Genesis 15:6

Genesis 15:6, in plain English

Abram believed God's promise, and God counted that belief as righteousness—as right standing with Him.

Why it's here

This is the turning point. Abram chooses to trust God despite everything in his circumstances saying it's impossible. He doesn't see the son yet, doesn't have proof, but he believes anyway.

Who's speaking

The narrator (Moses) describing Abram's response

Where it sits in the story

This verse becomes foundational to everything Paul teaches about justification by faith in Romans and Galatians. Abram's belief—not his works, not his perfection, but his trust in God's word—is what makes him righteous. This is how the Christian life begins too: we believe God and are made right with Him.

The scholarly reading

Abram believed God, and this belief was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Language and setting

This single verse contains one of Scripture's most theologically pregnant moments. The Hebrew בִּחַשׁ־יְהוָה אֶת־אַבְרָם וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה uses the verb חשׁב (to count, reckon, impute), which implies a forensic or legal act: God credits righteousness to Abram's account based on his faith (אֱמוּנָה). Augustine, Luther, and Calvin all recognized this verse as foundational to the doctrine of justification by faith; Paul explicitly interprets it in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6. Abram's righteousness is not achieved through works but imputed through faith.

Voice

The narrator makes this theological pronouncement, but it represents God's decisive accounting.

Significance

This verse becomes the hinge upon which the entire biblical theology of justification swings. It establishes that righteousness before God is accessible not through achievement but through trust, a principle that will be explicitly developed in the New Testament and will undergird Christian soteriology from Paul onward.

4Then the word of the LORD came to Abram, saying, “This one will not be your heir, but one who comes from your own body will be your heir.”

5And the LORD took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”

6Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

7The LORD also told him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

8But Abram replied, “Lord GOD, how can I know that I will possess it?”

Read all of Genesis 15 — God takes Abram outside, points at the stars, and makes a promise. Abram believes — and it changes everything about how we understand faith.