Gen 12:1-9 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
Genesis begins at the beginning, tells of Noah and the flood, and then of Babel. Then it begins to tell of one family: “Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot” (Gen 11:27).
The passage takes care to record one line: “Sarai was barren. She had no child” (Gen 11:30). Terah took Abram, Sarai and Lot, and “They went from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there” (Gen 11:31). Later, “The days of Terah were two hundred five years. Terah died in Haran” (Gen 11:32).
This lesson begins in Haran.
1Now the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.
2I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
3I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they went to go into the land of Canaan. They entered into the land of Canaan.
6Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, Canaanites were in the land.
7The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” He built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8He left from there to go to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the LORD’s name.
9Abram traveled, still going on toward the South.
Leave. The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you” (v. 1). He is to leave three things: his country, his relatives, his father’s house. As for where he is going, the LORD says only, “the land that I will show you” (v. 1), and does not say where it is.
I will. Then comes a string of promises: “I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great” (v. 2). These promises are not only for Abram himself: “You will be a blessing” (v. 2), and “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (v. 3).
So Abram went. The passage then has just one line: “So Abram went, as the LORD had told him” (v. 4). It does not record what he said or thought; it records only his age: “Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran” (v. 4). He took his wife Sarai, his brother’s son Lot, their possessions and their people, “and they went to go into the land of Canaan. They entered into the land of Canaan” (v. 5).
Canaanites were in the land. He came to Shechem, to the oak of Moreh, and the passage adds: “At that time, Canaanites were in the land” (v. 6). The place he came to was not empty.
To your offspring. There, “The LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘I will give this land to your offspring’” (v. 7). At this point, the line the passage gave earlier has not changed: “Sarai was barren. She had no child” (Gen 11:30).
He built an altar. Abram heard this, and “He built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him” (v. 7). He moved on and, between Bethel and Ai, “pitched his tent”; “There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the LORD’s name” (v. 8).
Still going on. The last line of this passage is: “Abram traveled, still going on toward the South” (v. 9). He had come to the land the LORD would show him, yet he still lived in a tent, moving from place to place.
Many years later, Joshua spoke to the people of Israel. The LORD said through him, “Your fathers lived of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor. They served other gods” (Josh 24:2). And: “I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan” (Josh 24:3).
Readers can see this: what Abram left was more than a place. Israel later remembered that the LORD had taken their father from “beyond the River” (Josh 24:3).
Perhaps you, too, have left a familiar place: your hometown, your family, a job you held for a long time. Perhaps you are in a new place right now and do not yet know what comes next.
This lesson does not say that everyone has to leave the way Abram did. What it shows you is this: Abram did not know where he was going, but he knew who was speaking to him; and wherever he went, he built an altar to the LORD. The New Testament says the same of him: “He went out, not knowing where he went” (Heb 11:8).
This week: Think of a ‘new place’ in your life — a new city, a new job, a new season. This week, find a set time there to stop and call on the name of the LORD.
The LORD said to Abram, “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:3).
In the New Testament, Paul quotes it: “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you all the nations will be blessed’” (Gal 3:8).
The very first verse of the New Testament names Abraham too: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt 1:1).
These are read side by side: a man who went out from Haran and still had no child, and the genealogy at the opening of the New Testament.
Scripture: World English Bible.