Chapter Twelve

God Calls Abram and Blesses Him with the Promise of the Messiah

From this chapter begins the special history of the chosen Hebrew people, which opens with a rather detailed biography of the very founder of the Hebrews—the patriarch Abram. The entire biblical narrative about him divides into four sections or periods, each of which centers around an important divine theophany to Abram, the history of which begins in chapters 12, 15, 17, and 22 of the book of Genesis.

Genesis 12:1–2. And the Lord said to Abram: To the question: when did God speak this to Abram?—the majority, following the archdeacon Stephen Acts 7:2, answer that this occurred while Terah was still alive, in Ur of the Chaldeans, which is also confirmed by the subsequent context of the discourse, namely by the mention of the fatherland, which was only the land of Chaldea, not Haran. Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you; and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing; The apostle Paul says that Abram had not yet been shown the name of the land that was destined for him Heb 11:8; and yet he, obedient to the divine voice, does not hesitate in the least to abandon all that was dear to him (his homeland, his relatives, and his father’s house), and submissively exchanges all this for an unknown future and the impending restless life of a nomad. “Look,” says the holy John Chrysostom in regard to this, “how from the very beginning the righteous one was being trained to prefer the invisible to the visible and the future to what was already in his hands... Think, beloved, what elevated, unconstrained by any passion or habit, spirit was needed for the fulfillment of this command!” The purpose of such a breaking of all ties with the past was divine care for preserving the race and house of Abram from being drawn into the universal impiety that had spread everywhere and engulfed even the house of his father Terah Josh 24:2-3. As if in reward for such obedience and faith of Abram, the Lord gives him a solemn blessing, in which He announces four kinds of promises: 1) the promise of numerous offspring; 2) the bestowal of temporal and eternal blessings; 3) the reward of glory and immortality in his offspring; and 4) the transformation of his person into a source of blessing for others. All these divine promises were indeed and actually fulfilled in the subsequent fate of the descendants of Abram, both physical, that is, the Jews, and even more so—spiritual, that is, the Christians Rom 4:11-17; Gal 3:7-9.

Genesis 12:3. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; By establishing a covenant with Abram, God, according to the custom of men, as it were enters into friendship with him 2 Chr 20:7; Isa 41:8; Jas 2:23 and promises to have in common with him both his friends and his enemies. and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. The best commentary to these words is given by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians, saying that through Jesus Christ the blessing of Abraham was extended to the Gentiles... The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, announced beforehand to Abraham: “In you shall all the nations be blessed” Gal 3:8.

He Departs Together with Lot from Haran

Genesis 12:4. So Abram departed, as the Lord had told him; In the last words some see an indication of a new theophany to Abram, occurring already in Haran and after the death of his father Terah. and Lot went with him. “Not from disobedience against the Lord,” says the holy John Chrysostom, “but, of course, because Lot was young, and Abram was taking the place of a father to him; and he, moreover, out of love for him and a gentle disposition, did not wish to separate from a righteous man.” That is why the Apostle Peter speaks of Lot, that he imitated the piety and faith of Abram 2 Pet 2:7-8.

Genesis 12:5. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the persons that they had acquired in Haran; On the basis of these words one can suppose that Abram’s stop in Haran was rather prolonged, since he had already managed to acquire here both possessions and slaves. Chrysostom especially emphasizes that all this had been acquired by Abram in Haran and constituted his acquired property, while all the paternal inheritance was left still in Chaldea, in accordance with the divine command concerning this. and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan; Although, testing the faith and obedience of Abram, the Lord concealed from him for a time the final purpose of his journey, it is evident that the very direction of this path was in some way inspired by God to Abram or revealed by special signs. and they came to the land of Canaan. That is, to the fertile Palestinian country, where the descendants of Canaan dwelt. Its boundaries on the North were served by the mountains of Lebanon, on the south—by the Arabian desert, on the east—by the Syrian desert, and on the west—by the Mediterranean Sea. “Surrounded in this way by mountains, deserts, and seas, this country, destined as an inheritance for the chosen people, was more favorable than any other for his education apart from heathen influence. On the other hand, being in the center of the then-known world, at the crossroads between Europe (from the sea), most of the lands of Asia, and Africa, this country presented very many conveniences for the spread of the gospel preaching everywhere” (Vissarion).

He Comes to the Land of Canaan and Receives a Revelation in a Dream About Possessing It

Genesis 12:6. And Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, Having entered within the boundaries of Palestine, as is supposed, from the north, Abram traveled through much of it toward the south to the place which subsequently became the city of Shechem, named after Shechem, son of Hamor Gen 33:18-19. With time, this Shechem became the capital of Samaria and appears repeatedly before us in the Holy Scripture of both the Old and the New Testament Deut 11:30; Judg 9:1; Ps 59:8; John 4:5 and others. In the time of Jesus Christ it was also called Sychar, and under Vespasian was renamed Neapolis, from which came the modern name of this place—Nablus, or Nabulus. to the oak grove of Moreh. or “Mamre,” as it is called in another place Gen 13:18. It is supposed that here is meant a whole oak or terebinth grove, belonging to a notable Canaanite, bearing the family name Moreh, or Mamre, and sufficiently well known for its time and place.

Genesis 12:7. And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said [to him]: To your offspring I will give this land. This is the first biblical account of God’s appearance to a man in the post-diluvian period. Although the nature of God is invisible and incomprehensible, from the Holy Scripture we know a whole series of external images in which He was pleased to reveal Himself to men Gen 18:2 and the like. One such theophany, probably, was this one. “The general foundation of the theophanies of the Old and New Testament, especially in the form of a human being,” says Metropolitan Philaret, “is the harbinger of the incarnation of the Son of God.” Therefore, the majority of the holy fathers’ interpretations hold to the thought that the chief acting person in all theophanies is the Second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity—the Son of God. And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. He built an altar, or shrine, without doubt so that he might offer to the Lord a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the promise given to him and his offspring, and also in order to perpetuate by an appropriate external sign the sacred place of the divine appearance.

Genesis 12:8–9. And he removed from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; In these two verses the general path of Abram’s nomadic wanderings through Palestine and his principal stops are outlined. One of such large and important stops was the place which subsequently came to be called “Bethel” Gen 28:19. It is located 5 miles south of Shechem and 3 hours’ journey from Jerusalem, in a valley abounding in excellent pastures. Not far from here was also “Ai” Gen 13:3; Nehem 11:31, the ruins of which are still known today under the name “Medinat-Ai” and are located 5 miles east of Bethel. Finally, the last designation of the path, translated in our Bible as “to the south,” in the Hebrew text contains an indication of a particular southern district of Palestine, bearing the name “Negeb” Gen 13:3, indicating the arid or steppe character of this region. and there built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, going on toward the south. And in this new place of his settlement Abram hurried first of all to express his feelings of gratitude to God, and by a public and solemn confession of the name of the true God Gen 4:26 he testified his true faith before the heathenized Canaanites.

Abram Flees from Famine to Egypt

Genesis 12:10. And there was a famine in the land. That is, in the land of “Negeb,” or in the northern regions of the Arabian desert, where in the end Abram descended. This was, of course, a new and severe trial to the faith of Abram: instead of, in accordance with the divine promise, enjoying various blessings from his new possession, he was compelled from the very start to experience such a heavy deprivation as a severe famine. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. Since the Nile valley of Egypt, celebrated for its fertility, lay much lower than the Arabian steppe, the expression “went down” cannot but be acknowledged as particularly apt. Abram went to Egypt, probably not without special divine inspiration and then only for the duration of the famine itself, as bedouins of Arabia do in similar cases even now.

Abram Is Exposed to the Danger of Losing His Wife

Genesis 12:11. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife: Such an arrangement between Abram and Sarai was made much earlier, even before their departure from Ur of the Chaldea Gen 20:13, since Abram evidently knew the moral laxness of all the peoples among whom he would have to wander and live. Behold now, I know that you are a woman beautiful to look upon; Although Sarai was already 65 years old at this time, since this age constituted only half of her entire life Gen 23:1 and since, on the other hand, she was childless Gen 11:30, it is not surprising that she was able to preserve her attractive beauty until this time.

Genesis 12:12. and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but you they will let live. In these words is seen a beautiful knowledge of the customs and manners of the Egyptian country contemporary with that epoch, where the husband of a beautiful woman was killed and the woman herself was taken into the harem; this was practiced especially widely with settlers from Arabia, whose women gained greatly in beauty in comparison with the rather homely Egyptian and Ethiopian women.

Genesis 12:13. Say, I pray you, that you are my sister, In these words of Abram there was not complete deception: first, because in the East the word “sister” does not have that narrow meaning which is connected with it among us, but means close kinship in general, a concept which includes all cousins and cousins, as well as nieces and nephews; second, because Sarai was indeed a relative of Abram, either a half-sister or a niece Gen 20:12. that it may be well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account. “This is a very difficult passage: it is one of those passages in the Bible that prove the extraordinary truthfulness of sacred history, namely by the evident indication of the weaknesses, sometimes even crimes, of the greatest and holiest men of the Old Testament—Abram, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others” (Vlastov). However we justify the deed of Abram, we are unable to eliminate from it a certain element of faintheartedness and cunning. His only justification is the grossness of the customs of that epoch, which allowed one to look at the marital question too broadly and indulgently, and the hopeless situation of Abram, which forced him to resort to the lesser evil in order to avoid the greater—his own death and complete enslavement of Sarai. Incidentally, the holy John Chrysostom in this voluntary agreement of the spouses and their mutual sacrifice of their interests for the common good (one—of the rights of a husband, the other—of the dignity of a faithful wife) sees the crown of their conjugal love and an example worthy of imitation.

Happy Deliverance from Danger

Genesis 12:14. And when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful; The predictions of Abram were not slow in being realized with complete accuracy, and his plan of salvation succeeded as well as could be hoped.

Genesis 12:15. and when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s palace. Princes—in the Hebrew text expressed by the word “officers” (sarej), which is fully consistent with history, testifying to the membership of Egyptian courtiers in the highest classes of the country. The epithet “Pharaoh” was not the proper name of any of the Egyptian kings, but represented a general title of all ancient Egyptian rulers, similar to the modern “king, ruler, emperor,” etc. As for the etymology of this term, the best of them, given by Rougé, Brugsch, and Ebers on the basis of hieroglyphic texts, derives the word “Pharaoh” from the ancient Egyptian—“peraa” or “perao,” which means “great house,” and thus gives to the term “Pharaoh” a meaning completely analogous to the modern designation of the Turkish Empire—“the Sublime Porte.” According to the most probable assumption of Egyptologists, Abram’s journey to Egypt took place under one of the first kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, that is, two thousand years before the birth of Christ.

Genesis 12:17. But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues on account of Sarai, Abram’s wife. What these specifically were, is unknown; but by analogy to similar cases, one can suppose them to be the same as afterward the house of Abimelech, that is, infertility Gen 20:18.

Genesis 12:18–19. And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? From this we can conclude that the Providence of God preserved the conjugal purity of Sarai, who lived at the court of the Pharaoh still only for the sake of trial.

Genesis 12:20. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had. Thus from this new trial the righteous man came out a complete conqueror. And all, “who saw how he had previously, driven by hunger, gone into Egypt with fear and trembling, now returned from there with such glory, abundance, and wealth, recognized in this the power of God’s providence over him” (the holy John Chrysostom).