Genesis 15:21

The enumeration of Canaanite peoples whose land God promises to Abram — 'and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites' — concludes the expanded ten-nation list that specifies the full scope of the divine land-grant in Genesis 15:18-21. The detailed ethnographic enumeration, which varies in number and names across different Pentateuchal lists (Exodus 3:8; Deuteronomy 7:1), reflects the ancient Near Eastern practice of defining territorial boundaries by reference to their current inhabitants. The dramatic covenant ceremony of 15:9-17 — the divided animals, the deep sleep, the smoking furnace — has been analyzed as reflecting a suzerainty-treaty form in which only the sovereign party (Yahweh, passing through as the fire) assumes the covenant obligation. Paul reads Genesis 15:6 (Abraham's faith reckoned as righteousness) as foundational to the doctrine of justification by faith (Romans 4; Galatians 3).