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[a]He answered him: Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.(A) 10 He brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not cut up. 11 Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram scared them away.

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Footnotes

  1. 15:9–17 Cutting up animals was a well-attested way of making a treaty in antiquity. Jer 34:17–20 shows the rite is a form of self-imprecation in which violators invoke the fate of the animals upon themselves. The eighth-century B.C. Sefire treaty from Syria reads, “As this calf is cut up, thus Matti’el shall be cut up.” The smoking fire pot and the flaming torch (v. 17), which represent God, pass between the pieces, making God a signatory to the covenant.

So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer,(A) a goat and a ram, each three years old,(B) along with a dove and a young pigeon.(C)

10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other;(D) the birds, however, he did not cut in half.(E) 11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses,(F) but Abram drove them away.

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