 Genesis 15 verse 16, what does it mean that an iniquity of the Amorites is not complete? What does complete mean? Is God waiting until a certain amount of time has passed or until the iniquity has reached a point where He will no longer allow it to continue? It almost sounds as if the Amorites have the protection of the unseen realm with a prior agreement that they could send up to a certain point in time. I would think that's reading a lot into the the last part there is reading a lot into the passage. There's certainly nothing in this passage or in any other passage that indicates that God sort of just winks at sin or you know apostasy or whatever like like there's a quota to fulfill before He gets angry. There's nothing like that but I understand the trajectory though. I think to start off it's good to to remind ourselves that Amorites is a generic term in some cases in some context and I would make it part of this context relating to giant clans. I wrote about this in unseen realm where there are you know places in Joshua like Joshua chapter 7 I think it's around verse 7 referred to the occupants of the land as Amorites. You certainly get that in Amos 2 9 through 10 referring to the those who were driven out and also specifically the ones who were very tall as Amorites. That's important because it's abundantly clear that there are other ethnic groups in the land. You get Parasites, Hittites, Hivites, you know all that that whole list but the Amorites is sort of this this again in certain contexts this umbrella term for the giant clans. So I think that that's important to sort of have running in the background when we think about this. I actually think there are two options here neither of which is is about again what I would loosely refer to here just for the sake of the question as sort of a sin quota or an evil evilness if that's even a word quota. Option number one I think the easiest parsing of the comment is that it's an expression that means something like it's not yet time to punish the Amorites. Okay for whatever reason we wouldn't be given a reason. Not that hey they're not quite wicked enough for me to get angry about them. I don't think that's the point. I think it's God has his own reasoning his own timing which may factor into the second option here but I think you know just looking at it like it's not yet time to punish the Amorites. I've not decided yet to act on the Amorites. Now you could also read it though that God's judgment of the Amorites wouldn't necessarily wait until the Conquest that we think of under Moses and Joshua but God was about to initiate it and it would take a long time but Abraham's seed because since he's talking to Abraham Genesis 15 Abraham's seed would be the one that the vehicle through which the Amorites would ultimately be judged but it would occur over a long period of time. So the second option I guess I could put it this way you could argue that it means the Amorites haven't yet been fully punished for their iniquity or that their punishment is about to be launched and will be in process for a long time. Now that option would presume again as I write about an unseen realm in the discussion of Aug's bed that option would presume that Amorite is sort of a conceptual play on Babylonian or the the idea that Babylon was the source of evil and chaos and you get there because Mar 2 mar.tu and Sumerian all caps Mar 2 which was their word for Amorite it actually you know there's a Sumerian term here at the base of Amorite is what I'm trying to say here and Mar 2 is the Sumerian word Mar 2 and Sumerian vaguely refers to the Aryan population west of Sumer and you know at Babylon sort of that general area so by since that was the term there maybe Amorite comes from Mar 2 and then that links the Amorites to the Babylonian part of the world and when once you do that the whole Babylonian complex of ideas in scripture especially Genesis 1 through 11 so you know why is the world you know so messed up while there as I've said many times here there are three reasons for that it's the fall Genesis 6 and then the Babel event well the Genesis 6 event and the Babel event if anybody's read unseen realm and especially if you've read reversing Hermon you know that episodes 2 and 3 are deeply entrenched in this idea of Babylon as the source of everything that is contrary to the way the God of the Bible wants it to be and so that there could be this thing going on with the term Amorite so you might have this you know in play that that God is about to act they haven't yet been you know punished for their iniquity but hey it's right around the right around the corner and in terms of you know God's perspective because he's doesn't really care about time but he's going to raise up the mechanism for punishment through Abraham and his seed and that's ultimately what happens in the biblical story so now we know to add another layer here we know from Deuteronomy 2 and 3 that the punishment of the giant clans was an ongoing process okay involving Abraham's descendants Abraham's seed versus the giant clans we know that because if we read Deuteronomy 2 and 3 it's the descendants of Esau that were used to get rid of the giants in the transjordan at least most of them you know Agh of Bashan is still left and of course Moses and Joshua are going to take care of business there but in the process you know you've had other descendants of Abraham actually being the agents to address the Amorites and so maybe when when God you know speaks to Abraham in this way the iniquity the Amorites is not yet full you know he could either be saying sort of a little bit neutrally hey it's not yet time to punish them we'll get to that or some idea that well they haven't been fully punished yet you know for their iniquity but we're about to start that ball rolling so one there's a there's a bit of a time differential between the two options but in in neither case is it about the Amorites sort of meeting some bar of evilness you know some bar of iniquity so that now their punishment eligible they're their punishment eligible long before they get what's coming to them so again i don't think that's the point i think that the point is is something about either God's timing or again the amount of time the process through which the Amorites would be judged