Counting the stars

Years pass and nothing happens. Abram finally says it plainly: you have given me no children, and a servant will inherit everything. God does not rebuke the complaint. He takes him outside at night and says, count the stars, if you are able — so shall your offspring be. And Abram believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. One sentence, and the whole New Testament will lean on it: the relationship is not earned by achievement but received by trust. Then God does something startling. In the covenant ritual of the day, both parties walked between the split animals, staking their own lives on the deal. Here Abram sleeps, and God alone passes through. The promise is one-sided on purpose. If it fails, it is God who bears the cost.