01.06.2015 Old Testament: Gen 15.17–21

To read the Bible in a year, read Genesis 15–17 on January 6, In the year of our Lord 2015

By Don Ruhl

The Lord promised innumerable descendants for Abraham, both of the flesh and of the spirit, but for those of the flesh, they would need a place to live. The Lord told Abraham what land would be theirs,

And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites” (Genesis 15.17–21). 

The River of Egypt is not the Nile, but a wadi, a mostly dry riverbed between the Promised Land and Egypt. This relatively small piece of real estate was enough for the Lord to accomplish His purposes through the nation that would come of Abraham.