Discovery BoxGenesis 12:4-9
Context12:4 So Abram left, 1 just as the Lord had told him to do, 2 and Lot went with him. (Now 3 Abram was 75 years old 4 when he departed from Haran.) 12:5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew 5 Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired 6 in Haran, and they left for 7 the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan.
12:6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree 8 of Moreh 9 at Shechem. 10 (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) 11 12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants 12 I will give this land.” So Abram 13 built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
12:8 Then he moved from there to the hill country east of Bethel 14 and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and worshiped the Lord. 15 12:9 Abram continually journeyed by stages 16 down to the Negev. 17
[12:4] 1 sn So Abram left. This is the report of Abram’s obedience to God’s command (see v. 1).
[12:4] 2 tn Heb “just as the
[12:4] 3 tn The disjunctive clause (note the pattern conjunction + subject + implied “to be” verb) is parenthetical, telling the age of Abram when he left Haran.
[12:4] 4 tn Heb “was the son of five years and seventy year[s].”
[12:5] 5 tn Heb “the son of his brother.”
[12:5] 6 tn For the semantic nuance “acquire [property]” for the verb עָשָׂה (’asah), see BDB 795 s.v. עָשָׂה.
[12:5] 7 tn Heb “went out to go.”
[12:6] 10 sn The Hebrew word Moreh (מוֹרֶה, moreh) means “teacher.” It may well be that the place of this great oak tree was a Canaanite shrine where instruction took place.
[12:6] 11 tn Heb “as far as the place of Shechem, as far as the oak of Moreh.”
[12:6] 12 tn The disjunctive clause gives important information parenthetical in nature – the promised land was occupied by Canaanites.
[12:7] 13 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.
[12:7] 14 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.
[12:8] 17 map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.
[12:8] 18 tn Heb “he called in the name of the
[12:9] 21 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.”
