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After Avram moves to Canaan and fights the War of the Four Kings, he has the famous vision of the ברית בין הבתרים:
There’s one problem with this: ועבדום וענו אתם ארבע מאות שנה. The prophecy of 400 years of slavery isn’t right:
Many explanations have been offered, but Rashi (based on סדר עולם) says that both counts are correct; they are simply counting from different starting points:
חז״ל in translating the Torah avoided the problem by changing the wording:
But there’s a problem. If the ברית בין הבתרים was 430 years before יציאת מצרים and 30 years before the birth of יצחק, then it must have happened when Avraham was 70 years old:
But he only came to Canaan when he was 75:
Tosfot says, אין הכי נמי, it did take place 5 years before he came to the land. Our parasha is a flashback:
Artscroll says that Avraham must have come to Canaan before he was told to go:
But this is not what Tosafot says and is not implied in the text. He already had some awareness of the importance of the land, even before he was commanded:
Rav Medan explains:
When we look carefully at the entire paragraph, there is textual evidence that the ברית בין הבתרים was a flashback:
The dividing point is is the pasuk והאמן בה׳; the verb is in the past perfect (“he had believed in ה׳”; ”he had had faith“ sounds funny). And it ends with the past perfect, ביום ההוא כרת ה׳ את אברם ברית (”on that day ה׳ had sealed a covenant with Avram“). This division is reflected in the division of aliyot as well.
So, in this model, why mention the ברית בין הבתרים here? Rashi introduces the story as a consequence of the war:
The gemara offers three reasons for the ברית בין הבתרים and its augury of slavery and oppression:
I want to focus on רבי יוחנן's approach: Avraham had a golden opportunity to establish the מלכות ה׳ and missed it:
Note that this is still compatible with the model that the ברית בין הבתרים happened much earlier. A prophecy is never explicit and unambiguous; the words of כי גר יהיה זרעך בארץ לא להם would certainly come true, but it was Avraham’s actions that determined the fulfilment of those words: נשתעבדו בניו למצרים מאתים ועשר שנים.
This is what Avraham’s mission had been before he moved to Canaan:
And רבי יוחנן says that it should have continued to be his mission. Instead his focus became his family and its future, and the conflicts that will dominate the rest of ספר בראשית.