This Sunday, the Narrative Lectionary takes us from the story of The Garden of Eden, into the Negeb, where “Abram the Chaldean” (Gen 11:27–28) had become “Abram the Hebrew” (Gen 14:13). In this week’s passage (Gen 15:1–6), Abram experiences a vision which
In these chapters, the long saga of Israel begins with stories about the ancestors held in highest regard as the mother and father of the nation: Sarai and Abram. The command that they heard is set out at the beginning of their story: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1). The saga of this couple that is told in the ensuing chapters will reach fulfilment, many centuries later, when their descendants enter the land and settle in Canaan.
This sequence of passages offers us stories which were told, retold, and probably developed over quite some time by the elders in ancient Israel. They are stories which define the nature of the people and convey key values which were important in ancient Israel. These faithful people from the past stand, for us today, as role models to encourage us, centuries later, in our own journey of faith. They are stories which are worth holding up for our reflection and consideration.
These stories each have the function of an aetiology—that is, a mythic story which is told to explain the origins of something that is important in the time of the storyteller. The online Oxford Classical Dictionary defines an aetiology as “an explanation, normally in narrative form (hence ‘aetiological myth’), of a practice, epithet, monument, or similar.”
Whilst telling of something that is presented as happening long back in the past, the focus is on present experiences and realities, for “such explanations elucidate something known in the contemporary world by reference to an event in the mythical past”.
The ancestral narratives of Israel (Gen 12–50), as well as the series of books known as “the historical narratives” (Exodus to 2 Kings, Ezra—Nehemiah) are all written at a time much later that the presumed events which they narrate. The final form of the books as we have them most likely date to the Exile or post-exilic times, although pre-existing sources would have been used for many of these stories. (There are specific references to earlier written documents—now lost to us—scattered throughout 1—2 Kings.)
Those older stories were remembered, retold, and then written down, because they spoke into the present experiences of the writers. Common scholarly belief is that the stories found in Gen 12–50 were originally oral tales, that were collected together, told and retold over the years, and ultimately written down in one scroll, that we today call Genesis.
a text found in the Qumran Caves which contains narratives
not found in the biblical text, involving Noah and Abraham.
At the start of the ancestral narratives, Abram sets off, with his extended family: “his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran” (12:5). Haran was a strategic city in the upper reaches of the area we know as the Fertile Crescent, far from the land of Canaan (over 12,000km). The call was to travel that distance, to Canaan. For support and sustenance along the way, Abram and Sarai were called into covenant relationship with God. The formalising of the covenant is reported later in this chapter, at 15:18, with a promise that the descendants of Abram and Sarah will indeed have the land that is specified.
Abram and Sarah had left their homeland with some assured promises from God; they would be parents of a great nation, blessed by God, remembered as having a great name, and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through them (12:1–3). Those promises were intended to hold Sarai and Abram to the journey, despite all that they might encounter. The end result would make the travails along the way bearable.
However, Abram expresses some doubt that the promises made by God would come to pass (15:2–3). God’s response is to provide further reassurance; the multitude of stars in the sky is testimony to that (15:5). Abraham’s resulting affirmation of faith leads to the famous phrase, so central to Paul’s later argument about righteousness: “he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness” (15:6; see Rom 4:3,9,22).
The ceremony that follows adheres to the traditional cultic practices of the time. A collection of sacrificial victims, two animals and two birds, are offered and slaughtered, and the animals are cut in two (15:9–11). (The phrase, “to make a covenant” in Hebrew, can literally be rendered as ”to cut a covenant”.) Such practices signal the seriousness of the moment and symbolise that each party will keep their word on pain of death.
Indeed, the prophet Jeremiah later alludes to this specific provision, when he warns recalcitrant Israelites that “those who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make like the calf when they cut it in two and passed between its parts” (Jer 34:18, referring to Gen 15:10). The prophet continues, “their corpses shall become food for the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth” (Jer 34:20, referring to Gen 15:11).
This ancient cultic sacrificial practice of cutting animals does not reflect modern practices and is, in fact, distasteful to contemporary sensitivities. That might prod current readers to dismiss this passage as archaic, irrelevant, obsolete. That would be a shame. It remains relevant to us in a striking way.
Abram and Sarai reveal both trust in the promises they have been given, but also articulate some uncertainty about whether God would continue to be faithful to those promises. How human this is! In this regard, they reflect the somewhat ambivalent way that each of us relate to the promises of God: living out our trust and hope in the midst of the challenges, changes, and obstacles along the way, yet still holding back, somewhat dubious, about the ultimate reality this all.
We cannot hear of this covenant without thinking of the current inhabitants of the land defined by these verses (vv.18–21). Some claim the land through Abram, some through Ishmael, some through Isaac. Each of these peoples have sought to justify their claim to the land through politics and power, and sometimes bombs and guns. Yet the way to participate in this promise is to recognise that God offers up God’s own life as God’s pledge of faithfulness.
It’s a perfect vignette for those in the northern hemisphere (where the Narrative Lectionary originates) as people regather after the summer and face the year that lies ahead. This gathering back together offers an opportunity to reconsider how God had been at work in our midst, when we reconsider our commitment to the covenant we have made with God, and how live out that covenant in the realities of discipleship. It reminds us of the call to full-blooded, whole-scale, all-of-life commitment to the covenant that we have with God through Jesus.
See my reflections on the current situation in Gaza at
An Informed Faith 