What was a blood covenant (Genesis 15:9-21)?

The law of contract is one of the most ancient kinds of law, and in the primitive world of which the book of Exodus speaks, there was a very firmly established custom of making a contract. The Hebrew word to make a covenant is, straightforwardly, to cut a covenant. The kind of ritual by which a covenant, any covenant at all between men (or as in this case between God and man), was made, involved taking an animal and cutting it in two. The parties to the contract then passed between the pieces, and thus the covenant was sealed with blood. The covenant was cut and established. This is exactly what happened in the 15th chapter of Genesis. In that chapter in which there occurs the familiar passage, "He (Abram) believed in the LORD; and He counted it to him for righteousness", we read the mysterious story of how Abram took, at the command of God, beasts and birds and cut them in pieces. Then until the going down of the sun he guarded them and drove away the evil birds of the air, and when the sun went down a burning lamp passed between the pieces. There was only one individual Who passed between those pieces; it was God making a covenant in which He unconditionally promised His blessing to Abram, and the contract made was therefore, long before, on the pattern of the NEW covenant. We read in the 34th chapter of Jeremiah almost the exact words which describe this ritual, but applied this time to the OLD covenant. It says that all the children of Israel "passed between the parts thereof" and by this we understand that something like what I have referred to must have taken place in the 24th chapter of Exodus. The first covenant was cut and you will remember that Moses speaks of the book of the covenant, and the blood of the covenant, and in a later chapter he refers to the tables of the covenant. There was the book of the covenant and there was the blood of the covenant, and the blood of those pieces established and sealed the covenant.

The ratification of all this as a covenant was when after dark a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between the divided pieces of the sacrifice. In this twofold way did God manifest 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 that in an unconditional way. This manifestation of God, passing between the pieces, was as remarkable as His manifestation to Moses in the burning bush.

Thus in Genesis 15: the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, etc., and Abram said, What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? etc. Then the Lord promised him his seed should be as the stars; and he believed the Lord, etc. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Then God directed him to take the pieces of the heifer, etc., and divide the birds: and when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between these pieces. In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, etc. Now here we have a covenant of gift, where the only party was simply God; who condescendingly entered into it, that man might know the solemnity and immutability of His promise. And here, accordingly, Paul contrasts the difference of the law, and the gift of the inheritance. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise, which the law could not disannul. The law was conditional, and therefore was forfeited (yea, before its conditions were declared) by the making of the golden calf, and was temporary: but the inheritance was of promise, and therefore secure. Why? Because it rested upon the unity of God. When a second came in, it was not merely of promise; and of this the mediator was evidence, shewing that it was not of one. But the inheritance is simply of the promise of God, and therefore of gift: and His covenant was a solemn pledge merely, as connected with the promise, of the security of the gift, and not including two parties at all; save as a Giver securing the faith of the receiver by His solemn engagement of mere mercy to assure, which none could claim; and the receiver of the thing promised waited for by faith upon the assurance of the promise and covenant. To pursue this subject into all its branches would carry us too far here; but the simple perusal of Genesis 15 (if the reader find difficulty in following the argument of Paul in the Galatians) will amply demonstrate the point in question. I shall close the subject by two passages from Melancthon, as he has been so much insisted on. From the Confession of Augsburg 5. [A.D. MDXL. — ED.]

God graciously condescended to answer this by making a solemn covenant, according to a rite that was common and accepted in those far off days. In Jeremiah 34:18-19, we find an allusion to this kind of ceremony as ratifying a covenant. In the case before us the solemnity of the occasion seems to be enhanced by the number and variety of the animals that were sacrificed. Abram was kept waiting however until sundown before anything happened, and then he fell into a deep sleep, accompanied by horror and darkness. God was drawing near to him, and the covenant involved darkness as well as light.

"And he said unto him, I am Jehovah that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord Jehovah, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcase Abram drove them away" (vers. 7-11). It was of course no question of expiation here, but of confirming the divine grant of the inheritance; and in the character and variety of the animals slain God (as it seems to me) took into account the weakness of faith that asked the sign. He does not decline to give Abram the bond that he asked, or to make all sure by death. (Compare Jer. 34:18-19) But it was not to be made good without tribulation as well as patience on the part of the seed. "And when the sun was going down," more followed for his discipline and our instruction, which was very appropriate as a sign of this: "a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a horror of great darkness fell upon him." You see it is not one that stands in the light of God, but one that lingered in the region of his own wants, and of all the sorrow that belongs to wants connected with such a world and such a state.

Next, Jehovah encourages him by binding Himself now by the solemnity of His own act, in which it was impossible for Him to deny Himself, or lie as a man would by a similar solemn covenant; He passes between the pieces of the victim.

142 Next, to assure the feeble heart of man, God binds Himself by covenant. Most gracious condescension, indeed; but what does it meet in this wondrously condescending grace? - "Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" God then, while nature and man pass through the dark shadow of the power of death (and this Christ as man has done for us), passes between the pieces, and binds Himself in a covenant of death to accomplish this desire of the believer's heart, according to His own thoughts; and promise lays the sure foundation of it in Christ. The very limits of the land are pointed out, the power of those that held them is naught. In this very remarkable passage, we learn the blessed and perfect assuring of man in the righteousness of faith, and the immutability of the covenant; only it is not communion in life, but earthly, and meeting need, though the thing given was pure grace. God has a people, and He gives them a law.

This is the first time faith is mentioned, though no doubt it was there before, as Hebrews tells us; but it is the first time it is brought out. And then, too, I find death - God binding Himself by death. We know by Jeremiah, and other means, that death was used to ratify a covenant. So here God binds Himself by bringing in death, but the power of death passes, in a sense, on Abram; it is when a deep sleep comes upon him that he gets the blessing. I see a peculiar character here, because God comes in as by a smoking furnace and a burning lamp. That is, it is light that shines, and also a furnace that burns and consumes the dross, just as we talk of a fiery furnace. Now will God take His place. He tells Abram about his seed, and signifies that He will lead them by a lamp, and purify them by fire. Abram came under a deep sleep, and a horror of great darkness fell upon him. That is, he came under the power of death as to his own condition; it was not actual death, of course, but the shadow of it - the type. So we must die with Him. Death must pass upon any flesh in order to inherit the promises.

Abram, thus secured in the seed, immediately gets a renewal of the promise of the inheritance; for the purpose of God runs thus, "if children, then heirs." And He said unto him, "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it." Upon this the patriarch's faith becomes bolder still. He desires, as it were, to read his title-deed touching this inheritance, saying, "Lord God, whereby shall I know that I inherit it?" He did not stagger at the promise of the inheritance, any more than he had done at that of the seed; but he desired to search out the ground of his confidence, he would know the covenant of his God. And the Lord hears him in this also; He directs the solemnities to be duly prepared, and then, as it were, reads and seals the covenant by which his seed was given the land, from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates. (See Jer. 34:18.)

The seals of this covenant were a smoking furnace and a burning lamp. These seals were significant, bearing on them the impressions of God's proposed dealings with Abram's seed, which were now revealed to Abram; "affliction" being, as it were, written on the one seal, and "salvation" on the other. (See vers. 13, 14.)

When Abraham lamented to God that he had no son, God declared that he should have a son, and that his seed should be as the stars of the heaven for multitude. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. This is the first time that faith is spoken of. Still he asked whereby should he know that his seed should possess the land, and was told to take a heifer, a she goat, and a ram, all of three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. These he divided in the midst, except the birds, and laid them one against another. When the sun went down a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between the pieces: type of the fire that consumes the dross, and a light for the path. The same day God made a covenant with Abraham that to his seed should the land be given from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates : cf. Jer. 34:18-19: it had been ratified in death, a type of Christ. When Abraham had fallen into a deep sleep, he was informed that his seed should be in a strange land, and be afflicted 400 years. Gen. 15 See ISRAEL IN EGYPT.