Genesis 15:4

“After these things” joins this vision to Genesis 14. Abram had armed his household, rescued his nephew Lot from a league of kings, and come home in triumph. When the king of Sodom offered him the goods he had recovered, Abram refused them all. He had lifted up his hand to the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, and he would take nothing that let the king of Sodom say he had made Abram rich (Genesis 14:17–24). He trusted God to provide for him.

Abram still had reasons to be afraid. The kings he had beaten could come back for revenge. He lived as a wanderer with his tents and flocks, exposed to rivals and raiders. Above all, the great nation God had promised him (Genesis 12:1–3) needed a son, and Abram and Sarai were old and had none. Into that moment the word of the LORD came, and God spoke to Abram’s fear before Abram had voiced it.

Abram’s answer goes straight to what weighs on him most. He has just been promised a reward, and he asks what any gift can mean while he is still childless: “Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless”.

He addresses God as “Lord GOD”, ʼĂdônây Yᵉhôvih. ʼĂdônây is an emphatic form of the word for lord or master, used as a name for God, and in Abram’s mouth it is the address of a servant to his Master. Yᵉhôvih is a form of God’s covenant name, which Jewish readers spoke aloud as Elohim or Adonai out of reverence for the holy name. So Abram’s hard question opens with reverence, and with an appeal to the God who has bound himself to him by covenant. He speaks plainly, and he speaks as a servant to his Lord.

The word “childless”, ʻărîyrîy, means bare, destitute of children. “I go childless” is literally “I am going childless”, a lasting condition that looked to Abram as if it would be final. The man who would inherit Abram’s whole estate is “the steward of my house”, “this Eliezer of Damascus”. The word mesheq, from a root meaning to hold or possess, describes the one who holds and manages a household for another. Eliezer was Abram’s chief servant, and he came from Damascus, a prominent city of Syria.

God answers at once. “And, behold” (hinneh) draws attention again, this time to God’s reply, and the word of the LORD (dâbâr) comes to Abram a second time. “This shall not be thine heir” refers to Eliezer, the servant Abram had just named. God sets aside the arrangement custom offered and promises something only he could give: “he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.”

The verb yâtsâʼ means to go or come out, and here it describes a birth. The word mêʻeh means the inward parts or belly, and elsewhere the innermost being and the seat of tender feeling. “Out of thine own bowels” is a Hebrew way of saying “from your own body”, so the heir will be Abram’s own son. “Heir” is yârash again, the same verb Abram used in verse 3, and God answers Abram in his own words: the one who will take possession of what is yours is your son.

The promise was precise, and its precision mattered. Abram was old and Sarai was barren, so a son of Abram’s own body would have to be God’s doing. Later God said that Sarah herself would bear this son, and named him Isaac (Genesis 17:15–19). In time “Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age” (Genesis 21:2–3). Paul describes the faith that held on through the waiting: “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:18–21).

Then God gave Abram a sign he could see. “He brought him forth abroad” uses yâtsâʼ, the verb of verse 4, here in the form that means to bring out. The God who promised a son who would come out of Abram’s body now brings Abram himself out. “Abroad” is chûwts, outside. God led him out under the open sky and said, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them.”

To “tell” is to count, çâphar, and the stars, kôwkâb, were beyond counting. The challenge carries its own answer. Abram could look up and see at once that the task was impossible. Then God said, “So shall thy seed be.” The word “so”, kôh, means thus, like this: as countless as the stars you are looking at, so many will your descendants be. The man who had just said, “to me thou hast given no seed”, hears that his seed will be as many as the stars over his head.

God repeated the promise after Abram offered Isaac: “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore” (Genesis 22:17). Generations later Moses could tell Israel, “The LORD your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude” (Deuteronomy 1:10). Paul quotes this verse’s closing words when he describes Abraham’s faith: “Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be” (Romans 4:18).

This is the heart of the passage: “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

When Abram believed, his circumstances were unchanged. He was still old, Sarai was still barren, and the son was still a promise. What he had was God’s word and a sky full of stars, and he trusted the God who spoke.

The verb for “believed” is ʼâman. In its plainest form it means to support or nourish, as a nurse or a foster-parent does a child, and in another form it means to be firm or established. In this verse it is the word for believing, and it describes Abram taking God’s word as sure and leaning his whole weight on it, relying on God’s character and power while the promise ran against every natural expectation. His faith was personal trust in the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, the God who had made him these promises.

The verb for “counted” is châshab. Its meanings reach from devising and planning to thinking, regarding, valuing and computing, and here it means to reckon or credit, to put something to a person’s account. The word for “righteousness” is tsᵉdâqâh: rightness, justice, right conduct, and here a right standing before God. God put righteousness to Abram’s account because Abram believed him. It is a legal and personal declaration, God’s verdict on where Abram stands with him, and Abram received it as a gift through trusting God’s promise. He received it before the covenant ceremony that fills the rest of Genesis 15, and years before Isaac was born.

The promises of these verses come to their fullness in Jesus Christ. He is the seed Paul names to the Galatians, and Matthew opens his Gospel by calling him “the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Through him people born far from Abraham’s family become children of God, “which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13). They become heirs as well, “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17), and Paul calls Abraham “the father of us all” (Romans 4:16).

The shield of verse 1 is ours in Christ. By his death and resurrection he guards his people from sin, death and the devil, and from the wrath of God: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The reward is ours in him too. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3), and in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Every promise God made to Abram is sure in him, for “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

These six verses show us who God is. He comes to his servant first and speaks to a fear that has gone unspoken. He calls himself a shield and a reward, so that what he offers his people is himself. He hears an honest complaint with patience and answers it with a clearer promise. He gives a sign a man can see, the stars over his head. And he credits righteousness to the one who believes him.

Abram brought his fear and disappointment to God in plain words, and he came away believing. He had the same years behind him and the same childless home, and what had changed was that he had heard God speak. The God who spoke to Abram speaks to us in the promises he has kept in Christ, and the righteousness Abram received by believing is given on the same terms to everyone who believes.