Genesis 15
The Covenant between the Pieces
Still childless, Abram asks what God’s promises are worth. God shows him the stars, Abram believes, and when he asks how he can know the land will be his, God makes a covenant with him in the old way, passing alone as fire between the halves of the animals.
Start reading Background
The Lord had already promised Abram a great nation, the land, and a blessing for all families of the earth (Gen. 12:1–3; Gen. 13:14–17). Years had passed and Abram still had no child. Chapter 14 had just shown him rescuing Lot from four kings, receiving Melchizedek’s blessing, and refusing any reward from the king of Sodom (Gen. 14:14–24). Now “the word of the LORD” comes to him in a vision.
The chapter has two scenes, each opened by a question from Abram: the promise of a son under the night sky (verses 1–6), and the covenant for the land, made at sunset and in the dark (verses 7–21). In the story of the covenant, this is where God “formally initiates that relationship”; chapter 17 expands it, with new names and circumcision, and chapter 22 confirms it by oath (Gen. 17:1–8; Gen. 22:16–18).
Later scripture comes back to this chapter. Paul and James build on verse 6 (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23). Nehemiah’s prayer retells it: God found Abram’s heart “faithful” (ne’eman, from the same root as “believed” in verse 6), made a covenant to give him the land, “and hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous” (Neh. 9:7–8). And Joseph Smith’s revision adds verses in which Abram learns of the Resurrection and sees the days of the Son of Man.
The thread through the chapter
Abram asks God two questions, and each gets an answer he can see. The first is “what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?” (verse 2). God takes him outside and shows him the stars: “So shall thy seed be” (verse 5). The second is “whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (verse 8). This time God answers with a covenant ceremony: the animals are cut in two, and fire passes between the pieces (verses 9–17).
Between the two questions stands the verse the rest of scripture remembers: “he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness” (verse 6). The chapter does not set that faith against action. Abram believes, then does what he is told with the animals, and God answers by making a covenant with him. In one reading this is how God “reckoned Abram’s faith to him as righteousness, by making a covenant with him.”
The surprise is who binds himself. In the old covenant rite the parties walked between the halves of the slain animals, but here Abram is asleep, and only the smoking furnace and burning lamp pass through. God alone takes the oath, and He gives Abram the land in the past tense (“have I given,” verse 18) even though Abram’s seed must first be strangers and slaves for four hundred years.
Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.
The promise of a son
After these events the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward will be very great.” But Abram said, “Lord God, what will you give me, when I am still childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no children, so a servant of my household will be my heir.”
Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir. A son from your own body will be your heir.” He brought Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can count them. So many will your descendants be.” Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness.
1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
2 And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.
4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
The covenant prepared
The Lord said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit.” Abram asked, “Lord God, how can I know that I will inherit it?” The Lord said, “Bring me a heifer, a female goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a turtledove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought them all, cut the animals in half, and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. When birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.
8 And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?
9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.
11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.
The prophecy in the dark
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and a great and terrifying darkness came over him. The Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves there and will be oppressed for four hundred years. But I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will come out with great wealth. As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, because the wickedness of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.
13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
The covenant made
When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. That day the Lord made a covenant with Abram: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates: the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,
20 And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,
21 And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
Seeing Christ in Genesis 15
The LORD who cuts this covenant is Jehovah, and “Jehovah is the premortal Jesus Christ.” Paul says that in the promises to Abraham the scripture “preached before the gospel unto Abraham” (Gal. 3:8), and in Joseph Smith’s revision Abram’s own inheritance rests on the Son of Man’s death and rising (see the note on verse 6).
The fire between the pieces points the same way. In the rite, whoever passed between the halves called death on himself if the covenant failed, and here only God passes. “From a Christian viewpoint, God is possibly implying that he himself would be willing to be ‘torn asunder,’ suffering the effects of the broken covenant.” It is offered as a possibility, a reading rather than what the text states.
Worth exploring next
- The rite in Jeremiah. Jer. 34:8–22, where Judah breaks a covenant made between the halves of a calf.
- A covenant of rent garments. Alma 46:11–24, where Moroni’s people covenant by the same logic.
- Abraham’s faith in the New Testament. Rom. 4:1–25; Gal. 3:6–18; James 2:21–23; Heb. 11:8–13.
- The covenant in the Book of Abraham. Abr. 2:6–11; Abr. 3:11–15.
- The covenant renewed. Gen. 17:1–14; Gen. 22:15–18; Neh. 9:7–8.
- Cutting covenants. Jared T. Parker’s “Cutting Covenants” (Religious Studies Center) follows the rite from Genesis 15 through the ancient treaties and Jeremiah 34.
Sources & further reading
- The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
- Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
- Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
- The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
- Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 15, Gospel Library.
- Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
- “Pentateuch”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Amorites”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Euphrates”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Kenites”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Rephaim”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Hittites”, Bible Dictionary.
- Scripture Central, “Why Did the Lord Tell Abraham That Neither His Servant Nor Ishmael Would Be His Heir?”, KnoWhy #838, Feb. 10, 2026.
- L. W. King (trans.), The Code of Hammurabi, Read in the Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
- Jared T. Parker, “Cutting Covenants”, In The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, The 38th Annual BYU Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. D. Kelly Ogden and others (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009).
- Shon D. Hopkin, “The Covenant among Covenants: The Abrahamic Covenant and Biblical Covenant Making”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 223–50.
- John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78.
- Thomas R. Valletta, “The Captain and the Covenant”, In The Book of Mormon: Alma, the Testimony of the Word, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1992), 223–48.
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
- Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
- Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.
- Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).