Believed and reckoned as righteousness

“Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” BSB supplies “Abram”; the Hebrew has a waw and a Hiphil perfect, “and he believed in the Lord.” The next verb is active, “and he reckoned it to him, righteousness”; BSB has the passive “it was credited,” and the Greek has the same passive, as recorded in the language notes. The Lord has been the speaker, and is the nearest subject of the active verb: that is a grammatical observation, and it matches the held view that the Lord reckoned Abram’s believing as righteousness. Calvin writes that “In the first place, the faith of Abram is commended, because by it he embraced the promise of God;” and that it is commended, in the second place, “because hence Abram obtained righteousness in the sight of God, and that by imputation.” The Targum reads “And he believed in the Lord, and had faith in the (Memra) Word of the Lord, and He reckoned it to him for righteousness”. Jubilees has “And he believed in the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Those are their readings. The later use of the verse in Romans 4, Galatians 3, and James 2 is treated in the xrefs of this chapter and is pointed to in Rom 4:3: Gen 15:6 in the MT, the LXX, and Paul, Doctrinal note: God credits righteousness, and faith is the instrument (Romans 4:3–8), and Abraham the tested law-keeper (4:2) and 'heir of the world' (4:13), not taken up again here. See The heir, the stars and “he reckoned it”.