Genesis 3:1

The Temptation and the Fall

3:1 Now ¹  the serpent ²  was more shrewd ³ 

than any of the wild animals ⁴  that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Is it really true that ⁵  God ⁶  said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?” ⁷ 

Genesis 12:1-20

The Obedience of Abram

12:1 Now the Lord said ⁸  to Abram, ⁹ 

“Go out ¹⁰  from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household

to the land that I will show you. ¹¹ 

12:2 Then I will make you ¹²  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ¹³ 

and I will make your name great, ¹⁴ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ¹⁵ 

12:3 I will bless those who bless you, ¹⁶ 

but the one who treats you lightly ¹⁷  I must curse,

and all the families of the earth will bless one another ¹⁸  by your name.”

12:4 So Abram left, ¹⁹  just as the Lord had told him to do, ²⁰  and Lot went with him. (Now ²¹  Abram was 75 years old ²²  when he departed from Haran.) 12:5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew ²³  Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired ²⁴  in Haran, and they left for ²⁵  the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan.

12:6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree ²⁶  of Moreh ²⁷  at Shechem. ²⁸  (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) ²⁹  12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants ³⁰  I will give this land.” So Abram ³¹  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 ³²  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. ³³  12:9 Abram continually journeyed by stages ³⁴  down to the Negev. ³⁵ 

The Promised Blessing Jeopardized

12:10 There was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt ³⁶  to stay for a while ³⁷  because the famine was severe. ³⁸  12:11 As he approached ³⁹  Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, ⁴⁰  I know that you are a beautiful woman. ⁴¹  12:12 When the Egyptians see you they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will keep you alive. ⁴²  12:13 So tell them ⁴³  you are my sister ⁴⁴  so that it may go well ⁴⁵  for me because of you and my life will be spared ⁴⁶  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 ⁴⁷  was taken ⁴⁸  into the household of Pharaoh, ⁴⁹  12:16 and he did treat Abram well ⁵⁰  on account of her. Abram received ⁵¹  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 ⁵²  because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 12:18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this ⁵³  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 ⁵⁴  to be my wife? ⁵⁵  Here is your wife! ⁵⁶  Take her and go!” ⁵⁷  12:20 Pharaoh gave his men orders about Abram, ⁵⁸  and so they expelled him, along with his wife and all his possessions.

[3:1]  ¹ tn The chapter begins with a disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + predicate) that introduces a new character and a new scene in the story.

[3:1]  ² sn Many theologians identify or associate the serpent with Satan. In this view Satan comes in the disguise of a serpent or speaks through a serpent. This explains the serpent’s capacity to speak. While later passages in the Bible may indicate there was a satanic presence behind the serpent (see, for example, Rev 12:9), the immediate context pictures the serpent as simply one of the animals of the field created by God (see vv. 1, 14). An ancient Jewish interpretation explains the reference to the serpent in a literal manner, attributing the capacity to speak to all the animals in the orchard. This text (Jub. 3:28) states, “On that day [the day the man and woman were expelled from the orchard] the mouth of all the beasts and cattle and birds and whatever walked or moved was stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak to one another with one speech and one language [presumed to be Hebrew, see 12:26].” Josephus, Ant. 1.1.4 (1.41) attributes the serpent’s actions to jealousy. He writes that “the serpent, living in the company of Adam and his wife, grew jealous of the blessings which he supposed were destined for them if they obeyed God’s behests, and, believing that disobedience would bring trouble on them, he maliciously persuaded the woman to taste of the tree of wisdom.”

[3:1]  ³ tn The Hebrew word עָרוּם (’arum) basically means “clever.” This idea then polarizes into the nuances “cunning” (in a negative sense, see Job 5:12; 15:5), and “prudent” in a positive sense (Prov 12:16, 23; 13:16; 14:8, 15, 18; 22:3; 27:12). This same polarization of meaning can be detected in related words derived from the same root (see Exod 21:14; Josh 9:4; 1 Sam 23:22; Job 5:13; Ps 83:3). The negative nuance obviously applies in Gen 3, where the snake attempts to talk the woman into disobeying God by using half-truths and lies.

[3:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “animals of the field.”

[3:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “Indeed that God said.” The beginning of the quotation is elliptical and therefore difficult to translate. One must supply a phrase like “is it true”: “Indeed, [is it true] that God said.”

[3:1]  ⁶ sn God. The serpent does not use the expression “Yahweh God” [Lord God] because there is no covenant relationship involved between God and the serpent. He only speaks of “God.” In the process the serpent draws the woman into his manner of speech so that she too only speaks of “God.”

[3:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “you must not eat from all the tree[s] of the orchard.” After the negated prohibitive verb, מִכֹּל (mikkol, “from all”) has the meaning “from any.” Note the construction in Lev 18:26, where the statement “you must not do from all these abominable things” means “you must not do any of these abominable things.” See Lev 22:25 and Deut 28:14 as well.

[12:1]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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.

[12:2]  ¹⁵ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ¹⁶ sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[12:3]  ²² tn The Piel cohortative has as its object a Piel participle, masculine plural. Since the Lord binds himself to Abram by covenant, those who enrich Abram in any way share in the blessings.

[12:3]  ²³ tn In this part of God’s statement there are two significant changes that often go unnoticed. First, the parallel and contrasting participle מְקַלֶּלְךָ (mÿqallelkha) is now singular and not plural. All the versions and a few Masoretic mss read the plural. But if it had been plural, there would be no reason to change it to the singular and alter the parallelism. On the other hand, if it was indeed singular, it is easy to see why the versions would change it to match the first participle. The MT preserves the original reading: “the one who treats you lightly.” The point would be a contrast with the lavish way that God desires to bless many. The second change is in the vocabulary. The English usually says, “I will curse those who curse you.” But there are two different words for curse here. The first is קָלַל (qalal), which means “to be light” in the Qal, and in the Piel “to treat lightly, to treat with contempt, to curse.” The second verb is אָרַר (’arar), which means “to banish, to remove from the blessing.” The point is simple: Whoever treats Abram and the covenant with contempt as worthless God will banish from the blessing. It is important also to note that the verb is not a cohortative, but a simple imperfect. Since God is binding himself to Abram, this would then be an obligatory imperfect: “but the one who treats you with contempt I must curse.”

[12:3]  ²⁴ tn Theoretically the Niphal can be translated either as passive or reflexive/reciprocal. (The Niphal of “bless” is only used in formulations of the Abrahamic covenant. See Gen 12:2; 18:18; 28:14.) Traditionally the verb is taken as passive here, as if Abram were going to be a channel or source of blessing. But in later formulations of the Abrahamic covenant (see Gen 22:18; 26:4) the Hitpael replaces this Niphal form, suggesting a translation “will bless [i.e., “pronounce blessings on”] themselves [or “one another”].” The Hitpael of “bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 12:2 predicts that Abram will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11.

[12:4]  ²⁹ sn So Abram left. This is the report of Abram’s obedience to God’s command (see v. 1).

[12:4]  ³⁰ tn Heb “just as the Lord said to him.”

[12:4]  ³¹ 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]  ³² tn Heb “was the son of five years and seventy year[s].”

[12:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “the son of his brother.”

[12:5]  ³⁷ tn For the semantic nuance “acquire [property]” for the verb עָשָׂה (’asah), see BDB 795 s.v. עָשָׂה.

[12:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “went out to go.”

[12:6]  ⁴³ tn Or “terebinth.”

[12:6]  ⁴⁴ 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]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “as far as the place of Shechem, as far as the oak of Moreh.”

[12:6]  ⁴⁶ tn The disjunctive clause gives important information parenthetical in nature – the promised land was occupied by Canaanites.

[12:7]  ⁵⁰ 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]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.

[12:8]  ⁵⁷ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[12:8]  ⁵⁸ 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]  ⁶⁴ 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]  ⁶⁵ tn Or “the South [country].”

[12:10]  ⁷¹ sn Abram went down to Egypt. The Abrahamic narrative foreshadows some of the events in the life of the nation of Israel. This sojourn in Egypt is typological of Israel’s bondage there. In both stories there is a famine that forces the family to Egypt, death is a danger to the males while the females are preserved alive, great plagues bring about their departure, there is a summons to stand before Pharaoh, and there is a return to the land of Canaan with great wealth.

[12:10]  ⁷² tn The Hebrew verb גּוּר (gur), traditionally rendered “to sojourn,” means “to stay for a while.” The “stranger” (traditionally “sojourner”) is one who is a temporary resident, a visitor, one who is passing through. Abram had no intention of settling down in Egypt or owning property. He was only there to wait out the famine.

[12:10]  ⁷³ tn Heb “heavy in the land.” The words “in the land,” which also occur at the beginning of the verse in the Hebrew text, have not been repeated here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[12:11]  ⁷⁸ tn Heb “drew near to enter.”

[12:11]  ⁷⁹ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) is deictic here; it draws attention to the following fact.

[12:11]  ⁸⁰ tn Heb “a woman beautiful of appearance are you.”

[12:12]  ⁸⁵ 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]  ⁹² tn Heb “say.”

[12:13]  ⁹³ 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]  ⁹⁴ 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]  ⁹⁵ tn Heb “and my life will live.”

[12:15]  ⁹⁹ 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]  ¹⁰⁰ 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]  ¹⁰¹ 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]  ¹⁰⁶ 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]  ¹⁰⁷ tn Heb “and there was to him.”

[12:17]  ¹¹³ 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]  ¹²⁰ 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]  ¹²⁷ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive here expresses consequence.

[12:19]  ¹²⁸ tn Heb “to me for a wife.”

[12:19]  ¹²⁹ tn Heb “Look, your wife!”

[12:19]  ¹³⁰ tn Heb “take and go.”

[12:20]  ¹³⁴ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Abram) has been specified in the translation for clarity.