A covenant made, Genesis 15

A warm desert wind caught the flap of his tent and swished in the stillness of the night. Abram lay awake staring at the ceiling, his heart pounding with a sense of occasion. The wind caught the flap again and blew it wide open, giving him a brief glimpse of a starry sky. He rolled, got to his feet, stepped through the tent and looked up at a vast canopy of stars that covered the sky. The camp remained silent as he crept away, up an embankment, outside the camp, where he lay down to gaze at the sky.

"Abram, count the stars". Abram rolled over and fell on his face in the dust, but kept silent. "As you see the stars, so shall your descendants be for number ... as numerous as the sands of the seashore. But the child you have sired, shall not be your heir, for you shall have your own son. I am the God who called you out of Ur to this land, which I have given to you and your descendants".

Abram lay still for hours, but as the morning sun streaked across the sky he got up, descended to the camp and took what he needed for a sacrifice. He spoke to no one, but led a heifer and a lamb into the hills. As the last star blinked out in the light of dawn, he mounted a hillock where he gazed out of over the land of his inheritance and worshipped God.

The life and times of Abraham (c) P Eleazar, www.Bethelstone.com