Genesis 15

¹After these incidents, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Fear not, Abram; I am your Shield; your reward is exceedingly great.’

²And Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am going childless, and the steward of my household is Eliezer of Damascus?’

³And Abram said, ‘Behold, You have given me no seed, and behold, one of my household will inherit me.’

⁴And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘This one will not inherit you, but the one who will spring from your innards-he will inherit you.’

⁵And He took him outside, and He said, ‘Please look heavenward and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So will be your seed.’

⁶And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him as righteousness.

⁷And He said to him, ‘I am the Lord, Who brought you forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.’

⁸And he said, ‘O Lord God, how will I know that I will inherit it?’

⁹And He said to him, ‘Take for Me three heifers and three goats and three rams, and a turtle dove and a young bird.’

¹⁰And he took for Him all these, and he divided them in the middle, and he placed each part opposite its mate, but he did not divide the birds.

¹¹And the birds of prey descended upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

¹²Now the sun was ready to set, and a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, a fright, a great darkness was falling upon him.

¹³And He said to Abram, ‘You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years.

¹⁴And also the nation that they will serve will I judge, and afterwards they will go forth with great possessions.

¹⁵But you will come to your forefathers in peace; you will be buried in a good old age.

¹⁶And the fourth generation will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites will not be complete until then.’

¹⁷Now it came to pass that the sun had set, and it was dark, and behold, a smoking furnace and a fire brand, which passed between these parts.

¹⁸On that day, the Lord formed a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt until the great river, the Euphrates river.

¹⁹The Kenites , the Kenizzites , and the Kadmonites ,

²⁰And the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim,

²¹And the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites.’
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Verse 13 the “400 year” Exodus Ussher v. Masoretic “Math”

¹³And He said to Abram, ‘You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years.

The topic of exodus dates has without doubt been the subject of many doctorate dissertations and there are many dates and methods of defense well outside the scope of this author’s knowledge. I only seek to call out important information that has received extensive debate and studies be it Christian, Judeosim, Orthodox Greek Septuigint based. Once such case is the ‘400 years’ stated in verse 13 in genesis 15:

¹³And He said to Abram, ‘You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years.

Math according to Rabbinic tradition: That your seed [meaning Isaac-Jacob] will be strangers: From the time that Isaac was born until the Israelites left Egypt was four hundred years. How so? Isaac was sixty years old when Jacob was born, and Jacob, when he went down to Egypt, said, ‘The days of the years of my sojournings are one hundred and thirty years,’ which total 190. They were in Egypt 210 years, like the numerical value of רְדוּ (see Rashi, below 42:2; ר = 200, ד = 4, ו = 6, totaling 210). Thus, the total is 400 years.

Ussher: instead of Isaac’s birth year Usher uses the year Isaac was weaned: We are told that 430 years elapsed between the time Abraham left Haran and the Exodus (Ex. 12:35, 36, 41; Gal. 4:29). We also know that Abraham and his descendants will experience 400 years of persecution. That persecution starts now, when Abraham has been in Canaan for 30 years and Isaac is now 5 years old (Gen. 15:13-14, Acts 7:6, Gal. 4:29).

Some example calculations for the date of exodus using AM as well as assumed creation dates are provided for information only. The date of the exodus is likely the most debated topic ion the bible thus the purpose here is for introduction. As verses come up more will be presented.

Judean Calculation

Using Terah 70 years old at time Abram birth [Masoretic Text Judean] we get AM 2048 for birth Isaac thus we get Exodus is AM 2048 + 400 years= 2448 AM. If we assume 3961 BC [Jewish] as date of creation we would get 3961-2508 AM = 1453 BC for exodus date.

Christian (Ussher) Calculation

Using Terah 130 years old [Usher] and Isaac is 5 years old (age weaned) we get AM 2113 for Isaac at 5 (AM 2108+5) we get Exodus is AM 2113 + 400= 2513 AM or 4004 (Ussher creation date) - 2513 AM= 1491 BC as Usher Exodus Date

In case you had not noticed in the assumptions of the two approaches there is a difference of 65 years in the absolute (AM) count. This comes from use of Terah begetting age 70 v. 130 (60 year difference) and use of start point as Isaac wean date of 5 years v. birth thus 65 year difference between Judean and Christian calculation.

The Septuagint and Samaritan math is not presented here and many more ‘up-stream’ assumptions are different not to say any less accurate.

Genesis 15 ‘covenant of the pieces’

The covenant of the pieces or covenant between the parts is an important event in Jewish history. In this seminal event God revealed himself to Abraham and made a covenant with him (in the site known nowadays as Mount Betarim), in which God announced to Abraham that his descendants would eventually inherit the Land of Israel. This was the first of a series of covenants made between God and the Patriarchs. According to the biblical story, in Genesis 15:1–4 Abram’s most important encounter is recorded when the LORD made a covenant with him. The day started with a vision where Abram expressed his concerns about being childless, thinking his estate will be inherited by Eliezer of Damascus, a servant of his. God then reminds him of his original promise to make him a father of a ‘great nation’ and then revealed that he would have a son born to him. (Genesis 15:1–4). Later that day, at the drawing of the evening, Abram fell into a deep sleep where he encountered God again. God then prophesied to Abram that the nation born to him would be removed to another land where they must be trialed for four hundred years and afterward, they would be greatly blessed with many possessions and occupy their own land. This prophecy was that of the Israelites in subjection to Egypt, for four hundred years, before returning back to Canaan to claim it as their own. (Genesis 15:12–18) It was at this drawing of the night hour that Abram entered into a covenant with Yahweh who declared all of the regions of land that his offspring would claim: ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.’

Covenants (in the Bible)

In biblical times covenants were often sealed by severing an animal, with the implication that the party who breaks the covenant will suffer a similar fate. In Hebrew, the verb meaning to seal a covenant translates literally as ‘to cut’. It is presumed by Jewish scholars that the removal of the foreskin symbolically represents such a sealing of the covenant.