Genesis 15:17-18a
“When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram”
This verse. This very strange verse, shook my whole world. Book one of the Bible. Not even half way through and these two sentences changed everything.
Let me explain it to you.
First off, the paragraphs right before this, God wants to make a covenant with Abram so He asks Abram to split all these animals in two and pace them opposite each other creating this kind of path way. Now, this might seem very strange to us here in 2018, but in the time of Abram this was a step in making a covenant with someone. Both participants in the covenant would walk through the split animals to signify the oath that “If I break this covenant, you have every right to do to me what was done to these animals.”
Pretty sick, right?
So as the reader, we expect to read that Abram and God walked through together. That’s not what happens. God brings this deep sleep on Abram and the next thing we know… “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between these pieces.”
Wait…
What..
It wasn’t until I thought about it for a few days that it dawned on me. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the story of the Torah…Exodus specifically. But for your information, when God delivered the Israelite people out of Egypt He led them through the desert by a pillar of smoke in the day and a pillar of fire by night…so…
Smoke and Fire represent God.
This means..that God walked through these animals and made this covenant with himself in Abram’s stead.
This would mean
- If God broke this covenant, let this be done to God.
- If Abram broke this covenant, let this be done to God.
Eventually the covenant would be broken. And what do we see come from that…God’s son is torn to pieces on the cross to fulfill the promise that God made to himself and Abraham that NO MATTER WHAT God himself would pay the price of the broken covenant if it should come to that.
Just chew on that for a minute.
Under My Skin 
That’s cool I like the love reveal and the similarities between each moment in time. God is good and splitting animals in half in context shows the reality and intensity of a covenant. But for God to take on the consequences of breaking the covenant is beautiful audacious and incredible. I’m glad you wrote about this I didn’t really know about some of the details you mentioned. 💕💕💕🤟🏾🤓🤓
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You’re welcome!! It blew my mind too when I read it.
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