Iskah. 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 grandson Lot son of Ha ran, and his daugh terin-law Sa rai, the wife of his son Abram, and to geth er they set out from Ur of the Chal de ans p to go to Ca naan. q But when they came to Har ran, they set tled there.
32 Te rah lived 205 years, and he died in
Harran.
The Call of Abram
12
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
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
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse; u
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
12:3 u Ge 27:29; Ex 23:22; Nu 24:9
v Ge 18:18;
22:18; 26:4; Ac 3:25; Gal 3:8 * 12:4 w Ge 11:31 12:5 x Ge 14:14; 17:23 12:6 y Heb 11:9 z Ge 35:4;
Dt 11:30 a Ge 10:18
12:7 b Ge 17:1; 18:1; Ex 6:3 c Ge 13:15, 17;
15:18; 17:8; Ps 105:9-11 d Ge 13:4
12:8 e Ge 13:3
Genesis 12:8 | 33
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. v” b
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told
him; and Lot went with him. Abram was sev en ty-five years old when he set out from Har ran. w 5 He took his wife Sa rai, his neph ew Lot, all the pos ses sions they had ac cu mu lat ed and the peo ple x they had acquired in Har ran, and they set out for the land of Ca naan, and they ar rived there.
6 Abram trav eled through the land y as
far as the site of the great tree of Mo reh z at She chem. At that time the Ca naan ites a were in the land. 7 The Lord ap peared to Abram b and said,“ To your off spring c I will give this land.” c So he built an al tar there to the Lord, d who had ap peared to him.
8 From there he went on to ward the hills
east of Beth el e and pitched his tent, with Beth el on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an al tar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
a 2 Or be seen as blessed b 3 Or earth / will use your name in blessings( see 48:20) c 7 Or seed were nomadic raiders at some point in their history, but it does not help locate them geographically.
Suspicion arises concerning the identification of Abraham’ s Ur as the famous city in the south because the move to Harran does not seem a logical one from there. The distance is at least 700 miles( 1,125 kilometers), and Harran is well off the beaten track for someone traveling to Canaan. If a town were 80 miles( 125 kilometers) out of the way( especially traveling on foot), it would hardly be considered on the way. This geographic problem leads some to consider alternatives, and the literature of the ancient Near East preserves numerous other town names with some similarity to Ur. However, since the only Chaldeans we know of are from the south, the designation“ of the Chaldeans” in relationship to Ur must be considered a later explanation placed in the text to help readers who were no longer familiar with the location of the town. 11:30 Sarai... was not able to conceive. Barrenness was considered a judgment from God in the ancient world. Ancient peoples did not yet understand the physiology associated with fertilization. They viewed the woman as a receptacle for male seed. Rather than supplying an egg to be fertilized, the woman was seen simply as an incubator for the child. Therefore, if man provided the seed at the proper time( they understood that timing was in relation to menstruation) and nothing came of it, the woman was seen to be a faulty incubator. But this defect would not be seen as simply a physical problem, since no illness, symptom or condition was simply physical. Deity was responsible for creation in the womb, and deity was the one who opened the womb.
Sarai’ s barrenness would have potentially resulted in a fragile marriage( since failure to deliver children to the family was the most common cause of divorce), in societal shame( since her condition would appear to be the result of having angered a god so that she was therefore unable to fulfill her societal role), and in an uncertainty for the afterlife( since descendants were believed to sustain the deceased in the netherworld). In Abraham and Sarai’ s case, it also presented quite an obstacle to the covenant promise of having many descendants( 12:2; 15:5). 12:1 – 3 God’ s covenant with Abram targets the most essential elements of identity in the value system of the ancient Near East. Land was connected to one’ s survival, livelihood and political identity. Family linked the past, present and future, offering one’ s most basic sense of identity( more so than self). Inheritance fixed one’ s place in the family and ensured that the generations past would be remembered in the present and future. When Abram gave up his place in his father’ s household, he forfeited his security. He was putting his survival, his identity, his future and his security in the hands of the Lord. 12:1 Go from your country, your people and your father’ s household. One reason God may ask Abram to leave these behind is because it is in these three connections that one related to deity. The gods one worshiped tended to be national or city gods(“ country”), the clan god(“ people”), or ancestral gods, i. e., ancestors who have taken a place in the divine world(“ father’ s household”). As Yahweh severed the ties Abram would have had with other deities, he then filled the resulting void as the only God Abram would need. 12:2 great nation. This offer is unique in the ancient world. One can certainly find offers by deities to make someone king and to prosper their line— or even a promise that a particular individual would have many offspring. But the prospect that an individual would grow into a great nation is not broached in any other extant literature from the ancient world. 12:6 great tree of Moreh. No hint is given that trees themselves were worshiped, but notable trees became places where various sacred rituals were performed. The significance given to certain trees in the Biblical text suggests that they designated sacred space( cf. 13:18; 35:4,8; Dt 11:30; Jdg 4:5; 6:11; 9:37). Note the eventual indictment of the Israelites that they set up sacred stones and Asherah poles“ under every spreading tree”( 2Ki 17:10). Moreh. The name given to the oak here has been interpreted as suggesting that oracular information was gained here( Moreh means“ teacher”). Of all of the divination procedures known from the ancient world, there is no suggestion of trees used as divinatory mechanisms; thus, we conclude that the tree had significance as a locale rather than as a mechanism. 12:8 altar. Usually thought of as raised platforms used for offering sacrifices; here, however, there is no mention of sacrifices. Furthermore, sacrifices usually take place in