Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Genesis, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
God, Humanity, and Creation
Mistrust, Disobedience, and Death
Covenants and Faith in God’s Promises
The Role of Women
Summary
Analysis
After this, Abram has a vision in which the LORD tells him not to be afraid, because he will be Abram’s shield. But Abram complains that he is still childless, with a household slave in line to become his heir. The LORD promises that Abram’s own offspring will be his heir. Abram’s offspring will be like the stars—innumerable. Abram believes God, and God counts this “righteous.”
God has promised Abram both offspring and land—neither of which Abram has yet. Here, God addresses Abram’s concern that he is still childless. When God shows Abram the stars as a symbol of the uncountable nation that will come from him, Abram’s belief is considered “righteous”—his faith conforming to God’s will for him.
Themes
The LORD reminds Abram that he brought Abram out of Ur to give him this land. Abram asks how he can know that he will possess the land. So God instructs him to bring a heifer, a female goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon. Abram brings these animals, and cuts all but the birds in two.
Having addressed Abram’s concern about his childlessness, God now reaffirms his promise to grant Abram the land. The significance of these precise sacrificial animals isn’t clear, but the ritual is another opportunity for God to demonstrate his faithfulness to Abram.
Themes
At night, a deep darkness surrounds Abram, terrifying him. The LORD tells Abram that he can know for sure that his offspring will be aliens in a foreign land, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years. But God will judge their oppressors and bring them out of that land with great wealth. Abram himself will die peacefully at an old age. A fire pot and flaming torch pass between the animal carcasses. The LORD makes a covenant with Abram, giving him the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates River.
After Abram brings the sacrificial animals, God concludes the ritual, his presence symbolized by the fire pot and torch. (This moment contrasts with the anthropomorphic, or humanlike, way that God is depicted earlier in Genesis when he walks through Eden.) God also tells Abram of his people’s future enslavement (described in the Book of Exodus), hundreds of years before this takes place. Although God has already spoken these promises to Abram, he now formalizes the promises through a covenant.
Themes
