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Genesis Rabbah expands Abraham’s vision in Genesis 15 into a revelation of hidden history and final judgment. This follows other Jewish traditions seen in the Apocalypse of Abraham, where Abraham also receives secret knowledge.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Apocalypse of Abraham 9:6
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 Then a voice came to me speaking twice: "Abraham, Abraham!" 2 And I said: "Here I am!" 3 And He said: "Behold, it is I; do not fear, for I am before the worlds, and a mighty God who has created the light of the world. 4 I am a shield over you, and I am your helper. 5 Go, take me a young heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove and a pigeon, and bring me a pure sacrifice. And in this sacrifice I will lay before you the ages (to come), 6 and make known to you what is reserved, and you shall see great things which you have not seen (until now); because you have loved to search me out, and I have named you my Friend.
Genesis Rabbah 44:21
Aggadah
Rabbinic
“It happened when the sun had set, that there was extreme darkness, and, behold, there was a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch that passed between those pieces” (Genesis 15:17). “It was when the sun had set, that there was extreme darkness [alata]” – there was a thick mist. “Behold, there was a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch” – Shimon bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan: He [thereby] showed him four things: Gehenna; [the Four] Kingdoms; the giving of the Torah; and the Temple [service]. He said to him: ‘As long as your descendants are engaged in two [of these], they will be saved from [the other] two. If they deviate from the two, they will be sentenced with [the other] two.’ He said to him: ‘Through which do you wish your descendants to be punished, through Gehenna or through the Kingdoms?’ Rabbi Ḥanina bar Pappa said: Abraham chose the Kingdoms. Rabbi Yudan, Rabbi Idi, and Rabbi Ḥama bar Ḥanina said: Abraham chose Gehenna, but the Holy One blessed be He [demurred and] chose the Kingdoms on his behalf.
Date: 500 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... interpreters came to a further conclusion: what was particularly trying about this incident was the fact that God had actually shown Abraham far more than the period of slavery in Egypt to be endured by his descendants. To begin with, if God had shown Abraham four hundred years of future history, it seemed logical to interpreters that He would have shown him the rest as well, including the punishment to be meted out to the later "nation[s] which they serve." Such a notion could only be supported by the text's mention of the "dread and great darkness falling" on Abraham (Genesis 15:12)—for certainly such dread ought not to have been caused merely by the sight of his descendants' sojourn in, and exodus from, Egypt. Interpreters therefore came to view this incident as a fully prophetic apocalypse in which Abraham was afforded a view of all of human history, of heaven and hell, and other things normally hidden from the sight of mere mortals ..."
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