Genesis 15-17

Covenants.

In Genesis 15-17 we see essentially one story. God promises Abram that he is going to make his descendants plentious, and Abraham initially believes him. Because Abram believes and trusts God to do this impossible thing (for Abraham is about almost 80 at this point) God reckoned Abram's faith as righteousness. But Abram still questions God, and asks him to give him a sign, and God cuts a covenant with him.

Now, when one cuts a covenant, the two partners are to slaughter some animals, and walk in between their bodies. A person who participates in this ceremony is effectively saying, "If I break this covenant, may I become just like these animals." But what is interesting is that God makes Abram fall asleep, and only God passes between the corpses of the animals. In essence, God is saying, "I guarantee you that no matter what happens, you will have descendants." This is known as an unconditional covenant. God is the sole party responsible for seeing their agreement come to pass.

It is during this ceremony that God gives Abram a vision of the future. His descendants will be enslaved for 400 years, but God will deliver them.

After some time though, Abram's wife Sarai is still not pregnant, so Sarai offers Abram to take her slave Hagar and have sex with her and have a child through her. Abram decides to take a shortcut in God's plan and agrees to do so. Of course this leads to disasterous results. Sarai becomes jealous of Hagar's child, and eventually kicks them out of the house. God still blesses Ishmael, Hagar's son, saying that he will become a mighty nation, but he will forever be an angry nation. But Abram continues to love his son.

God appears again later, and promises to make Abram the father of many nations, and changes his name to Abraham, and he changes Abraham's wife's name to Sarah. Abraham is given the sign of the covenant, circumcision, to show that he, and his household belong to God. God then promises specifically, that he is going to give Abraham a son from Sarah. Abraham laughs at the idea of him getting Sarah pregnant because he is 100 years old, and Sarah is 90 years old. Because of this, God says that they shall name their son Isaac. Which means Laughter. Their child's name would forever remind them that God can do whatever he wants to.