A Journey of Faith

GEN 15

7 And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess."

John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

And he said to him—After he had expressed his faith in him, and in his word, and the blessedness of a justifying righteousness came openly upon him, and he was declared a justified person.

I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans—Not only called him, but brought him out from it; not out from a furnace there, as the Jews fable; but out from a place so called, an idolatrous one, where fire was worshiped, and from whence it might have its name; God had brought him out from this wicked place, and separated him from the men of it, and directed him to the land of Canaan for the following end and purpose.

To give you this land to possess—To be an inheritance to his posterity for ages to come; he gave him the promise of it, and in some sense the possession of it, he being now in it; and he mentions his having brought him out of Chaldea into it, to confirm his faith in the promise of it; that that God who had called him, and brought him from thence, and had protected him, and given him victory over his enemies, was able to make good, and would make good the promise and grant of this land for an inheritance to him, that is, to his posterity.

8 But he said, "O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?"

9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."

Megillah 31b:5

Abraham then said before him: Master of the universe: "By what shall I know this?" God said to him: "Bring me a heifer three years old" (Gen 15:9). With this, God intimated to Abraham that even if his descendants will sin, they will be able to achieve atonement through sacrificing offerings. Abraham said before him: Master of the universe, this works out well when the temple is standing and offerings can be brought to achieve atonement, but when the temple will no longer be standing, what will become of them? God said to him: I have already established for them the order of offerings, i.e., the verses of the law pertaining to the halakhot of the offerings. Whenever they read those portions, I will deem it as if they sacrificed an offering before me, and I will pardon them for all of their iniquities.

10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.

11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

Rashi

And behold, dreadful etc.—This is symbolic of the woes and the gloom of the exiles (Bereishit Rabbah 44:17).

13 Then the Lord said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.

14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.

Mishneh Torah, Mourning 4:4

We dig burial caves in the earth and make hollows at the side of the caves. There we bury the corpse with its face upward; we then place the earth and the stones back in place above it. They may bury it in a wooden coffin.

Those who accompany the corpse tell him: "Go in peace," as Gen 15:15 states: "You shall go to your ancestors in peace."

Markings are made on the graves. A tombstone is placed on the grave. For the righteous, by contrast, a tombstone is not placed, because their words will cause them to be remembered; a person will not need to visit in the cemeteries.

16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete."

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

Rashi

To your offspring I give—The promise of the Holy One, blessed be he, is as an accomplished fact (Bereishit Rabbah 44:22).

The great river, the river Euphrates—Because it is associated with the land of Israel, Scripture calls it "great," even though it is the last of the four rivers that went out of Eden—as it is said (Gen 2:14): "and the fourth river is the Euphrates." There is a popular proverb: "A king's servant is a king; attach yourself to a captain and people will bow down to you" (Bereishit Rabbah 16:3).

19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,

20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,

Rashi

The Rephaim—The land of Og, of which it said (Deu 3:13), "That . . . is called the land of the Rephaim."

21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites."

GEN 16

Sarai and Hagar

1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.

2 And Sarai said to Abram, "Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

Bereishit Rabbah 45:2

And Sarai said to Abram, "Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing" (Gen 16:2) as follows: "Said she, I know the source of my affliction: It is not as people say of a barren woman, 'she needs a talisman, she needs a charm,' but behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing." It is taught: whoever has no child is like one who is dead, like one who is destroyed. Like dead, since it is written "She said to Jacob, 'Give me children, or I shall die' " (Gen 30:1). Destroyed, as it is written "maybe I will be build from her" (Gen 16:2)—we build only what was destroyed.

3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife.

4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.

5 And Sarai said to Abram, "May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!"

Rashi

May the wrong done to me be on you—For the injustice that has been done to me, I lay the punishment on you. When you prayed to God, "What will you give me, since I am going childless?" you prayed only for yourself, whereas you should have prayed for both of us, and I would have been remembered with you. Moreover, you are stealing from me your protective words, for you hear my degradation, and you remain silent (i.e., you are depriving me of the words you should have spoken to Hagar to reprimand her on my behalf).

I gave my servant, etc. between you and me—It may also be read (second person feminine), for she cast an evil eye on Hagar's pregnancy, and she miscarried her fetus. That is why the angel said to Hagar, "Behold, you will conceive." But was she not already pregnant? Yet he announces to her that she will conceive? But this teaches that she miscarried her first pregnancy.

6 But Abram said to Sarai, "Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please." Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.

8 And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She said, "I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai."

Rashi

Where have you come from—He knew where she was coming from but he wished to give her an opening to commence speaking with her.

9 The angel of the Lord said to her, "Return to your mistress and submit to her."

10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude."

11 And the angel of the Lord said to her,

"Behold, you are pregnant

and shall bear a son.

You shall call his name Ishmael,

because the Lord has listened to your affliction.

Rashi

Behold, you are pregnant—When you return you will conceive, like Jdg 13:5: Behold you shall conceive, stated concerning the wife of Manoah.

And shall bear a son—And similar to this (Jer 22:23): O inhabitant of Lebanon, nested among the cedars.

You shall call his name—This is a command, just as one would say to a man, as Gen 17:19 "and you shall call his name Isaac."

12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man,

his hand against everyone

and everyone's hand against him,

and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen."

13 So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me."

14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

Rashi

Beer-lahai-roi—As the Targum takes it: the well at which the living angel appeared.

15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

GEN 17

Abraham and the Covenant of Circumcision

1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,

Rashi

I am God Almighty—I am he whose godliness suffices for every creature (Bereishit Rabbah 46:3). Therefore, walk before me, and I will be your God and your protector, and wherever it (this name) appears in Scripture, it means "his sufficiency," but each one is to be interpreted according to the context.

Walk before me—As the Targum takes it: worship before me—cleave to my service.

And be blameless—This, too, is a command following upon the previous command: be blameless in all my trials. According to Bereishit Rabbah 46:4, however, it means: walk before me by observing the precept of circumcision and through this you will become perfect, for so long as you are uncircumcised I regard you as having a blemish. Another explanation of and be blameless—at present you lack the power of controlling five organs: two eyes, two ears, and the male organ. I will add a letter to your name so that the total of the letters of your name will become 248, corresponding to the number of limbs of your body (cf. Nedarim 32b).

2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly."