After God Most High had delivered Abram’s enemies into his hand, Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, brought out bread and wine and blessed him (Gen. 14:18-20, see Blog 22 Fun Factors). Abram chose God’s blessings over the king of Sodom’s worldly wealth. Later that night, YHWH spoke to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you and give you a great reward” (Gen. 15:1). YHWH brought Abram outside to see the stars of heaven and told him his descendants from his own body would be as numerous as their number and inherit the promised land. Abram believed YHWH. YHWH’s promise to Abram mimicked His command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, filling the Sabbath garden and the earth.

Then YHWH said, “I am YHWH, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land and inherit it” (Gen. 15:7).

But Abram, being childless, asked, “Adonai YHWH, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” (Gen. 15:8).

Following closely YHWH’s bidding, when daylight came, Abram gathered and prepared five sacrificial animals (later used for Israel’s purification, atonement, or sin offerings), cutting, dividing them in the middle, and making a bloodstained pathway between their halves (except for the birds). He drove off the vultures as he waited for God’s response.  When the sun was beginning to set, Abram fell into a deep sleep, a terrifying vision that was exceedingly dark.

 And YHWH spoke, “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Gen. 15:13-16).

Then, when the night blackness descended, Abram watched as a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the bloody pieces of the animals whose lives were given to cleanse, atone, and forgive sin. The pillars of smoke and fire went through a valley of death, confirming YHWH’s promise, which would require His death, offering Himself without a spot to God. On the same time and day that YHWH passed through the carcasses, He made a covenant with Abram. “The self-same day” signals future events overlayed on the same date that YHWH fulfills His covenant promise. This same day and time of YHWH’s covenant with Abram marked the beginning of something we must pay close attention to, for it defines our exodus. (“The self-same day” is the topic of Blog 38.)

YHWH promised Abraham that he would inherit the land and that a multitude of descendants would come from one born from his body at an appointed time. But at the time, ten nations lived in the land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, until the time their iniquity was complete. So, what was Abram to do? YHWH told him to walk through the land, living by faith, until the appointed time of inheritance of the city built by God.

8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. 9 And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith — for he was like a foreigner, living in a tent. And so did Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the same promise. 10 Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God (Heb. 11:8-10, NLT).

Takeaway:
Israel’s exodus from foreign oppressors (within Canaan and outside of Canaan) had its genesis in YHWH’s promise to Abram and in Abraham’s faith in His exodus covenant. From Abraham and Sarah’s son would come a mistreated and enslaved nation. But YHWH pledged to free them at a precise time and bring them back to inherit the land promised and dwell with them, as in the Garden of Eden. Orchestrating Israel’s exodus’s precise timing proved YHWH was El Elyon, God Most High.

Fun Factors:
The Promise of Genesis 15:13-16 contains 173 letters (40^th P, 18^th PP; 132 + 22); 48 words (15 + 16 + 17); letter sum of 10,537, 41 × 257; 762 + 692, or 41(162 + 12).

The pillar of smoke and fire passing through the cutting in Genesis 15:17-21 has 212 letters (4 × 53, 142 + 42); 55 words (the 10^th Fibonacci number, 12 + 22 + 32 + 42 + 52); letter sum of 16,825, 52 × 673, 212 + 1282, or 25(232 + 122).

Abraham’s faith in obedience to YHWH’s promise stated in Hebrews 11:8-10 has 299 letters (13 × 23); 52 words (4 × 13, 62 + 42); letter sum 28,249, 13 × 41 × 53, 52 + 1682; 168 marks the number of hours in a week and the sum of four consecutive primes, 37 + 41 + 43 + 47, primes related to His name and work. 

There are 168 prime numbers less than 1000.

The three scriptural sections detailing the promise of the exodus are marked by prime and Pythagorean primes, indicating the strength of YHWH’s uprightness in the sum of two squares (symbol of perfection). His name, El Elyon, with a letter sum of 197, is the 45^th prime and 21st Pythagorean prime, 142 + 12.