Genesis 15:2

2. Abram said Abram’s words here betray a sort of doubt and some trouble .

Lord God Hebrews, Adonai Jehovah, words occurring in this connexion here for the first time . The same combination of the words occur elsewhere in the Pentateuch only at Genesis 15:8; Deuteronomy 3:24, and Genesis 9:26; and in all these instances the words are a direct address to God .

What wilt thou give me What is that “great reward” to be? All the riches of the earth are worthless to me without an heir .

I go childless The expression may mean either, I continue childless, that is, go on in life without issue; or, I go forth childless; that is, as one of the Targums has it, go forth out of the world without an heir.

The steward of my house Hebrews, A son of possession of my house. The one who would have the possessions of my house, on my decease, would be my principal servant, and overseer of my entire household.

This Eliezer of Damascus Hebrews, this Damascus Eliezer; or, he of Damascus, Eliezer. This Eliezer is commonly supposed to be the eldest servant of Abram’s house mentioned in Genesis 24:2, and the supposition is every way probable . When Abram departed from Haran and came into the land of Canaan he would naturally have passed through Damascus . An old tradition related by Nicolaus of Damascus, (see Josephus, Ant. 1: 7,) associates the Hebrew patriarch with that city, and this Eliezer may have been born in Abram’s household while he tarried in or near Damascus, and thence have been known afterward as the Damascene. Kitto’s notion, (see Kitto’s Cyc.,) that he was a relative of Abram nearer than Lot, and therefore first heir to his possessions, seems far-fetched, and altogether unnecessary. The patriarchal law of inheritance seems to have preferred the members of the household before any other relations. The Mosaic law of inheritance (Numbers 27:8-11) was a later institution; but even if prevalent in Abram’s time, it applied to landed estates rather than moveable possessions . Abram was now utterly cut off from native land and kindred, and not yet owning a foot of land, he would not contemplate the passing over of his flocks and herds and other riches to any but his own dependents .