After these things Yahweh’s word came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
⛓ Read Genesis 15 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion2
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Paul's argument from 'reward' (misthos) in 4:4 ('to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace') draws on the immediate context of Genesis 15:6, where God tells Abraham in 15:1 'your reward shall be very great.' Paul reads the surrounding promise narrative, not just the proof-text.
Medium confidenceThe angel's nocturnal 'Don't be afraid' to Paul echoes the formula of the divine reassurance oracle that recurs across the OT, of which God's night-word to Abram ('Fear not... I am thy shield') is the paradigm. The salvation-oracle form (night setting, fear-not, promise of protection and destiny) is well attested; the specific verbal tie is to the formula, not this verse alone.
Low confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'A vision appeared to Paul in the night' uses the stock revelatory idiom of the word/vision of the LORD coming in the night; Abram's night vision is the paradigm of God commissioning through nocturnal revelation. Generic verbal resonance.
Low confidenceThe 'shield of faith' (thyreos tes pisteos, 6:16) may evoke the LORD's word to Abram, 'I am your shield,' the foundational pairing of shield and faith (Abram 'believed'). Coherence with the faith motif is suggestive but the lexical contact is generic, so a low-confidence echo.
Low confidence