Genesis 12:1

The Obedience of Abram

12:1 Now the Lord said ¹  to Abram, ² 

“Go out ³  from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household

to the land that I will show you. ⁴ 

Genesis 12:7

12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants ⁵  I will give this land.” So Abram ⁶  built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 13:15

13:15 I will give all the land that you see to you and your descendants ⁷  forever.

Genesis 13:17

13:17 Get up and ⁸  walk throughout ⁹  the land, ¹⁰  for I will give it to you.”

Genesis 15:18

15:18 That day the Lord made a covenant ¹¹  with Abram: “To your descendants I give ¹²  this land, from the river of Egypt ¹³  to the great river, the Euphrates River –

Genesis 17:8

17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ¹⁴  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ¹⁵  possession. I will be their God.”

¹ sn The Lord called Abram while he was in Ur (see Gen 15:7; Acts 7:2); but the sequence here makes it look like it was after the family left to migrate to Canaan (11:31-32). Genesis records the call of Abram at this place in the narrative because it is the formal beginning of the account of Abram. The record of Terah was brought to its end before this beginning.

² tn The call of Abram begins with an imperative לֶךְ־לְךָ (lekh-lÿkha, “go out”) followed by three cohortatives (v. 2a) indicating purpose or consequence (“that I may” or “then I will”). If Abram leaves, then God will do these three things. The second imperative (v. 2b, literally “and be a blessing”) is subordinated to the preceding cohortatives and indicates God’s ultimate purpose in calling and blessing Abram. On the syntactical structure of vv. 1-2 see R. B. Chisholm, “Evidence from Genesis,” A Case for Premillennialism, 37. For a similar sequence of volitive forms see Gen 45:18.

³ tn The initial command is the direct imperative (לֶךְ, lekh) from the verb הָלַךְ (halakh). It is followed by the lamed preposition with a pronominal suffix (לְךָ, lÿkha) emphasizing the subject of the imperative: “you leave.”

⁴ sn To the land that I will show you. The call of Abram illustrates the leading of the Lord. The command is to leave. The Lord’s word is very specific about what Abram is to leave (the three prepositional phrases narrow to his father’s household), but is not specific at all about where he is to go. God required faith, a point that Heb 11:8 notes.

⁵ tn The same Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.

⁹ tn Heb “for all the land which you see to you I will give it and to your descendants.”

¹³ tn The connective “and” is not present in the Hebrew text; it has been supplied for purposes of English style.

¹⁴ tn The Hitpael form הִתְהַלֵּךְ (hithallekh) means “to walk about”; it also can carry the ideas of moving about, traversing, going back and forth, or living in an area. It here has the connotation of traversing the land to survey it, to look it over.

¹⁵ tn Heb “the land to its length and to its breadth.” This phrase has not been included in the translation because it is somewhat redundant (see the note on the word “throughout” in this verse).

¹⁷ tn Heb “cut a covenant.”

¹⁸ tn The perfect verbal form is understood as instantaneous (“I here and now give”). Another option is to understand it as rhetorical, indicating certitude (“I have given” meaning it is as good as done, i.e., “I will surely give”).

¹⁹ sn The river of Egypt is a wadi (a seasonal stream) on the northeastern border of Egypt, not to the River Nile.

²¹ tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

²² tn Or “as an eternal.”