Genesis 15:2

I go childless. Abram’s fear was not so much due to possible military reprisals as to the fact that he was still without an heir. From more immediate problems his mind reverted to the divine promise that had brought him to Canaan in the first place. How could God’s promise come true that he, childless as he was, should become the ancestor of a great nation? The combination, Lord God, ’Adonai Yahweh, occurs here for the first time. Recognizing in God his Lord, Ruler, and Monarch, Abram addresses Him as Adonai, “my Lord,” and adds to it the divine personal name Jehovah.

The steward of my house. Mesopotamian records, particularly from the city of Nuzi in patriarchal times, have shed a welcome light on this hitherto obscure passage. These records show that wealthy but childless couples might adopt one of their slaves to become the heir to all their property, and also to care for them in old age. The rights and duties connected with adoption were written, sealed, and then signed by several witnesses as well as by both parties to the agreement. Abram feared that no other course was left to him than to follow the common practice of the time and adopt his most trusted servant, Eliezer of Damascus, as his legal son and heir. This thought is expressed first in the Hebrew phrase which the KJV translates “steward of my house,” literally “the son of the possession of my house,” meaning “the one who shall be heir of my house.” The same thought is clearly repeated in the words, “Lo, one born in my house is mine heir” (v. 3). All the longings, sufferings, and disappointments of the years of Abram’s married life are expressed in this lamentation, that not one born of him, but only one born in his house would be his heir. Eliezer, born in Abram’s household and brought up as were all of Abram’s servants, in the fear of the Lord, was not only a trusted slave but a worthy follower of the faithful patriarch. He was “a man of piety, experience, and sound judgment” (PP 172).