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The divine revelation of 15:1-5 grows out of chs. 13 and 14. Abram had shown himself to be faithful to the promise of God in his dealings with Lot. Now God, in a crucial dramatization, binds himself to the Abramic covenant. Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward (v.1) is a declaration of God’s protection. The reward Abram is promised (v.1) stands in contrast to the spoil he refused in 14:22-24. The covenant takes the form of a promise of an heir and of innumerable descendants. The reference to a reward (v.1) also represents a promise of land (vv.18-21). But while the earnest of land is conceivable for Abram, the patriarch challenges the promise of an heir (vv.2-3). Abram has no son and recognizes the utter impossibility of childbearing in old age (cf. Ro 4:18-25). Can God be trusted not only to indicate his loving concern for the patriarch but to demonstrate his ability to transform a situation of hopelessness into the realization of the promise?
In response to Abram’s challenge, God simply reiterates the promise (v.5). On this occasion Abram accepts the word of God as trustworthy. He believes God to be God (v.6)! Such faith in the God of promise is commended as the right thing. Ro 4:18ff. makes clear that Abram’s faith is in the One who speaks to humankind’s barren and helpless condition and thereby affords a genuine genesis. Again, God’s reassuring word and Abram’s ready obedience are paratactically juxtaposed. We are not told what transpired between vv.2 and 6 that prompted Abram to ready obedience. His response is without explanation. It is simply stated that he believed God. That belief brings him into right relationship with God.
Still Abram seeks reassurance (v.8). Faith never exists in a vacuum. So God graciously and dramatically binds himself to this righteous one and thereby illustrates his commitment to the covenant promises he has made (vv.9-21). The rather strange perspective of this particular covenant lies in the fact that it is God who unilaterally binds himself to the promise. Nowhere is Abram asked to walk through the body parts of the beasts. This is an act of God’s sovereign grace and demands nothing more of Abram than his trust. And, as if to prepare him for experiences when such trust may not be easy and to alert Abram to the fact that the realization of the promise will not be realized immediately, God rehearses a short synopsis of Israel’s future (vv.13-16). But even though the promise will tarry, Abram is encouraged to wait. Its advent is certain (cf. Hab 2:3).