Abram's Sacrifice - (Genesis 15)

Genesis 15 describes the original covenant that God made with Abraham.

Here, in an original composition, I have painted the nocturnal scene pretty much as it is described in the scripture. In the foreground is Abram who has fallen asleep. He is having a nightmare about the future enslavement of his people by the Egyptians (you can see the pyramids up on the horizon line). In the middle ground are the animals that God commanded to be cut in half and laid out on the ground as a sacrifice. God himself, in the form of a smoking grill and a flaming torch (like the pillars of smoke and fire which led with the Jews around the Sinai) passed between the pieces. At the upper left a flock of birds of prey, silhouetted against the night sky, descend on the animal pieces before Abram drives them away.

I have never seen a painting of this subject in any museum, gallery or art history book. This is strange because it is one of the most visually compelling passages in the Bible. What makes this scene even more interesting for me is that it is one of the very few “portraits of God” in Scripture.