Large Abramic Sacrifice (Genesis 15)

Genesis 15 describes the original covenant that Abram made with God. Here I have painted the nocturnal scene pretty much as it is described. In the foreground is Abram who had fallen asleep and was 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 including the dove and the pigeon which were to remain whole. God himself, in the form of a smoking oven and a flaming torch (like the pillars of smoke and fire which traveled with the Jews in the Sinai) passed between the pieces. A flock of birds of prey, silhouetted against the night sky, descended on the animal pieces and Abrams drove them away. Though this scene is so visually compelling, I have never before seen it painted in any museum or art history book. What makes it even more interesting for me is that it is one of the first “portraits of God” in the Bible.