Genesis 12King James Version
The call of Abram. God tells him to leave his country, his family, and his father's house and go to a land that He will show him. Abram, seventy-five years old, takes his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and goes. God promises to make him a great nation and to bless all the families of the earth through him.
God calls Abram to leave his country, family, and father's house and go to a land he will be shown. God promises him land, descendants, and blessing to all nations. Abram goes, taking Sarai and Lot. He travels through Canaan, builds altars, heads south to Egypt during famine. Fearing for his life, he passes Sarai off as his sister. Pharaoh takes her into his house. God plagues Pharaoh's house. Abram is sent away rich.
God's call sets a new story in motion, but the first test of faith reveals that the man chosen to bless all nations will sometimes protect himself at his wife's expense.
1: "Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee." Three things to leave, and the destination withheld. The call costs certainty before it gives anything.
Abram leaves Ur of the Chaldees, a major Sumerian city around 2000 BCE or earlier by traditional dating. Haran, where the family had already stopped, was a trading hub in northern Mesopotamia. The journey to Canaan was not into wilderness but along established trade routes. Famine forcing movement to Egypt was a regular occurrence in the ancient Near East.
Abram, called and obedient then deceptive; Sarai, beautiful and endangered; Lot, who comes along; Pharaoh, an unwitting participant who ends up more upright than Abram in this episode.
This is the pivot of Genesis: from origins to the patriarchal story. Every covenant, prophecy, and national identity for the rest of the Bible flows through this call. The promise of blessing to all nations in verse 3 is quoted in the New Testament as the foundation of the gospel for Gentiles.
For when you are being asked to leave something familiar without a clear picture of where you are going. The call is real before the destination is visible. That is the shape of faith this book keeps returning to.
1Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
2And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
4So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
5And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
6And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
7And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.
8And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.
9And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.
10And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.
11And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:
12Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.
13Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
14And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.
15The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
16And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.
17And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.
18And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
19Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.
20And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.