As the sun goes down, a deep sleep falls on Abram, and a thick and dreadful darkness comes over him. The 'deep sleep' (Hebrew: tardemah) is the same word used for Adam's sleep in Genesis 2:21, when God took the rib. In both cases, the deep sleep is the prelude to a divine act that the human participant cannot produce or control — the act belongs entirely to God. The darkness that accompanies the sleep is 'thick and dreadful' — the encounter with the holy is not comfortable. Exodus 20:18–21 describes Israel's terror before the divine presence at Sinai; Isaiah 6:5 records Isaiah's declaration of ruin at the sight of the holy God. The application: genuine encounter with God in Scripture is regularly accompanied by a sense of overwhelming otherness — darkness, dread, sleep. The clean, comfortable God of popular imagination is not the God of Genesis 15. Prepare for the real encounter to be more overwhelming than expected.

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