Genesis 12

Genesis 12:1 Then Yahveh said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kin and your father’s household to the land that I will show you.

Genesis 12:2 And I will make of you an influential nation, and I will bless you and make your name important and be a blessing.

Genesis 12:3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the land will be blessed.”

Genesis 12:4 So Abram went, as Yahveh had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Genesis 12:5 So Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had accumulated, and the throats that they had made in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

Genesis 12:6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were still occupying the land.

Genesis 12:7 Then Yahveh appeared to Abram and said, “To your seed I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to worship Yahveh, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 12:8 From there he traveled to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to Yahveh and called upon the name of Yahveh.

Genesis 12:9 And Abram journeyed on, setting out toward the Negev.

Genesis 12:10 But there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to stay there as a guest, because the famine in the land was heavy.[1]

Genesis 12:11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Notice, I know that you are a woman who looks beautiful,

Genesis 12:12 so when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.

Genesis 12:13 Say you are my sister, that things may go well with me because of you, and that my throat may be kept alive for your sake.”

Genesis 12:14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

Genesis 12:15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they bragged about her to Pharaoh. So, the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.

Genesis 12:16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he was given sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male slaves, female slaves,[2] female donkeys, and camels.

Genesis 12:17 But Yahveh cursed Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of the presence of Sarai, Abram’s wife.

Genesis 12:18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?

Genesis 12:19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, notice your wife; take her, and go.”

Genesis 12:20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

[1] כָּבֵד = heavy. Genesis 12:10; 13:2; 41:31; 43:1; 47:4, 13; 50:9, 10, 11.

[2] שִׁפְחָה = female slave. Genesis 12:16; 16:1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8; 20:14; 24:35; 25:12; 29:24, 29; 30:4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 18, 43; 32:5, 22; 33:1, 2, 6; 35:25, 26.

Genesis 12 quotes:

“Thus in Abraham the failure of Adam is partially reversed, and through his seed God promises to bless all humanity again. In Genesis 12:1-3 God promises Abram three things: nationhood (see 12:1-2), a dynastic kingdom (see 12:2, “a great name”) and a worldwide family (see 12:3).”

Hahn, Kimberly, and Michael Barber. Genesis to Jesus : Studying Scripture from the Heart of the Church. St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2007. p. 94.

“Yahweh now seems to center his attention on one man—from the men of one family, from among all the families on earth—to set him apart and interact with him for what will be an extended period of time and a significant block of our narrative (Gen. 12:1-25:10). We note that in what is said by the narrator about Abram, and in what Yahweh says to him in what follows, we learn nothing about this man that specifically motivates or justifies Yahweh’s particular attention. Unlike Noah, he is not described in moral or ethical terms. Nor is he said to have “walked with God.” He is not depicted as having done anything especially to attract Yahweh’s attention. In fact, if God is concerned with the generation of life, as he is in Genesis, for example, Abram is an unlikely choice for special attention. Genesis 12 opens with a remarkably unmotivated and thereby all the more remarkable speech by Yahweh.”

Humphreys, W. Lee. The Character of God in the Book of Genesis : A Narrative Appraisal. 1st ed., Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. p.82.

“Despite this repeated offer in the past, beginning with the word to Adam and Eve where he blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), humanity insisted on seeking meaning on its own terms by questing for a “name.” That is why the bold announcement in Genesis 12:2, where God declared that he would freely give a “name” to Abram, was so unexpected. Rather than it being a human achievement that came by means of Abram’s own works, it would come as a gift from God’s free grace.”

Kaiser, Walter C. Mission in the Old Testament: Israel As a Light to the Nations. 2nd ed., Baker Academic, 2012. p. 9.