It should also be noted that the pericope of the Covenant between the Pieces helps to explain the significance of “cutting” a covenant”.  The biblical author says:

And here, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch עבר, crossed, between the parts. On that day, YHWH כרת, cut, a covenant with Abram (Gen. 15:17–18).

          The use of the verb עבר, cross, to signify that God––in the shape of a smoking furnace and flaming torch as at the Sinai theophany, as Ramban points out––crossed between the parts before He כרת, cut, a covenant with Abram illustrates that the act of “cutting” of a covenant signifies that it would be what in Rabbinic Hebrew is called an עברה,   transgression, for either party to violate it.[i]  The Deuteronomist also uses the verb עבר, cross, in connection with the “crossing” which denotes the establishment of a covenant (Deut. 29:11) and the transgression that occurs when the covenant is violated (Deut. 17:2), indicating that the word is a Janus word.[ii]  The act of “cutting” a covenant and its establishment and potential transgression are therefore explained by language in Gen. 15:17–18, reflecting the Deuteronomist’s language that I have cited.  This explanation implies that ritual which God performs entails God taking upon himself the fate of the animals, as Lipton points out.[iii]  This unconditional undertaking on the part of God forshadows circumcision, the condition which God imposes on Abraham and his descendants in the Covenant of the Flesh which concludes the literary unit that begins with the Covenant between the Pieces, echoing the single covenant God makes with Noah, as I have explained.[iv] The Covenant between the Pieces is preceded by the words:

והאמן, and he trusted, in YHWH, ויחשבה לו לצדקה, and he accredited it to him as merit. (Gen. 15:6)

The Covenant of the Flesh begins with the words:

And Abram was 99 years old and YHWH appeared to him and said: I am El‑Shaddai.  התהלך לפני והיה תמים, go before me and be perfect.  (Gen. 17:1)

Before making the Covenant between the Pieces with Abram God considers him to be a man who is צדיק, righteous, while before making the Covenant of the Flesh with him He considers him to be תמים, perfect. The two covenants God makes with Abram therefore echo the single one He makes with Noah whom the biblical narrator describes as צדיק, righteous, and תמים, perfect: 

These are the begettings of Noah.  Noah was a man who was צדיק, righteous; תמים, perfect, was he in his generations. (Gen. 6:9)