Genesis 12:2 | 43
11:20 g Lk 3:35 11:24 h Lk 3:34
11:26 i Lk 3:34 j Jos 24:2
11:27 k ver 31; Ge 12:4; 14:12; 19:1; 2Pe 2:7
11:28 l ver 31; Ge 15:7
11:29 m Ge 17:15 n Ge 22:20
11:30 o Ge 16:1; 18:11
11:31 p Ge 15:7; Ne 9:7; Ac 7:4 q Ge 10:19
12:1 r Ac 7:3 *; Heb 11:8
12:2 s Ge 15:5; 17:2, 4; 18:18; 22:17; Dt 26:5 t Ge 24:1, 35
14 When She lah had lived 30 years, he be came the fa ther of Eber. 15 And af ter he be came the fa ther of Eber, She lah lived 403 years and had other sons and daugh ters.
16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he be came the fa ther of Pe leg. 17 And af ter he be came the fa ther of Pe leg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daugh ters.
18 When Pe leg had lived 30 years, he be came the fa ther of Reu. 19 And af ter he be came the fa ther of Reu, Pe leg lived 209 years and had other sons and daugh ters.
20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he be came the fa ther of Se rug. g 21 And af ter he be came the fa ther of Se rug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daugh ters.
22 When Se rug had lived 30 years, he be came the fa ther of Na hor. 23 And af ter he be came the fa ther of Na hor, Se rug lived 200 years and had other sons and daugh ters.
24 When Na hor had lived 29 years, he be came the fa ther of Te rah. h 25 And af ter he be came the fa ther of Te rah, Na hor lived 119 years and had other sons and daugh ters.
26 Af ter Te rah had lived 70 years, he be came the fa ther of Abram, i Nahor j and Haran.
Abram’ s Family 27 This is the ac count of Te rah’ s fam ily line.
Te rah be came the fa ther of Abram, Na hor and Ha ran. And Ha ran be came the fa ther of Lot. k 28 While his fa ther Te rah was still alive, Ha ran died in Ur of the Chal de ans, l in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Na hor both mar ried. The name of Abram’ s wife was Sa rai, m and the name of Na hor’ s wife was Mil kah; n she was the daugh ter of Ha ran, the fa ther of both Mil kah and Is kah. 30 Now Sa rai was child less be cause she was not able to con ceive. o
31 Te rah took his son Abram, his grand son Lot son of Ha ran, and his daugh ter-in-law Sa rai, the wife of his son Abram, and to gether they set out from Ur of the Chal de ans p to go to Canaan. q
But when they came to Har ran, they set tled there. 32 Te rah lived 205 years, and he died in Har ran.
The Call of Abram
The Lord had said to Abram,“ Go from your coun try, your peo ple and your fa ther’ s house hold to the land I will show you. r
12
a 2 Or be seen as blessed
2“ I will make you into a great nation, s and I will bless you; t
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. a
11:18 Reu. The name means“ friend” or“ shepherd.” Cf. Reuel,“ friend of God”( Exod 2:18). 11:20 – 26 Serug... Nahor... Terah. Also place-names in the region of Harran in northern Mesopotamia. The homeland for Abram was in this region. Ur may have been a branch of the“ family business”( Josh 24:2). 11:27— 25:18 The Family of Abraham. A new heading introduces the next major narrative section in Genesis. Almost every episode in 11:27— 25:18 involves Abraham, who plays a very significant role in the outworking of God’ s redemptive plan. 11:27 – 32 Abram’ s Family. These verses provide background information essential for understanding the subsequent story: the death of Abram’ s brother, Haran, the father of Lot; the barrenness of Abram’ s wife, Sarai; the relocation of Terah’ s family to northern Mesopotamia. 11:27 This is the account of. Marks the start of a new section in Genesis. The heading introduces Terah’ s immediate family. Abram. God later renames him Abraham( 17:5). 11:28 Ur of the Chaldeans. The remains of the ancient city of Ur, located at Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq, were excavated by Leonard Woolley from 1922 to 1934. His investigations revealed the existence of a well-developed urban culture at the end of the third millennium and the start of the second millennium BC, around the time that Terah’ s family lived there. To distinguish it from other cities with the same name, Ur is associated with the Chaldeans. The Kaldu people settled in southern Babylon about 1200 BC, giving their name to the region. The designation“ of the Chaldeans” probably belongs to the period 1000 – 500 BC and is anachronistic, reflecting, like some other place-names in Genesis, geographic knowledge from a later time when the text of Genesis was updated. See Introduction to the Pentateuch, p. 9. 11:29 Sarai. Later renamed Sarah( 17:15). 11:30 childless. Sarai’ s inability to have children is a major obstacle to the fulfillment of God’ s promise that Abram will have many descendants and become a great nation( 12:2). The same problem recurs with Rebekah( 25:21) and Rachel( 29:31). In each case, God enables a son to be born who becomes an important link in the unique family line traced throughout Genesis. 11:31 Terah’ s family moves from southern to northern Mesopotamia. Harran. Located in Turkey at Eskiharran, the modern name meaning“ old Harran.” In Hebrew script the place-name Harran differs markedly from the name of Lot’ s father( Haran). 11:32 205 years. Taking into account the numbers given in v. 26 and 12:4, Terah would have been 145 years old when Abram left Harran. If Terah lived for 205 years, he would have died long after Abram’ s departure for Canaan. Yet in Acts 7:4 Stephen states that Abram departed from Harran after Terah’ s death.
Stephen’ s remark corresponds with the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, a very early version of Genesis through Deuteronomy, which claims that Terah died when he was 145 years old. The figure of 205 years may be due to a mistake by an early copyist.
12:1 – 9 The Call of Abram. Having set the scene in 11:27 – 32, the account of Abram’ s relationship with God begins with a significant agenda-setting speech that will influence both Abram’ s immediate future and the longterm future of all humanity. 12:1 – 3 God’ s invitation to Abram is a key passage in the book of Genesis. It places Abram at the heart of God’ s plans to reverse all that has gone wrong since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden( 3:22 – 24). Adam and Eve’ s disobedience resulted in divine displeasure and curses; Abram’ s obedience will bring blessing. God’ s call requires Abram to exercise tremendous faith. He must first abandon the security of family and country and then travel to a foreign land, confidently believing that God will give him both descendants and land, essential ingredients in order to become a“ great nation”( 12:2). At the time of his call, Abram and Sarai are childless( 11:30). 12:2 name great. The promise that God will make Abram famous comes in the wake of the failed ambitions of the city-builders of Babel( 11:4 – 8) and possibly has royal connotations