Dreadful Darkness Over Abram

     Abram "cut the animals in two and arranged the halves opposite each other..." Ready for the covenant. 

     Wait. Who is going to pass between the halves? Sun was setting. "Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him." 

     If that wasn't scary enough, the Lord said, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years" (it was 430). 

     "But I will punish the nation...and they (Abram's descendants) will come out with great possessions. You however will be...buried at a good old age" (it was 175)   

     "Darkness fell. A smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces."

     "The Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, 'To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates - the land of the..."  (all the -ites).  

Next: One Exalted Father

Note: In Jeremiah 34:17-18, the Lord was angry with those "who have violated my covenant." He will treat them "like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces...the leaders, court officials, priests, and all the people who walked between the pieces of the calf." 

God's passage between the halves, Genesis 15: He considers all Abraham's descendants as having passed through the covenant procedure with himself.