Northern Kentucky's Evening Interdenominational Community Bible Study Text of Presentation, Lesson 8, Gen 12-13 Click Here for Lesson 8 Photos Click Here to return to GENESIS Home Page

Genesis 12:1-13:18
Abraham’s Call: Following God into the Unknown

Tonight begins the story of Abraham . . . to whom we were introduced last week. For convenience, I’ll call him “Abraham” throughout, even though his “given name” is “Abram”; we’ll learn about the name change in chapter 17.

If Genesis 1-3 is the story of creation and the fall of man, the balance of Genesis begins the story of the redemption of man, fulfilling God’s prophesy in 3:15 of a Messiah to crush Satan. Noah and the flood are the first seminal event in the story: evil people are eliminated, and the one righteous man begins the human race all over again. The second seminal event is God’s choice of Abraham as the vehicle through whom mankind will receive the blessings of redemption.

We believe Abraham is a real, historical character – even without direct evidence. As more and more archaeological data is uncovered, the story in Genesis becomes more and more plausible in the context of history and culture at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. Abraham was probably born around 2100 BC. He lived nearly half his life in Ur, an advanced metropolis on the Euphrates River, just up from the Persian Gulf; several artifacts are on the web page. Ur was a center of worship of the moon god, whom Abraham’s father served (Josh 24:2). Abraham is married to his half-sister, Sarah (or Sarai), but they have no children. Abraham’s father sets out to move from Ur to Canaan; he takes Abraham and his grandson Lot with him, and they caravan up the Euphrates River valley. But when they reach Haran in what’s now Turkey, they decide to settle. The bible doesn’t say why they left Ur, nor why they stopped in Haran.

God issued an outrageous call to Abraham, accompanied with a nebulous promise:

“Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:1-3 NIV)

There’s an obvious contrast between people of Babel (chapter 11), who sought a great name through disobedience to God – and failed – and God’s promise to Abraham of a great name through obedience. But Abraham must leave family and familiar places and go . . . “to the land I will show you.” God doesn’t even tell Abraham where he’s going. In this society family is everything – as we will find out later when the question of wives for children comes up. By leaving his father, Abraham forfeits his probably substantial inheritance. Why would Abraham comply with such an outlandish request based on such a vague promise? The bible gives no additional detail; there may be a lot we don’t know about the story. This is the kind of faith Noah had; it’s no wonder the New Testament makes Abraham synonymous with faith . . . and with trust . . . and obedience.

So at age 75, Abraham leaves Haran, along with his wife and nephew Lot. (Lot’s father is dead – cf 11:27 – so the childless Abraham may have “adopted” him.) The bible says they take “all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran” (Gen 12:5); we learn in chapter 14 that Abraham is wealthy, so this would have been a large caravan!

Abraham continues to Canaan (Gen 12:5), and arrives at “the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem” (Gen 12:6); perhaps a place of worship for the Canaanites. Here God “appears” and makes a second promise, as if to reward Abraham for trust and obedience: “To your offspring I will give this land” (Gen 12:7). God first merely spoke to Abraham; this time God appears – as if to emphasize His serious intent. The first time God promised to “show” the land to Abraham; now He promises to “give” it to him. And buoyed by this promise, Abraham “built an altar there to the LORD” (Gen 12:7).

These first promises from God to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3, 7) contain 3 essential elements which recur throughout Genesis – and through which all of Genesis can be analyzed:

1. The land.

2. The “seed” – or offspring – a noun which is the same in its singular and plural forms (important for Messianic prophesy).

3. The blessing.

God grants Abraham the land of Canaan, and promises blessing; but most extraordinary, God tells Abraham – old and childless – he will sire a “great nation” (Gen 12:2).

And the blessing goes beyond just Abraham; God says “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Gen 12:3) . . . think about the Jews in this context. Then God adds: “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:3). This is widely believed to be Messianic prophesy, referring to the blessing for all mankind brought through Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of Abraham.

The Canaanites are in Shechem at this time (Gen 12:7) – which means the land God promises Abraham is now occupied by hostile pagans. For Abraham to build an altar is evidence of remarkable faith and trust in God. Nevertheless, Abraham doesn’t “pitch his tent” and stay; he moves 20 miles south along the crest of the hill country and settles between Bethel and Ai, north of Jerusalem. Here he builds another altar to God.

Later Abraham pulls up stakes and moves further south to the Negev. The bible doesn’t say why; maybe it was the onset of famine (12:10). The Negev is desert today – scrub country suitable for sheep – but archaeological evidence of many permanent settlements in the area at the time of Abraham (21st-19th BC) implies it was much more verdant then.

When famine hits, Abraham travels to Egypt to sit it out. Agriculture in Egypt is based on regular Nile floods, but agriculture in Canaan is based on rainfall – and there isn’t much! Famines were relatively common . . . and people regularly went to Egypt to acquire food. Hence the Egyptians welcome them – and reap large profits selling grain.

And apparently the Egyptians also take advantage of foreigners needing grain. Abraham is convinced his wife and half-sister, Sarah, is so beautiful the ruler of Egypt will kill him and take her into his harem, even though she is over 65 years old. Hence they conspire to tell a half truth and say she is Abraham’s sister. Sure enough, Pharaoh takes Sarah into his harem and has sexual relations with her (12:19) – and instead of killing Sarah’s husband, he rewards Sarah’s brother. Abraham grows richer!

Let’s consider this incident in the context of God’s promises of the “land” and the “seed.” Many scholars argue Abraham is unfaithful by leaving the promised land to go to Egypt. There is no indication Abraham consults God before he makes this trip; it might be said Abraham doesn’t trust God’s provision in the “promised land.” And Abraham knows up front that going to Egypt will cause problems – but he goes anyway, and must lie just to survive! And as for God’s “seed” promise . . . there is no way it can be fulfilled with Sarah in Pharaoh’s harem; Abraham’s got to get her out!

But Abraham is powerless; God has to step in: “The LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai” (Gen 12:17). And when Pharaoh finds out the source of the ailments in his household . . . an unlikely scene occurs: a pagan king dresses down Abraham, the great man of God, for lying. Egyptian culture apparently observed some elements of God’s covenant with Noah: they know lying and adultery are wrong. God reiterates these sins 500 or so years later when He gave the 10 Commandments . . . but isn’t it ironic Abraham hears this now from a pagan! It’s also clear Pharaoh knows the hand of God is at work, because he sends Abraham away with everything he owns and was given – as if to placate Abraham’s God.

Abraham returns to Canaan . . . with his belly full and God’s promise intact. He goes first to the Negev, but doesn’t stay. He journeys to the more fertile hill country and the site of his altar to God between Bethel and Ai. Abraham has just dodged a bullet, and this may be a time for reflection and worship at God’s altar. Abraham’s decisions screwed things up; God had to bail him out!

Abraham’s newfound wealth also brings problems, because the country around Bethel and Ai can’t support his herds, the herds of his nephew Lot, and the herds of the locals (Gen 13:7). So Abraham and Lot decide to split up and to go somewhere else to live. Abraham is magnanimous; he takes Lot to where they can view the terrain, and lets him choose. But Abraham’s generosity has a deeper implication: by allowing Lot to choose, he offers to give up the land promised by God to him and his offspring. Even if Lot is Abraham’s heir, he’s not his offspring! Yet as we will learn later, Abraham struggles with God’s promise of offspring: Abraham is about 80 now, Sarah is about 70, and they are still childless. Does it go through Abraham’s mind to treat Lot as his offspring?

Or perhaps Abraham knows what Lot will do, because the choice seems obvious: the Jordan River Valley to the left was “well watered” (Gen 13:10) as it is today – like Egypt, not so dependent on rainfall for agriculture. And if the Negev was fertile at this time, the Jordan River Valley must have been even moreso. The bible says (Gen 13:10) things were quite different there then, before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (as we’ll discuss in lesson 11). This leaves Abraham the hill country of Judah . . . not a bad place from the point of view of a “herdsman” (Gen 13:7), but no “garden of the LORD” (Gen 13:10) – yet it is part of God’s “promised land.”

On the other hand, Lot’s choice of the fertile river valley puts him outside God’s “promised land,” and hence removes him as heir to God’s promise. But it gets worse. Lot’s “obvious” choice was also the choice of most other people in the area, who built what are called “the cities of the plain” there (Gen 13:12). And when Lot “pitches his tents near Sodom” (Gen 13:12), he enters an area where the people are “wicked and . . . sinning greatly against the LORD” (Gen 13:13). This puts Lot and his family in the midst of great temptation; another bad choice made by man without God’s guidance!

Abraham may feel down after Lot leaves, so God speaks to him again: “Look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring for ever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted” (Gen 13:14-16).

This enlarges God’s promises to Abraham:

1. Although Lot is out of consideration and Sarah is still barren, God does not backtrack on His promise of offspring; He expands it. Abraham will not just sire a nation; he will have so many offspring they can’t be counted (Gen 13:16)!

2. This land belongs to Abraham and his offspring forever; that means Abraham’s descendants will always be around as an identifiable group.

In response, Abraham “moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD” (Gen 13:18).

Notice God has spoken to Abraham 3 times; Abraham has built an altar 3 times and pitched his tents twice. Every time God speaks, He expands the promise, and Abraham builds an altar. God seems to leave Abraham on his own most of the time, free to learn from his mistakes . . . but when he messes up, God bails him out. As is so often the case in the bible, the infidelity of God’s people is balanced by God’s fidelity. Abraham has been blessed by God in spades – but neither the important “land” nor “seed” promises have yet taken effect. Nevertheless, Abraham believes . . . and worships at an altar to God to symbolize his great faith and trust and obedience.

Next week we’ll see just what a pickle Lot has gotten himself into by moving to Sodom . . . and we’ll learn just how wealthy Abraham is. Also, we’ll be introduced to “Melchizedek, . . . priest of God Most High” (Gen 14:18), founder of the priestly “order of Melchizedek” to which Jesus belongs, according to the writer of Hebrews (Heb 7:17). And in a remarkable scene in chapter 15, God further expands his promise to Abraham, and gives it the force of a covenant.