After the battle with the kings and the rescue of Lot, Abram's heart had grown restless, burdened with questions no man could answer. He sat in silence beneath the glow of the stars above, that shimmered like cold fire.
Then, without warning, the air shifted.
A voice - ancient and thunderous, yet calm like the whisper of wind through a canyon - reached him in a vision.
"Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward."
Abram rose to his feet, heart pounding. But there was sorrow in his eyes as he answered, "Sovereign Lord... what can You possibly give me? I remain without child. Eliezer of Damascus, my servant, is the only heir I have."
He stepped forward, his voice shaking, "You've given me no child of my own. Will a servant carry my name into the future?"
Then the Voice came again, stronger this time - certain.
"Eliezer will not be your heir. Your own son will be."
The vision shifted. Abram found himself standing beneath a sky overflowing with stars, countless and ancient. The Voice beckoned him to look upward.
"Count them, if you can."
The stars blinked down like the eyes of angels.
"So shall your descendants be."
Abram's breath caught in his throat. In that moment, he believed - not just with his mind, but with his soul. And it was in that belief that he was found righteous.
The Voice spoke again.
"I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur, to give you this land as your inheritance."
Still, Abram asked quietly, "How can I know, my Lord, that I will possess it?"
And the Lord gave him an answer - not in words alone, but in a ritual both holy and haunting.
"Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old," the Voice instructed, "along with a dove and a young pigeon."
Abram obeyed. He brought the animals, cut the larger ones in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other on the dry ground, just as it was done in ancient covenants. The birds, he did not divide. As the sun lowered, shadows stretched over the valley. Birds of prey descended, drawn by the blood, but Abram waved them off.
Then twilight fell.
And with it, a great darkness - thick and dreadful - swept over Abram like a cloak of stone. He fell into deep sleep. In the silence of that sleep, the Lord spoke again:
"Know this for certain: your descendants will be strangers in a land not their own. They will be enslaved. Oppressed. For four hundred years."
Abram stirred in his dream.
"But I will punish the nation that enslaves them," the Lord continued, "and they will come out with great wealth."
"You, Abram, will go to your ancestors in peace. You will live long and die full of years. And in the fourth generation, your descendants shall return here - for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its end."
And then, as the sun vanished behind the hills, it happened.
Out of the darkness came a smoking firepot. And beside it, a blazing torch - aflame yet unharmed. They passed between the pieces of the animals, moving slowly, deliberately.
This was no ordinary fire.
This was the fire of covenant.
That night, the Lord made a solemn vow to Abram.
"To your descendants I give this land. From the river of Egypt to the great Euphrates - the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites."
A promise sealed in flame and starlight.
A destiny written across the sky.