Genesis15chapter 15

This chapter is heard inside the third portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the call of Abram and the sign of circumcision (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The covenant of the pieces, the promise of the seed and the four hundred years are read as one part of a longer reading. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

The corpus holds the English text of four comments on this chapter and the reference alone for twenty more. Radak is quoted from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, and the one kept comment of Rashi from a CC-BY version.

Radak reads the complaint of the third verse with care for the man who makes it. Abram never thought that God had deceived him. He weighed two other reasons for the promise standing unfulfilled, that he had sinned since it was given, or that the seed promised was meant in some other way (Radak on Genesis 15:3:1).

The question of the eighth verse is read the same way. Radak holds that a man just credited with faith had not fallen into doubt. The question is about the holding rather than the giving, and it means how he may know that his offspring will keep the land (Radak on Genesis 15:8:1).

On the list of nations at the end of the chapter Rashi counts ten and notes that only seven were given. He reads the Kenite, the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite as Edom, Moab and Ammon, and says they are "destined to be possessed in the future" (Rashi on Genesis 15:19:1). Radak reads the land of the Philistines as part of what the text calls the Canaanite, and cites Joshua 13:3 for it (Radak on Genesis 15:21:1).

Rashi comments on sixteen verses of this chapter in versions the corpus holds by reference alone, because the licence Sefaria reports for them keeps the text out. They run from Rashi on Genesis 15:1:1 on the shield to Rashi on Genesis 15:20:1 on the nations. They cover the reckoning of righteousness in the sixth verse, the divided animals in the ninth and tenth, the deep sleep in the twelfth, and the four hundred years in the thirteenth. Ibn Ezra stands on three verses, at Ibn Ezra on Genesis 15:1:1, 15:4:1 and 15:7:1.

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty five under Midrash and five under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. The weight falls on the promise and on the four hundred years.

Bereshit Rabbah reads the third verse at 44:10 and 44:11, the eighth at 44:15, the tenth at 44:14 and 100:13, and the eleventh at 44:16. It reads the twelfth verse at 17:5 and 44:17, the fourteenth at 44:19 and 44:20, and the sixteenth at 41:5.

Aggadat Bereshit is the heaviest voice on the chapter. It reads the first verse at 13:1 and 13:2, the second at 37:1, the fifth at 28:3 and 39:1, and the sixth at 56:1 and 81:1. It reads the seventh verse at 15:1 and 67:2, the thirteenth at 61:3 and 65:3, and the eighteenth at 16:3 and 31:1.

Bamidbar Rabbah reads the ninth verse at 14:11 and the fifteenth at 11:7. The Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai reads the fourth verse at 15:7 and the sixteenth at 13:16. Bereshit Rabbati reads the eighth verse at Parashat Vayechi 21, and the seventeenth at Parashat Lech Lecha 19 and 33. Midrash Tanchuma is cited at Noach 15:6.

The Talmud is cited at Megillah 31b:5 on the ninth verse. The Jerusalem Talmud reads the last nations at Sotah 1:8:4 and Sheviit 6:1:13. Avot DeRabbi Natan is cited in its second recension at 43:26 on the second verse and 43:27 on the fifteenth.