Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

3 1 5 :3-5 GENESIS
dress .and shows Abram as one. -.was , by no means
doubtful of Gad’s omnipotence. at the same time,
Abram voices the natural misgivings of the limited human
understanding.” Certainly this Station God Himself
recognized: hence His reiteration the subject-matter of
12:2-3 and 13:16, coupled with a-reply to Abrarn’s particular
complaint. 3 .
4. The Divine Promise of un Heir (yv. 4-6). .
(HSB, 25) : “The concern of Abraham here is made
intelligible by the Nuzi tablets, From. these tablets we
learn that childless couples used to adopt a slave on cgndition
that he would care for them ddnd,give them a proper
burial. If a natural son should be born later, the slave
heir was disinherited to a great ettent,*’’ Speiser (ABG,
112) : “We know now that in Hucrian family law, which
was also normative for the patriawhs, two types of heir
were sharply distinguished. One was the u$Zu or direct
heir; and the other was the ewuru or indirect heir, whom
the law recognized when normal inheritors were lacking.
Such an ewuw could be a member of a collateral line, and
at times even an outsider, depending on the circumstances.
Consequently, our Dammesek Eliezer-whoever he may
have been and whatever the first word might mean-was
juridically in the position of an ewuru. Here, then, is
another instance of Hurrian customs which the patriarchs
followed, but which tradition and its latet expounders were
bound to find perplexing.” V. 6 surely indicates that a
servant by the name of Eliezer, apparently a Damascene
by birth, was the only propsctive heir to Abram’s estate.
It is significant to note that the divine promise was specific:
Yahwe declared explicitly that, not Eliezer, but the one
who would isszte from Abrum’s own body would be his
heir. Thus Abram’s unwillingness to part with the hope
that the Promise, however seemingly impossible, would
eventually be realized, the unwillingness “which caused him
so pathetically to call the Divine attention to his childless
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