The flickering torch. The smoking firepot. These strange implements passing between severed animal halves mark one of Scripture's most astonishing moments—when the God, the Sovereign of the universe, voluntarily bound Himself to us with an oath that cannot be broken.

Genesis 15:17 describes this peculiar scene: "When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces." To modern readers, this appears bizarre, even grotesque. But to Abraham and his ancient Near Eastern contemporaries, this was the most solemn legal ceremony imaginable—a covenant of grant being enacted.

In the ancient world, covenants weren't merely promises—they were blood oaths that invoked cosmic consequences. When parties entered a covenant, they would slaughter animals, split them in half, and arrange the pieces in two rows. Then both parties would walk between the severed pieces, essentially declaring: "May what happened to these animals happen to me if I break this covenant."

Archaeological evidence from Mari, Alalakh, and other ancient Near Eastern sites confirms this practice. The very Hebrew phrase for making a covenant, karat berit, literally means "to cut a cleaving" meaning to cleave something in half so that you can cleave (be bound) to something else—a direct reference to this ritual of cutting animals apart.

But Genesis 15 contains a shocking twist.

In a standard bilateral covenant, both parties walk between the pieces, binding themselves mutually. Both share the responsibility. Both face the consequences of breach.

Yet in Genesis 15, Abraham doesn't walk. Only God—represented by the smoking firepot and flaming torch—passes between the pieces. The patriarch who had been promised descendants as numerous as the stars, who had been assured the land of Canaan as an inheritance, was not required to make any reciprocal commitment.

This is a covenant of grant—a royal promise made by a superior to an inferior, unconditional and irrevocable.

God alone assumed the covenant curse. God alone bound Himself to fulfill these promises, regardless of Abraham's performance. The implications are staggering: if this covenant fails, if these promises go unfulfilled, God Himself accepts the fate of those slaughtered animals.

This moment reveals something profound about God's character and His relationship with humanity. The Creator, who owes nothing to creation, who could demand everything and offer nothing, instead chooses vulnerability. He limits His own sovereignty to guarantee our security.

The covenant of grant was typically used by ancient Near Eastern kings to reward faithful servants with permanent land grants that could not be revoked. The land would belong to the servant's descendants in perpetuity, regardless of their loyalty or behavior. By employing this covenantal form, God communicated to Abraham in the clearest possible terms: "These promises depend entirely on Me. I will fulfill them. Your failures cannot void what I have sworn."

This irrevocable commitment reverberates through biblical history. When Israel violated the covenant at Sinai—even as Moses was receiving the tablets—God remained bound to His promise to Abraham. When the kingdom split, when Jerusalem fell, when exile scattered the people, the Abrahamic covenant endured.

Paul understood this. In Galatians, he argues that the law, given 430 years after Abraham, cannot nullify the covenant God had already established. An unconditional grant, once given, cannot be rescinded by later conditions.

The writer of Hebrews grasped it too, declaring that "when God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself" (Hebrews 6:13).

The Book of Mormon testifies that this Abrahamic covenant extends across continents and generations. Lehi's family, descendants of Joseph, carried these promises to the Americas. The resurrected Christ declared to the Nephites: "Behold, ye are the children of the prophets; and ye are of the house of Israel; and ye are of the covenant which the Father made with your fathers, saying unto Abraham: And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed" (3 Nephi 20:25).

The covenant endures, irrevocable and expansive.

Genesis 15:17 displays God’s irrevocable commitment to us.

God’s unbreakable, unconditional, and everlasting covenant to Abraham and to all the families of the earth is one of the most profound and consequential verses anywhere in scripture. God’s unexpected and singular act is the FOUNDATION that Biblical, Book of Mormon, and other scriptural writers reference again and again throughout scripture for WHY God continues to perform His covenant on our behalf.

God will never cease to be God.

He will never cease to be the God of Abraham who put Himself under covenant to fulfill His promises to us.

The scriptures consistently proclaim this.

Therefore, we can have unbreakable, unconditional, and everlasting trust that God will always fulfil His promises to us.

—Taylor Halverson, Ph.D.
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