Genesis 15:18-21

"In that day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Gergashite, and the Jebusite."

"In that day Jehovah made a covenant ..." This must be understood in the sense that God ratified and confirmed with this ancient type of oath the covenant already existing, and which was recounted in Genesis 12:1f. He also elaborated significant details not previously given:

1. Abram himself would not inherit the land at all, but it would be possessed by his posterity.

2. Even his seed would not possess the land until centuries should pass and the iniquity of the Amorite should have run its course and reached a fullness requiring their dispossession.

3. All ten of the nations of Canaan (standing here as a figure for the totality of the Canaanites) would, in time, be destroyed and the land repopulated by Israel.

4. In the 400 years preceding the ultimate possession of the land by Israel, the people would undergo slavery and affliction.

5. The nation that would thus subject them would be severely judged.

6. The Jews would finally leave the land of their oppression with great wealth.

7. The actual boundaries of Israel's ultimate domain were given. Such a great wealth of additional information more than justified the statement that, "In that day God made a covenant, etc. ..."

"From the river of Egypt ... the river Euphrates ..." This would seem to say, "From the Nile," since that great river could also be called "the river of Egypt," but the scholars are unanimous in the declaration stated thus by Dummelow: "This is probably the Wady of Arish on the border of Egypt."[20] This was precisely fulfilled in the days of the Solomonic Empire which embraced all of the territory included here.