borders of a land Abram did not own. Two questions follow. Who guaranteed the grant, and has that land ever been held?
The Timing: Righteousness First, Inheritance After
The covenant is dated. It falls on the same day recorded earlier in the chapter. One writer shows why that order matters when the New Testament looks back at this scene.
To set out this great truth the Apostle turns again to Abraham's history. He speaks of the promise of the inheritance. God made, or renewed, this promise to Abraham on the same day He counted him righteous, as we read in Genesis 15:18. … God gave this promise of the inheritance long before the law, and it in no way depended upon works of law.
The Signature: God Pledges, Abram Sleeps
God sealed the covenant with a ceremony. Only one party walked between the divided animals.
After dark, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between the divided pieces of the sacrifice. That is what ratified all this as a covenant. In this twofold way God showed His presence. There was no thought of Abram passing between the pieces, as though he were pledging himself to anything. It was God pledging Himself to do as He had just said, and to do it unconditionally.
The sacrifice was not a formality. One writer links the death of the animals to how God can keep such a promise and stay righteous.
A smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between the pieces (Gen. 15). This declared that God could keep His covenant of promise to Abram and stay righteous in only one way: through the death of a substitute, and that under awful judgment.
The Borders: A Grant Measured Out
The two rivers are not vague poetry. The word used for "river" rules out a seasonal stream, so one writer can name which waterway is meant.
God promised the whole land of Canaan to Abraham, and a further territory as well: "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." Gen. 15:18; Gen. 17:8. The word used here three times for "river" is nahar. It does not apply to a winter stream. So "river of Egypt" almost certainly refers to the most easterly branch of the Nile, called the Pelusiac. These limits of Abraham's promised possession lie to the south-west and north-east. The Mediterranean is the western limit, and the eastern limit is not defined.
The Gap: Given, Not Yet Held
God speaks as though the land is already handed over. Yet the verses that follow list ten nations living on it.
Verses 18-21 speak of an unconditional covenant that the Lord made with Abram that day. He told Abram that He has given his descendants all the land from the river of Egypt (the Nile) to the river Euphrates. Ten different nations held part of that land at the time. When Israel came back from Egypt they did not possess anything like that whole territory, and never have. But the promise of God stands, and its fulfilment awaits the millennium.
Israel did once reach the northern boundary, but not for long.
Prophecy marks out the rivers Nile and Euphrates as the limits of the promised land (Gen. 15:18). For a brief season David and Solomon extended the royal authority to the Euphrates (1 Chron. 18:3; 2 Chron. 9:26). The division of the kingdom under Rehoboam cut this wide dominion back sharply.
The Security: Nothing Later Can Cancel It
The covenant was one-sided and confirmed. So what could the law do to it, arriving centuries later?
A later act cannot cancel a solemnly confirmed covenant, even among men. Now God had given the promise to Abraham apart from law, and confirmed it to Christ 430 years before the law came. So the law could not cancel the promise already confirmed, nor change its terms. No one could cancel it, and no one could add to it. It must be fulfilled as it was given.
Summary
- Day — God dated the land-covenant to the very day He counted Abram righteous. That was long before the law, so the inheritance never rested on works of law.
- Deed — God alone passed between the pieces. Abram pledged nothing, which makes the covenant unconditional from the first word.
- Death — The divided sacrifices point to a substitute. Only that death let God keep such a promise and stay righteous.
- Domain — The borders are real places: an eastern branch of the Nile, the great river Euphrates, and the Mediterranean on the west.
- Delay — Ten nations held the ground then. David and Solomon reached the Euphrates for only a short season, and Israel has never held the full territory. The promise is unconditional, so it still stands.
