Commentary for Genesis 15:7

I AM THE ETERNAL WHO BROUGHT THEE OUT OF UR OF THE CHALDEES, TO GIVE THEE THIS LAND TO INHERIT IT. I have already explained this verse²⁵³Above, 11:28. as stating: “From the time I brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees and performed a miracle for you [which saved your life], it was the Will before Me to give you this land.” But at this present moment He did not decree giving it to Abraham, rather he said that He had brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees with the intention of giving it to him. It was for this reason that Abraham feared lest a condition of good deeds be attached to the inheritance of the land even though He already had told him twice, Unto thy seed will I give this land,²⁵⁴Ibid., 12:7; 13:15. since He did not decree the gift of the land now as He did decree to give him a child. Therefore, Abraham said, Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?²⁵⁵Verse 8. Meaning: “How shall I know that this gift of the land will be an enduring one, unaffected by my sins?” This interpretation is clearly stated by Ramban further on in the text. This is not similar to the question of Hezekiah, What shall be the sign that the Eternal will heal me?²⁵⁶II Kings 20:8. The Holy One, blessed be He, also did not act with Abraham as He did with the other signs by showing him a sign or wonder in some miraculous matter.²⁵⁷Instead, He made a covenant with him to inherit the land by all means. (Tur.) But Abraham desired to have definite knowledge that he would inherit the land and that neither his sin nor that of his seed would withhold it from them. Or perhaps the Canaanites might repent, in which case the following verse might apply to them: At one instant I may speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and destroy it; but if that nation turn from their evil… I repent of the evil that I thought to do unto it.²⁵⁸Jeremiah 18:7-8. And then the Holy One, blessed be He, made a covenant with him that he will inherit the land under all circumstances.

אשר הוצאתיך מאור כשדים לתת לך את הארץ הזאת, for you, personally, will acquire this land by an act of taking symbolic possession of it.

ויאמר אליו, G’d continued speaking to him, in order to reinforce his faith that the promises would be fulfilled.

אני ה' אשר הוצאתיך מאור כשדים לתת לך את הארץ“I am the Lord Who has taken you out of Ur Casdim in order to give you this land as an inheritance.” According to Nachmanides G’d did not tell Avraham anything new concerning the gift of the land of Canaan in this line. What He meant to tell Avraham here was that already at the time when He saved him from the furnace of Nimrod it had been in order to eventually give him the land of Canaan as an inheritance for his children. The fact that G’d had not revealed this to Avraham previously, had made him think that perhaps this promise was conditional, just as he had thought that the promise of having physical offspring was a conditional promise, based on certain expectations of him in the future. This is also why he did not ask for a sign that this promise would be fulfilled, seeing that he thought it depended on additional factors, such as the Canaanites not becoming penitents, for instance, if the promise would come true. (compare Jeremiah 18,7רגע אדבר על גוי ועל ממלכה לנתוש, ולנתץ ולהאביד ושב הגוי ההוא מרעתו אשר דברתי עליו ונחמתי על הרעה אשר חשבתי לעשות לו., “At one moment I may decree that a nation or kingdom shall be uprooted and pulled down and destroyed, but if that nation against which I made the decree turns back from its wickedness I change My mind concerning the punishment I planned to bring upon it.”) Avraham wanted to be sure that here we are not dealing merely with an אות, a sign, but with a promise backed by a covenant, a promise not subject to being revoked due to the person or persons concerned not having proved worthy after the promise was made.” Other commentators see in the question במה אדע כי אירשנה “how will I know that I will indeed inherit it?” not a lack of faith, but an enquiry what steps he could take to ensure that there would not be a cause to revoke this promise. After all, Avraham dwelled amongst the very people whom G’d said He would displace in his favour, and it was no more than reasonable that if they should become aware of G’d’s promise to him they would make every effort to thwart the realization of this promise. One of the ways in which they would do this would be to pressure him to enter into a covenant with them asking him to forego realization of G’d’s promise to him. G’d told him that by delaying fulfillment of His promise until the fourth generation He could be sure that it would then qualify for fulfillment. These concerns by Avraham were entirely legitimate. Hence he asked for an assurance that the promise would indeed be ironclad.

Sehen wir, wie Gott hier die bedeutsame Enthüllung der Zukunft seines Volkes mit dem Hinweis auf Abrahams Ausgang aus UreKasdim einleitet, so kann dieser Ausgang kein gewöhnlicher Fortgang gewesen, so muß er ein den wundertätigen Beistand Gottes bekundendes Ereignis, muß eine Rettung gewesen sein, wie das spätere יציאת מצרים für seine Nachkommen. Nur der Hinweis auf eine solche außerordentliche Errettung aus einer außerordentlichen Gefahr — wie sie uns die Uberlieferung über Nimrods Attentat auf Abrahams Leben in Ur-Kasdim bekundet — konnte diesen "Auszug aus Ur-Kasdim" zu einer Erfahrung machen, aus welcher der Stammvater und sein Volk Kraft und Hoffnung zum mutigen Ausharren in einem vierhundertjährigen Galuth- leiden bis zum "Auszuge aus Mizrajim׳ schöpfen konnten. Bestand nun diese Rettung in der Rettung aus dem Feuertode, und weist hierauf vielleicht אור, die Feuersglut hin, heißts überhaupt vielleicht: der ich dich aus der Feuersglut zu Chaldäa herausgeführt, so läge hier vielleicht auch ein Anlass, im folgenden die Gefahr in Mizrajim als תנור עשן ולפיר אש, als rauchenden und flammenden Glutofen erscheinen zu lassen, und was der Ahn leiblich im wirklichen Glutofen erfahren, das hatten seine Nachkommen geschichtlich im politischen Glutofen Ägyptens zu bestehen. יציאת אור כשדים ist vorbildlicher Vorgang für .יציאת מצרים

'ויאמר אליו אני ה, :He said to him: “I am the Lord;” everything from the opening line of the chapter, “it was after these events” had been said to Avram at night, in a dream. This is clear from the word: במחזה, “in a vision,” (verse 1). In verse five Avram is told: “and count the stars;” from that point on we have the paragraph known popularly as ברית בין הבתרים, “the covenant between the cut up pieces.”From then on we have a revelation Avram experienced in daylight, as the paragraph concludes with the words: “it was when the sun was about to set;” (verse 12) This revelation by daylight had preceded the passagecommencing with chapter 15,1 by five years. This is clear from when G-d told Avram that “your descendants will be strangers and slaves for 400 years in a land that is not their own.” In Exodus12,41 the Torah reports that the Israelites had dwelled in Egypt for 430 years, i.e. that the prophecy made to Avraham had now been fulfilled. According to this,Avraham did not have any child by Sarah (i.e. Yitzchok) until 30 years after this first revelation. The Torah had stated specifically that Avraham was 100 years old when his son Yitzchok was born (Genesis 20,5). In other words, Avram was 70 years old when he left Charan for the first time and when G-d first told him about the future including his descendants until they would be freed from slavery. When G-d addressed Avram for the second time and told him to sever his relationship with home and hearth and birthplace in Genesis 12,1, he was 75 years old. According to the well known historic record known as seder olam, Avram was 48 years old at the time of the Tower and the dispersal of mankind. This was followed by the 13 years that the region known as the land of Canaan served and subsequently rebelled against Kedorleomer, a rebellion which lasted 13 years. (Not the 13th year as usually assumed). According to this calculation 26 years had elapsed at that time from when the Tower had been destroyed. If you add these years to the 48 years Avram had lived before that traumatic event was 74 or 75 years old. This is referred to when the Torah stated that Avram was 75 years old when he left Charan permanently. Immediately after Avram had defeated the kings mentioned in chapter 14, G-d appeared to him and ordered him to leave Charan and to proceed towards the Land of Canaan, his father’s original destination when he had left Ur Casdim. The reason why the two paragraphs here were inserted in the Torah as if they had occurred almost simultaneously was so that the promise that Avraham would have biological offspring would appear in direct connection with the promise that Avraham’s descendants would inherit the land of Canaan as their ancestral heritage when the time would be ripe for that. The Talmud in B’rachot 7, states specifically that these two visions referred to distinctly different subjects. The newsworthy development in Avram’s personality in the intervening between G-d having spoken to him five years earlier at the covenant between the “pieces,”is that for the first time a human being addressed the Almighty with the title adonav. My Master (Verse 8). If you were to think that all that is written here in this chapter is part of a single revelation, and a single subject, up to verse 1 in chapter 16, why did the Talmud not consider verse 2 in chapter 15 in which Avram addressed him by the same title, as the first time in history that this had ever occurred? Clearly what Avram said in verse 8 had preceded what is quoted as having said in verse 2. Furthermore, if these paragraphs had been written in chronological order, how could Avram have dared ask G-d for a sign that His promise would come true without his being accused as having been lacking in faith? G-d, after all, had already clearly stated that his heir would be his biological heir (verse 4). It is therefore clear beyond doubt that in this chapter we are dealing with two different revelations, each one dealing with a different subject. Having said all this, it is easy to understand that G-d referred to the fact that it was He Who had taken him out of Ur Casdim in order to give to his descendants (equated with him) this land that he is to proceed to. Avraham’s question that seeing that he had no heir as yet, surely he by himself could not “inherit” this land, (verse 7) was quite logical. After all he had no assurance that he would not die before G-d’s promise having a chance at being fulfilled. It also explains why G-d, in verse 15, tells him not to worry, but that he would die at a ripe old age. [The only person ever having been given such a promise by G-d, I believe. Ed.] This promise by G-d is evidence of what had prompted his question, certainly was not lack of faith. Some people accept Rashi’s interpretation that Avram, while certainly not doubting G-d’s promise or ability to deliver on His promise, was concerned that seeing that all of G-d’s promises are based on certain underlying conditions, and he was afraid that some of these might not be met so that G-d would not be bound by His promise. We have evidence of fulfillment of G-d’s promises being delayed after the sin of the spies, when G-d swore an oath that all the adults involved in that sin would not set foot in the Holy Land. (Numbers 32,1011) According to the exegetes claiming that Avram did not doubt G-d’s promise, but wished to know by what merit it would be fulfilled, why would he have been punished for having asked such a question? We would have to answer that the words: ידוע תדע, understood by some as the punishment, i.e. the delay in the fulfillment of G-d’s promise, was not a punishment at all, but a direct answer, meaning that until the time came when in the desert the Israelites would regularly offer up sacrifices, they would indeed not yet have earned that merit. This merit coupled with the suffering during exile in Egypt combined, would suffice to make G-d replace the Canaanites and give the land to the Israelites.

לרשתה, so that the children (descendants) would inherit it from you under the heading of an inheritance, i.e. without any interruption in this land being owned by Israelites.

'אני ה, He had not previously mentioned His name Hashem, the Essence, to Avram. When G’d mentioned this name of His now, it was not to inform Avram that this was His true name, His Essence. Avram had been familiar with that name from the time he had first gotten to know G’d. He only mentioned it now to tell Avram that He would keep His promise in His capacity of Hashem. It is as if G’d had said: “I swear by My name Hashem.”

אשר הוצאתיך מאור כשדים, it was not for nothing that I have taken you out of that environment, but in order to give you this land to inherit it. G’d meant that Avram’s descendants would inherit the land of Canaan. The relationship between this land and Avram would become comparable to the inheritance a father leaves to his sons.