Genesis 15:12

And when the sun was going down.

The sunset of the day following the vision (compare verse. with 12);. day that had been spent in preparation for the ratification of the covenant, had come without the manifestation of God as. ratifying party. Then as the twilight came, the solemn, sweet and impressive hour,. deep sleep, divinely sent, fell upon Abraham.

A deep sleep.

The same term is used of the preternatural sleep that fell upon Adam before the creation of Eve. The Septuagint version, which is often more reliable than the. Hebrew text, and which received the endorsement of Christ and his apostles, has here "ecstasy" or trance, which,. suspect, is the idea. The trance was. release of the mind from attention to earthly things in order that it might be fixed on divine things.

A horror of great darkness.

The prophets were frequently appalled at the manifestation of the presence of God. There was. sense of dread, awe, and divine fear.. great darkness gathered around Abraham before the burst of light which always accompanied. manifestation of God. Some think that the darkness that environed Israel, now embraced in the person of Abraham, was prophetic of the long bondage of the Abrahamic race in Egypt, which is immediately after foretold.