The supreme Judge promises Abram that He will judge the nation that holds Abram's descendants as slaves.
God waited four centuries for the Amorites to become so corrupt that, as an act of mercy toward them, He had to remove them. He executed His judgment using the instrument of the Israelites—the former slaves, the descendants of Abram—coming into the land to dispossess the Amorites of the land they inhabited. There is a lesson in this for us. We just have to wait when God is working something like this out. We just have to wait until the righteous Judge of all mankind says the time is right for Him to execute justice.
God even considers the heathen and gives them an opportunity to repent. How long did God bear with Sodom and Gomorrah's sinful behavior before He re blasted them into oblivion? No one knows, but the Bible remarks about God's patience and longsuffering in dealing with them.
That last phrase—"your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite"—tells you whom He is talking about. He also says this in Ezekiel 16:3, directly after he says, "Jerusalem."
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