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 12:9

12:9 Abram continually journeyed by stages ⁵  down to the Negev. ⁶ 

Genesis 12:11-20

12:11 As he approached ⁷  Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, ⁸  I know that you are a beautiful woman. ⁹  12:12 When the Egyptians see you they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will keep you alive. ¹⁰  12:13 So tell them ¹¹  you are my sister ¹²  so that it may go well ¹³  for me because of you and my life will be spared ¹⁴  on account of you.”

12:14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 12:15 When Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. So Abram’s wife ¹⁵  was taken ¹⁶  into the household of Pharaoh, ¹⁷  12:16 and he did treat Abram well ¹⁸  on account of her. Abram received ¹⁹  sheep and cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

12:17 But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with severe diseases ²⁰  because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 12:18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this ²¹  you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife? 12:19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her ²²  to be my wife? ²³  Here is your wife! ²⁴  Take her and go!” ²⁵  12:20 Pharaoh gave his men orders about Abram, ²⁶  and so they expelled him, along with his wife and all his possessions.

Acts 7:3-5

7:3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your country and from your relatives, and come to the land I will show you.’ ²⁷  7:4 Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God ²⁸  made him move ²⁹  to this country where you now live. 7:5 He ³⁰  did not give any of it to him for an inheritance, ³¹  not even a foot of ground, ³²  yet God ³³  promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his descendants after him, ³⁴  even though Abraham ³⁵  as yet had no child.

Hebrews 11:8

11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, and he went out without understanding where he was going.

[12:1]  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.

[12:1]  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.

[12:1]  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.”

[12:1]  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.

[12:9]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb נָסַע (nasa’) means “to journey”; more specifically it means to pull up the tent and move to another place. The construction here uses the preterite of this verb with its infinitive absolute to stress the activity of traveling. But it also adds the infinitive absolute of הָלַךְ (halakh) to stress that the traveling was continually going on. Thus “Abram journeyed, going and journeying” becomes “Abram continually journeyed by stages.”

[12:9]  ⁶ tn Or “the South [country].”

[12:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “drew near to enter.”

[12:11]  ⁸ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) is deictic here; it draws attention to the following fact.

[12:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “a woman beautiful of appearance are you.”

[12:12]  ¹⁰ tn The Piel of the verb חָיָה (khayah, “to live”) means “to keep alive, to preserve alive,” and in some places “to make alive.” See D. Marcus, “The Verb ‘to Live’ in Ugaritic,” JSS 17 (1972): 76-82.

[12:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “say.”

[12:13]  ¹² sn Tell them you are my sister. Abram’s motives may not be as selfish as they appear. He is aware of the danger to the family. His method of dealing with it is deception with a half truth, for Sarai really was his sister – but the Egyptians would not know that. Abram presumably thought that there would be negotiations for a marriage by anyone interested (as Laban does later for his sister Rebekah), giving him time to react. But the plan backfires because Pharaoh does not take the time to negotiate. There is a good deal of literature on the wife-sister issue. See (among others) E. A. Speiser, “The Wife-Sister Motif in the Patriarchal Narratives,” Oriental and Biblical Studies, 62-81; C. J. Mullo-Weir, “The Alleged Hurrian Wife-Sister Motif in Genesis,” GOT 22 (1967-1970): 14-25.

[12:13]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew verb translated “go well” can encompass a whole range of favorable treatment, but the following clause indicates it means here that Abram’s life will be spared.

[12:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and my life will live.”

[12:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the woman.” The word also means “wife”; the Hebrew article can express the possessive pronoun (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 19, §86). Here the proper name (Abram) has been used in the translation instead of a possessive pronoun (“his”) for clarity.

[12:15]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew term וַתֻּקַּח (vattuqqakh, “was taken”) is a rare verbal form, an old Qal passive preterite from the verb “to take.” It is pointed as a Hophal would be by the Masoretes, but does not have a Hophal meaning.

[12:15]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew text simply has “house of Pharaoh.” The word “house” refers to the household in general, more specifically to the royal harem.

[12:16]  ¹⁸ sn He did treat Abram well. The construction of the parenthetical disjunctive clause, beginning with the conjunction on the prepositional phrase, draws attention to the irony of the story. Abram wanted Sarai to lie “so that it would go well” with him. Though he lost Sarai to Pharaoh, it did go well for him – he received a lavish bride price. See also G. W. Coats, “Despoiling the Egyptians,” VT 18 (1968): 450-57.

[12:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and there was to him.”

[12:17]  ²⁰ tn The cognate accusative adds emphasis to the verbal sentence: “he plagued with great plagues,” meaning the Lord inflicted numerous plagues, probably diseases (see Exod 15:26). The adjective “great” emphasizes that the plagues were severe and overwhelming.

[12:18]  ²¹ tn The demonstrative pronoun translated “this” adds emphasis: “What in the world have you done to me?” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 24, §118).

[12:19]  ²² tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive here expresses consequence.

[12:19]  ²³ tn Heb “to me for a wife.”

[12:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Look, your wife!”

[12:19]  ²⁵ tn Heb “take and go.”

[12:20]  ²⁶ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Abram) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:3]  ²⁷ sn A quotation from Gen 12:1.

[7:4]  ²⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:4]  ²⁹ tn The translation “made him move” for the verb μετοικίζω (metoikizw) is given by L&N 85.83. The verb has the idea of “resettling” someone (BDAG 643 s.v.); see v. 43, where it reappears.

[7:5]  ³⁰ tn Grk “And he.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:5]  ³¹ tn Grk “He did not give him an inheritance in it.” This could be understood to mean that God did not give something else to Abraham as an inheritance while he was living there. The point of the text is that God did not give any of the land to him as an inheritance, and the translation makes this clear.

[7:5]  ³² tn Grk “a step of a foot” (cf. Deut 2:5).

[7:5]  ³³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:5]  ³⁴ sn An allusion to Gen 12:7; 13:15; 15:2, 18; 17:8; 24:7; 48:4. On the theological importance of the promise and to his descendants after him, see Rom 4 and Gal 3.

[7:5]  ³⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.