Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I have given this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.””
(Genesis 15:18-21)

These are not nations that did not know who God was and what God was. These were all nations descended from men (Noah’s sons) who knew God and witnessed His might, power, and glory in significant ways. These were all nations God had brought to these lands in order to bless them (Amos 9:7). These were nations who had had the opportunity to worship God and to do right, but who had refused and insisted on idolatry and ungodly living. These were all nations who had been chosen, had rejected God, and who were being removed from this Land by God and the Land itself (which wanted to remain pure as intended by God – Leviticus 18:25). And this wasn’t a one-off. ALL people the Lord brought to this Land were under the same restriction, warning, and punishment if they rebelled (Leviticus 18:26-28). Being in the Land is a privilege. Being in the Land is contingent on obeying God. Choosing not to follow Him means there will be consequences – one of which is being kicked out of the Land. This is all fair and reasonable because God created the Land, God sets the conditions of being in the Land, and God is both merciful and long-suffering when it comes to enforcing the consequences.

Even though Abram does not own the Land or control it, it had ALREADY been given to him as an inheritance. It was already an accomplished thing in God’s mind (Romans 4:17).

Abram had already been given what he could SEE of the land, but in this covenant God gave some specifics to the physical boundaries. The river of Egypt is believed to be near the Isthmus of Suez – the Shihor. The Euphrates was about 482 kilometres from Jerusalem (the territory of the Jebusites). These were the furthest boundaries that Israel would enjoy – and God was already claiming it, turning over the deed as accomplished.

It is interesting that ten nations are listed here, but when Moses was giving instructions about the peoples in the Land there are only seven nations listed (Deuteronomy 7:1; Acts 13:19). God had already removed three of these nations by the time Israel came to cooperate with God’s edict – four hundred and thirty years later.

The sage Rashi writes: ‘לזרעך נתתי UNTO THY SEED HAVE I GIVEN — The promise of the Holy One, blessed be He, is as an accomplished fact. (Consequently the perfect tense is here used) (Genesis Rabbah 44:22). הנהר הגדול THE GREAT RIVER—Because it is associated with (mentioned in connection with; see Rashi on Deuteronomy 1:7) the land of Israel, Scripture calls it “great” although it is the last mentioned of the four rivers that went out of Eden — as it is said (Genesis 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” (Genesis Rabbah 16:3).’

The sage Ramban writes: ‘IN THAT DAY THE ETERNAL MADE A COVENANT WITH ABRAM, SAYING. Now the Holy One, blessed be He, promised Abraham the gift of the land many times, and all of the promises served a purpose. When he originally arrived in the land, He said to him, Unto thy seed will I give this land, but He did not clarify the extent of His gift, for included in this promise is only the land where he walked, unto the place of Shechem unto the oak of Moreh. Afterwards, when his merits increased while in the Land, He bestowed upon him the additional promise: Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward, meaning that He will give him all those lands in their totality, for the meaning of the expression, which thou seest, is not literally “with your eyes” for the sight of a person does not extend far. Rather, it means that He will give him [land which lies in] every direction in which he looks. It may be that He miraculously showed him all the land of Israel, as was the case with Moshe Rabbeinu. He further added in this second blessing: and to thy seed forever, and that his seed will increase as the dust of the earth. At the third time, He clarified to him the boundaries of the land, mentioning all the ten nations [who presently inhabited it], and in addition He made a covenant with him that sin would not cause [the annulment of the gift]. When He commanded him concerning circumcision, He told him, for a possession forever, that is to say, if they will be exiled from it they will again return and inherit it. He also added at that time, And I will be their G-d, meaning that He in His Glory will lead them, and they shall not be under the rule of a star or constellation or any power of the powers above, as will yet be explained in the Torah. Now at the time of the first gift, Scripture states, Unto thy seed will I give, the verb being in a future tense, and similarly in the second time, because until then He had not given him the entire land, and therefore, He said to him, will I give it. But at the third time, during the covenant, He said, Unto thy seed have I given, meaning that He will make the covenant for the gift that He had already given him. Similarly, at the time of the circumcision, when He said, for a possession forever, He said to him, And I will give unto thee, in the future tense. Rashi wrote: Unto thy seed have I given. The word of the Supreme One is as if it were already accomplished. — But there is no need for this explanation in this passage.’