ספר בראשית

Genesis ‎15,8. “how can I be certain that I will inherit it?" (the land ‎of Canaan) When looking at these words superficially, we must ‎wonder how someone of Avram’s caliber could express doubt in ‎G’d’s promise being fulfilled. The very idea that Avram requested ‎some kind of visible token or miracle to confirm the fact that G’d ‎would keep His promise is revolting! Since when is G’d required to ‎confirm His prophecy by performing a miracle?Furthermore, ‎if this was the meaning of Avram’s question, he should have ‎asked: “how do I know that You will give the land to me!” After ‎all, this was what G’d’s promise to him had sounded like. To the ‎average reader of the Torah, G’d’s words meant that the reason ‎G’d had saved Avram from Nimrod’s furnace was in order to give ‎him the land of Canaan. Besides, how does G’d’s answer that ‎Avram would die at a ripe old age long before the 400 years He ‎had spoken of would have ended, answer Avram’s question? How ‎is the promise that after 400 years of being strangers in a foreign ‎land, and slaves to wit, and that the fourth generation would ‎leave bondage with great riches, relevant to Avram’s ‎question?If, according to the plain meaning of the text, G’d’s ‎answer included a punishment for Avram’s having questioned ‎that G’d would keep His promise the prediction that his offspring ‎would have to endure a period of enslavement in a foreign land, ‎before leaving their with great riches, how does the line ‎commencing with ‎ידוע תדע וגו'‏‎, contain even the remotest hint of ‎this? We do not find anywhere an allusion that Avram’s question ‎of ‎במה אדע כי אירשנה‎, “by means of what sign will I know that I will ‎inherit it,” was in any way inappropriate, much less punishable! ‎On the contrary, the assurance that Avram himself would not ‎share either the exile of the slavery but would die contentedly of ‎old age, sounds like the opposite of any punishment! The fact ‎that G’d implies that he will join his father in the hereafter ‎suggests that even Terach, Avram’s father, has a share in that ‎hereafter. Rashi, who was so astounded at that verse, ‎concluded that in his old age, Terach had become a monotheist, a ‎repentant sinner.At any rate, the suggestion that one of the ‎patriarchs, who are presented to us as the carriers of the legs of ‎merkavah, the Divine chariot, would be equated with Terach is too ‎mind-boggling to be considered seriously.