Genesis 15
v.1
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
Abram had just refused the exceeding riches from his enemies’ spoils so Yahweh would get all the glory. These words from the Lord are for those, like Abram, who have chosen heavenly riches over earthly riches. God says to not fear and to know He is our shield and our great reward.
v.5
He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
As he had commanded him to view the land, and see in its dust the emblem of the multitude that would spring from him, so now, with a sublime simplicity of practical illustration, he brings him forth to contemplate the stars, and challenges him to tell their number, if he can; adding, “So shall thy seed be.” He that made all these out of nothing, by the word of his power, is able to fulfill his promise, and multiply the seed of Abram and Sarai.
v.6
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
The faith that made Abram righteous wasn’t so much believing in God (as we usually speak of believing in God), as it was believing God. Those who only believe in God (in the sense of believing He exists) are merely on the same level as demons (James 2:19).
v.16
In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
First. The Lord foreknows the moral character of people. Second. In his providence he administers the affairs of nations on the principle of moral rectitude. Third. Nations are spared until their iniquity is full. Fourth. They are then cut off in retributive justice. Fifth. The Amorite was to be the chief nation extirpated for its iniquity on the return of the seed of Abram. Accordingly, we find the Amorites occupying by conquest the country east of the Jordan, from the Arnon to Mount Hermon, under their two kings, Sihon and Og Numbers 21:21-35. On the west of Jordan we have already met them at En-gedi and Hebron, and they dwelt in the mountains of Judah and Ephraim Numbers 13:29, whence they seem to have crossed the Jordan for conquest Numbers 21:26. Thus had they of all the tribes that overspread the land by far the largest extent of territory. And they seem to have been extinguished as a nation by the invasion of Israel, as we hear no more of them in the subsequent history of the country.