Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #17 of Genesis, chapter 15 and we are going to begin by reading Genesis 15:12-17:

And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

Remember, the pieces that the smoking furnace and burning lamp passed between refers to the animals the Lord instructed Abram to take – the heifer, the she goat and ram – and divide them in the midst. He had them all laid out and then the fowls came down upon the carcases, but Abram drove them away.

Then we read that it says in Genesis 15:12:

And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

I am not exactly sure what the spiritual emphasis is here in verse 12 regarding the deep sleep that fell upon Abram and the horror of great darkness that also fell upon him. We know that “deep sleep” can represent death. It is the same words that were used earlier in Genesis when the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, in Genesis 2:21:

And JEHOVAH God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which JEHOVAH God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

By causing Adam to fall into a deep sleep and then bringing forth the woman from one of his ribs, we saw the spiritual connection with Christ’s death. Remember, when He was on the cross they pierced His side and out flowed water and blood, signifying the Gospel that would go forth to create the “woman,” the spiritual bride of Christ.

Deep sleep could also refer to the time period in which the Bible was sealed, because God referred to this in Isaiah 29:10-12:

For JEHOVAH hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

In this passage, the Lord equates the spirit of deep sleep and the closing of eyes to the vision of all becoming as a book that is sealed and that would refer to the book of the Bible. Remember in the parable of the wheat and the tares, the tares were sown while men slept, meaning that the Bible was sealed during the entire 1,955 years of the church age. Then came the end of the church age when God took off the seals. It also ties in with the parable of the ten virgins who were all sleeping and then the cry was made: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.” At the time of the end in judgment, God opened the scriptures to reveal information that foretold of approaching judgment and the wise virgins were then able to awaken and light their lamps because the Holy Spirit indwelled them: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.” The wise virgins had the necessary “oil” or the Holy Spirit to enlighten the pages of the scriptures so they could see and understand: “But the wise shall understand.”

But the foolish virgins had no “oil.” They had no Holy Spirit. They were also awakened to activity at that time, but they could not light their lamps, so they could not perceive these things: “And none of the wicked shall understand.” The “sleep” was during the time the Bible was sealed.

When we come to this verse in Genesis 15, Abram could either be a picture of God Himself or a picture of the elect. It is a little unclear as to which one is typified here as the deep sleep fell upon Abram. The deep sleep could be as the deep sleep that fell upon Adam, which typified death or, perhaps, it was the “deep sleep” as God restrained and kept back people from understanding many things in the scriptures.

Then it says, “an horror of great darkness fell upon him,” so we would tend to think that the reference to the deep sleep relates to death, because in the Bible “darkness” does relate to death. The word “horror” is also translated as “terror,” so a terror of great darkness fell upon Abram. Remember, this was all in response to Abram’s question in Genesis 15:8:

And he said, Lord JEHOVAH, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

Then God told him to take the animals and sacrifice three animals that were three years old and divide them in the midst and lay them out and the birds he divided not. Then the fowls attempted to come down upon them, but Abram drove them away. Through the offering of those animals, God was illustrating how Abram could know he would inherit the land, which was through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who died for the sins of Abram and his seed or all the elect of God. And Christ (God) is the seed, but He also died for His seed, so the sacrifice of the animals or, perhaps, Abram Himself (who can typify God) were being used by God to show Abram how he can know he will inherit the promise. Again, it was through the “deep sleep.” Through the deep sleep of Adam, what came forth? It was the bride of Christ, who are also known as the “seed.”

Then it says in Genesis 15:13-14:

And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

This tells us that God is still answering Abram’s question from verse 8: “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” The previous context had to do with the seed inheriting the land. We will not go back and look at that again, but you can read the earlier verses and you will see it has to do with the seed.

God is saying, “Know of a surety,” and that was in response to Abram’s question, “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” God is saying, “You can know this, absolutely. There is no question about it. You and your seed will inherit the land.” Later, God will proclaim that it is an everlasting possession. God is promising that he will first have a seed (which Abram did not have at this point) and, secondly, his seed will inherit the land of Canaan where he sojourned. God is saying, “You may know this of a surety.” It is guaranteed and certain that this will come to pass.

Then God gives Abram some interesting information, as He says, in Genesis 15:13:

And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

I do not know if God is aware of this or not (and I am saying this sarcastically), but He just did something forbidden and something not permissible, and something that has always been on the edge of heresy – something that only the worst of heretics do, according to the churches. It is something that is not allowed by any church in the world. God gave a time path. He gave a timeline and He said he could know it of a surety. It was sort of an “exclamation point,” was it not? It was not a question mark. “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;” God said Abram could know this with “surety.”

Oh, my, this is awful! It is terrible! How can God do something that is contrary to everything the churches and congregations teach? They say, “No man can know. You are not to get involved in time paths. You are not to even speculate. Get as far away from time paths – they are not of God!”

If they are not of God, why did God just give a time path? We will not take the time right now, but you can go through the Bible and you will find that God does this kind of thing, repeatedly. For example, what are the seventy weeks of Daniel 9 but a time path to the first coming of Christ? Or, we could look at Ezekiel, where God told him to lay on his left side 390 days and his right side for 40 days, and then God said, “I have appointed thee each day for a year.” Or, we could look at when the Israelites searched out the land for forty days and God appointed them a penalty for each day they searched the land – forty years they would wander. It was exactly forty years later that they entered the land of Canaan. There are numerous time paths that God Himself has declared in the Bible. What about the commandment given to Jonah? “Preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” And then God sent him to Nineveh to declare, “And yet forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” What is that but a timeline?

Again, and again, in the Bible God gives timelines and He is doing so here in Genesis 15 as He is speaking to Abram: “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;” God was very specific to the very year. Someone in a later generation could look at what God said to Abram and know that Israel…because they were the physical seed of Abram. As we discussed before, there was the physical seed, the Israelites, as well as the spiritual seed, which consisted of everyone God would save. But the physical seed could have known, based on this scripture, that they would enter into a land that was not theirs and they would serve them and be afflicted for 400 years. Then it goes on to say in Genesis 15:16:

And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

When we look at the history of the nation of Israel, we see right away what it points to, which was their entry into the land of Egypt. During their stay in Egypt, they served the Egyptians and they were afflicted, so it is very obvious and there was no other similar occasion, other than the captivity to the Babylonians, but that was a much shorter time of seventy years of affliction. It was nowhere near 400 years. Only Israel’s bondage in the land of Egypt qualifies as the historical fulfilment of what God said to Abram.

The theologians and the pastors and spiritual rulers of the churches and congregations, especially if they are Reformed to some degree, would allow for the historical fulfilment of what is being said here, but they would not permit a spiritual application. Yes, God said this to Abram and it was true of the physical seed, but there was also a deeper spiritual meaning that has application to the spiritual seed – both Jew and Gentile that are God’s elect. It would also be true of them, but that is not something we are going to look at right now because we are going to spend some time on the historical fulfillment of what God said to Abram. We want to look at this because it gives us insight in to how God proclaims a time path and then ties the information so that individuals that read and understand – even true believers – can hear these words of God concerning that time path (400 years) but still get it wrong and misunderstand it. They misunderstand, not because they are heretics or because they have done an evil thing in proclaiming or believing that they understood the correct timeline, but they misunderstood because they thought the 400-year timeline followed from “Point A” to “Point B” and, yet, their “Point B” was incorrect. It was not because of evil or heresy or any wicked thing like the churches and congregations accuse God’s people of in our time, but it was due to the will of God in concealing the information a little bit more thoroughly than the individual perceived it initially.

You may not know what I am talking about (or maybe you do), but we are going to look in to the historic record the Bible gives us of a most faithful man that was said to be extremely humble. He was a very humble and faithful man of God that understood this prophecy as declared to Abram and was looking for its fulfilment. He was looking for the completion of the timeline that God gave to Abram and, yet, he misunderstood it and he was “off” the mark. He was off because he did not hear it quite carefully enough, but it was also because God hid it to such a degree that it would have been possible for him to understand it fully until the time had passed; then he could re-evaluate and come to an accurate understanding.

Now you may know who I am talking about. I am talking about the man Moses. When God told Abram about the 400 years, it was not written down. There was no written record. It would not be until the time of Moses many hundreds of years in the future and after the exodus. Then Moses went to mount Sanai to receive the Ten Commandments of God that God wrote in stone. Later, He moved Moses to write the first five books of the Bible, which would include the book of Genesis and we know that would have been between 1447 and 1407BC. But the events that took place in Genesis 15 may have occurred when Abram was about 85 years of age because in the next chapter we will see that Sarai took Hagar and gave her to Abram to wife when Abram was 86 and the next year Ishmael was born. So, let us say that Abram was 85 at this point in Genesis, chapter 15 and that would mean it was the year 2082BC. It would be over six hundred years before any of this conversation between God and Abram would be written down.

So, how could Moses have known about the 400 years? We can be sure that Abram would have told Isaac many things and Isaac would have told Jacob and Jacob would have told his children. It was Jacob that entered into Egypt with his sons that became the tribes of Israel and, eventually, Moses was born in that line. This information would have stood out among many wonderful and glorious things that would have been handed down through the generations. But this would have been of special interest to the people of Israel: “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs.” When God told Jacob to go down into Egypt and be not afraid because He would bless him there and make him a great nation, you can be sure Jacob would have recalled the promise to Abram that the seed would be a stranger in a land not theirs.

Of course, the rest of the verse was troubling, because it said, “and shall serve them.” You could take that in some different ways. Joseph was serving Pharaoh, even though he was second in command in Egypt. But, anyway, it would be troubling to know, “and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.” It may have been the cause of concern and hesitation on Jacob’s part and, perhaps, that is why God had to reassure Him: “Fear not. Go down.” And Jacob did go and that was the entry point of Israel into the land of Egypt in 1877BC and we can be sure that information would have been “handed down.” It is speculation, but I think it is reasonable speculation that Israel would have known the date when Jacob entered into Egypt because it was a huge event for Israel as a nation – they would have known they entered in 1877BC. And what year would be 400 years later? It would be 1477BC.

Did the exodus occur then? No – it did not happen in 1477BC, but it was in 1447BC. There was a discrepancy. How did that happen? Lord willing, in our next Bible study, we will look at Moses and this apparent discrepancy in time.