NOTES for Gen 15:1-15

What a strange theophany at first glance: terror and darkness! What must Abraham have thought after experiencing such a revelation? How must he have imagined his God? Yet God repeats all the promises previously given to Abraham, making them still more specific. What is happening? Why was Abraham’s first encounter with God described in detail so strange? If darkness and terror were the meaning of the revelation Abraham received, we would have every reason to ask perplexed questions. A God who wishes to frighten is clearly not the God of love. But does He wish this? Or did it happen of itself? What could and should Abraham actually have seen and experienced when he met God face to face? What can a human being see and experience in such a case at all? He would hardly see anything, of course: this is the One, the Creator of heaven and earth, whom a human being cannot by definition see. The person looking would then most likely find impenetrable darkness before his eyes, as always happens when we face something entirely imperceptible to us. It is not surprising that on meeting God face to face, Abraham saw only “great darkness” (as the Hebrew text says), or more precisely saw nothing. Nor is it surprising that Abraham feels terror before this darkness: it is the terror of a finite human being before the infinite God, who has not yet done anything to diminish His majesty for humanity’s sake. At their first face-to-face meeting, it appears, God stood before Abraham as He is. Abraham responded accordingly. But this was only the beginning: the beginning of the story of God’s movement toward the human person, which in its time would culminate in that final step, the Incarnation of God—unto complete inseparability.