A fear not of God
Fear Not, Abram, I Am Thy Shield
The dust of battle has barely settled. Abram has chased four kings across the north, pulled his nephew Lot out of captivity, and then refused every piece of plunder the grateful king of Sodom pressed on him. Now, in the still night after the victory, the word of the LORD comes to him in a vision, and the first thing it does is name a fear.
“After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”Genesis 15:1
The moment
Abram has just made enemies of powerful men, and armies do not forget a humiliation; they come back. He has also walked away from a fortune, and he is still an old man wandering a land that is not his, holding a promise but no heir to receive it. The fear is layered. There is the fear of reprisal from the kings he defeated, and beneath it the quieter dread that the reward he keeps trusting for will never actually arrive, that he will die with empty arms. God meets him at exactly this seam, in the vulnerable hour when the adrenaline is gone and the doubts speak loudest, and He speaks before the fear can harden into despair.
Why we need not fear
God does not merely tell Abram to be brave. He tells him who is standing in the dark with him. A shield is what stands between a man and the sword aimed at him, and God says that He Himself is that shield, His own presence the thing that absorbs the blow. And to the ache about the missing reward, God answers that He is the reward, His exceeding great self worth more than all the spoil of Sodom. The fear can be set down because the Protector and the Portion are one and the same, and He has bound Himself to Abram by His own word.
How Christ answers this fear
The promise God made in that vision travels all the way to Christ, who is the true Seed of Abram in whom every nation is blessed. Jesus is the shield that took the blow we feared, standing between us and the judgment we had earned. And He is the reward beyond all reward, for to have Him is to have everything the heart was made for. Abram was told that God is his exceeding great reward; in Christ that God comes near enough to touch, to follow, to die and rise with. The believer's future is not empty arms but the very presence of the One who called Abram His friend.
Questions people ask
What was Abram afraid of in Genesis 15?
Abram had just defeated four kings to rescue Lot and had refused the king of Sodom's reward. He likely feared retaliation from the armies he humbled, and he carried a deeper fear that God's promise of an heir and inheritance would never come to pass. God answers both fears by naming Himself as Abram's shield and his exceeding great reward.
What does it mean that God is Abram's shield and exceeding great reward?
A shield stands between a person and the weapon meant to harm them, so God was promising to be Abram's own protection. Calling Himself the exceeding great reward meant that God, and not the plunder Abram had refused, was the true prize. Both pictures say the same thing: God gives Abram nothing less than Himself.