‘And when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell on Abram, and lo, a horror of great darkness fell on him.'
Words fail to describe the sacredness of that moment, and the awe and even godly terror that seizes hold of Abram. He falls into a deep sleep (compare Genesis 2:21; Job 4:13; Job 33:15-16), for wakeful he could not see God and live. And the horror of darkness is an awareness of inconceivable things that are occurring at this moment, which he can sense but cannot comprehend. An awareness of darkness, of unbelievable darkness, for before the light there must be darkness; it is as though this was a new creation (Genesis 1:2-3) and one hovers near who would destroy this symbolic act which speaks of something, although he knows not what, which will totally destroy him.
And Another will one day hang, with His blood shed, and he too will experience such intense and unbelievable darkness so that even the skies around Him will become dark in sympathy. But Abram knows nothing of this. Yet he is a prophet, and a prophet reveals better than he knows.
Now before the symbolic act, the words of the covenant must be spoken over the dead carcasses of the victims.