On the other hand, Onkelos, Rashi and Ramban (on 15:9) all follow the definition that the word means three types of animals, and there is linguistic support for this definition. Kohelet 4:12 refers to a rope that is meshulash, and clearly the word means three strands of the rope and not a three-year-old rope. Yechezkel 42:6 refers to a building which is meshulashot and means a three-tier building and not a three-year-old building. Also, Ramban notes that there no such thing as a three-year-old heifer, as by three years the animal is considered a cow. Finally, unless a person keeps his/ her animals separated by each year, then a person cannot even know which animals are three years old or four years old. Did Avram keep his animals separate by years?
The net result is that we will follow the idea that Avram was to take three of each type of animal. Avram was to cut the nine mammals in half and lay each half facing each other, but the birds (written in the singular) were not to be cut, 15:10. Vultures descended on the animals, but Avram chased them away, 15:11. Avram was then told a prophecy that his descendants would suffer in a foreign land but the fourth generation would return to the land, 15:12-16. After this prophecy, a fire (a smoking oven and a fiery torch), which symbolized G-d's presence, passed between the pieces, and G-d made a covenant that Avram's children would inherit the land, 15:17-21. Accordingly, this covenant is referred to as the covenant of (between) the pieces.
This ceremony raises several questions. Why was there a need for animals at all? Once there was a need for the animals, is there any significance to the types and numbers of animals? Why were the birds not divided?
With regard to why there was a need for animals altogether, Rashi (on 15:10) explains that the ancient way to make a covenant was for an animal to be split and for the partners in the covenant to pass through the divided animal. Thus, in Hebrew the description for making a covenant is literally called to cut a covenant. Rashi quotes Jeremiah 34:18-20 which records that the princes of Yehuda and Yerushalayim passed between a divided calf in order to impress upon them that if they did not keep the covenant, then they would be punished and would become food for the animals. The passing through the animals was a type of self-imprecation, where the person accepts upon himself a potential punishment for not upholding his part of the covenant.
The idea would then be that the mammals were divided in order for the fire to pass through them, and this passing through established the covenant. Yet, can the passing of the fire through the animals signify the idea of self-imprecation as occurs in Jeremiah 34? Was G-d calling upon Himself a future punishment? Gerhard Hasel (1981) argues that one cannot compare Jeremiah 34 to Bereshit 15 since it cannot be that G-d was making a self-imprecation. Instead, he points out that ancient treaties from the second millennium BCE invoke the killing of an animal as a "rite of treaty ratification, symbolizing the binding status of the covenanting parties," and by these treaties there was no evidence that one or both parties to the treaty passed through the animals. Thus, just the cutting of the animals signified the making of the covenant.
Why then did the fire pass through the pieces? Hasel suggests that this act was a divine ratification of the covenant that G-d "irrevocably pledged the fulfillment of His covenant promise to the patriarchs." Another possibility is from the Rashbam (on Shemot 24:11 and Shemot 33:18) that the fire was an example of a theophany which accompanies all the covenants with G-d.
Why did Avram not pass through the animals either before or after the fire? Maybe Avram did not need to pass between the animals since the covenant did not obligate him in anyway because the covenant was G-d's promise that Avram's descendants would inherit the land. In addition, as explained by Hasel, there was no need for Avram to pass through the animals since the covenant was made just by the cutting up of the animals. On the other hand, maybe Avram did pass through symbolically, see our discussion below on 15:17, “The imagery of the moving oven in the covenant of the pieces.”
With this understanding we know understand why there were two birds. The birds seem to have been too small to cut in half, and then by having two birds, one could be placed facing the other, see Ramban (on 15:10, also see Hizkuni on 15:10). Furthermore, as 15:10 refers to the birds in the singular, these two birds became as one, since each bird was considered a half bird, like the animals that were cut up. Accordingly, in total there were two columns (or rows) with each column having three half heifers, three half goats and three half rams, and a bird.
Is there any significance to the type of animals chosen? Many answers have been suggested. One (see Genesis Rabbah 44:14,15, Rashi on 15:6,9 and Rambam on 15:10), is that prior to the ceremony Avram has asked by what merit would his descendants would inherit the land and G-d answered him by the merit of the sacrifices. Thus, the choice of animals was because G-d was instructing Avraham which animals would be suitable for sacrifices. Yet, Benno Jacob (1974, p. 101, quoted by N. Leibowitz, 1976, p. 149) argues that the ceremony here has no connection with sacrifices since there was no altar, no blood was poured out and nothing was burnt. Rashi (on 15:10, also see Radak on 15:10) also suggests that the mammals were symbolic of the nations of the world, while the Jewish people were symbolized by the birds. A simpler idea is that Benno Jacob suggests that the animals were chosen because they were available. Another possibility is that though the animals were not meant as sacrifices still they had to be pure animals since the fire that passed through them symbolized G-d's presence.
N. Leibowitz (1975, pp. 41,42, see also Benno Jacob (1974, p. 103, also see S. R. Hirsch 1989, pp. 278, 279, on 15:9) quotes from R. Yosef Ibn Kaspi (1280-1345) that the animals related to the ensuing prophecy of 15:13-16 that the fourth generation would come to the land of Israel. The three divided animals represented the three generations that would suffer in a foreign land, while the birds, which were not divided, symbolized the generation that would go free. This symbolism is not just that birds fly. But also, the birds were a completely different type of animal than the other three animals which were mammals, and this indicates that the fourth generation was completely different than the previous three generations. Note this parallelism is not exact since we have no knowledge how many generations actually were slaves in Egypt, and symbolism of the birds is that they go free but this does not mean that they would fly to the land of Israel. However, there definitely is a connection between the animals and the number four, and the prophecy of the return of the fourth generation was the crucial aspect of the prophecy since it answered Avram’s question in 15:8, how will I know that my children will inherit the land?
Why was there a need for the quantity of mammals and birds? In the ceremony recorded in Jeremiah only one calf was divided. Why here was one animal not sufficient? My guess is that the ten animals (three heifers, three goats, three rams, and the two birds who become one) is parallel to the message of the prophecy that accompanied the covenant that Avram would receive the land of 10 nations, 15:18-21. This would be a second connection between the taking of the animals and the ensuing prophecy in addition to the connection between the number four by the animals and the ensuing prophecy.
Bibliography:
Hasel, Gerhard, 1981, The meaning of the animal rite in Genesis 15, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 19, pp.61-78.
Hirsch, S. R. (1808 -1888), 1989, The Pentateuch, rendered into English by Isaac Levy, second edition, Gateshead: Judaica Press.
Jacob, Benno (1869-1945), 1974, The first book of the bible: Genesis, commentary abridged, edited and translated by Earnest I. Jacob and Walter Jacob, New York: Ktav Publishing House.
Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1975, Study of commentators on the Torah and the approach how to teach them: The book of Bereshit, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization (Hebrew).
Leibowitz, Nehama, 1976, Studies in Bereshit, translated by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization.
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