Genesis 15:15 Commentary and Bible Study

‘You will not see this’, says God to Abram – ‘and thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace.’ You will not know anything about this, you will not be in that oppression. ‘Thou shalt be buried in a good old age’, before all this happens. But then, ‘in the fourth generation they shall come hither again’, that is, the Israelites will return and they will ultimately occupy Canaan the land of promise. And then an explanation is given for this delay: ‘For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.’ So God is, among other things, waiting until he has given the Canaanites in the land the ultimate opportunity to repent. They are here called the Amorites rather than the Canaanites, because at that time the Amorites were the largest portion of them, so Amorite is put for Canaanite, and the details are given more specifically in a few verses later. Those evil occupants of Canaan! God is in his patience waiting till their godlessness reaches a limit. He is giving them four hundred years plus to repent before he determines that the Israelites will clear them out of the land. Sometimes people say, ‘Isn’t it all very aggressive that in the Old Testament God told the Israelites to push the Canaanites out? When you read your Bible, you see it quite differently. Four hundred years of mercy before their iniquity has reached its upmost pitch, and they have got to go. What patience God shows towards human beings!