| | God has some good news and some bad news for Abram. Abram's upset that he doesn't have a kid yet, so God reassures him that he'll have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. (How many is that, by the way? God dares Abram to count, kind of like those contests where you have to guess how many jellybeans are in the jar!)
Then God tells Abram to bring him a cow, a she-goat, a ram, a dove, and a pigeon. Why does God want these specific animals? God sounds like a 3 year old making up the rules to some game as he's going along. Anyway, Abram cuts all but the birds in two. Abram falls a sleep and a "horror of great darkness" (15:12 KJV) falls upon him. (Sounds like God's handiwork to me!) God then tells him his descendants will be enslaved for 400 years.
Whoa, did that come out of left field, or what? First God reassured Abram that he'll have offspring, then Abram brings God all these animals, and God tells him he'll just sit by and let his descendants be slaves for 400 years (or until the 4th generation as it says later; whichever comes first, I guess). But the good news is, then God will punish the slaveholders and the slaves will come out of it with a bunch of stuff. Plus, Abram will be buried at a good age. So it's not all bad!
Why must God wait 400 years to punish those who enslave Abram's descendants? Why must they become slaves in the first place? I know, the Amorites are bad and Abram's family can't go there yet. But why punish Abram's family, then?
Just imagine what horrible things God would have let happen if Abram had forgotten to bring that she-goat.
|
| | Posted 1/3/2009 1:56 PM - 77 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
Give eProps or Post a Comment |
