Genesis 12:7-9

12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants ¹  I will give this land.” So Abram ²  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 ³  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. ⁴  12:9 Abram continually journeyed by stages ⁵  down to the Negev. ⁶ 

[12:7]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.

[12:8]  ³ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[12:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “he called in the name of the Lord.” The expression refers to worshiping the Lord through prayer and sacrifice (see Gen 4:26; 13:4; 21:33; 26:25). See G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:116, 281.

[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].”