Genesis 12:1-9

Bible Study Lesson for July 8

Genesis 12:1-9

Last week we finished Genesis 11 and we met the next major character in the great story of Genesis. Abram’s story will be different from any character who has come before, particularly in its length. Abram will dominate the story from Genesis 12-25; in terms of chapters his story is as long as everything that happened before. In chapter 11, Abram is just traveling along with his family. His father set out for Canaan, but settled in the town of Haran. Abram’s wife Sarai is barren and at this point in the story it seems like the future of the family lies with the family of Abram’s brother Nahor. At 12:1, however, the entire story changes.

12:1-3

The call of Abram is one of the most decisive moments in all of Scripture. It consists of two parts: a command and a promise. One of the striking things about this moment is that God once again does the heavy lifting. All Abraham has to do is obey and have faith.

God commands Abram to go to an undisclosed land that God has picked out. God will show Abram the land. If Abram will do this, God will do five things:

1) make of Abram a great nation

2) bless Abram

3) make Abram’s name great

4) bless those who bless Abram and curse those who curse Abram

5) bless the “families of the earth” through Abram

Later in Genesis and throughout the Bible, Abram will be known for his faith. This moment in his life is the first step in a journey of faith that will shape the nation of Israel and ultimately the history of the world. Abram’s journey becomes an example of faith that we are encouraged to imitate.

How does Abram exemplify faith? To answer this question, we have to first understand what God is asking Abram to do. God tells Abram to leave three things: his country, his kindred, and his father’s house. Beyond leaving the familiar for the unknown, Abram is also commanded to leave his support and safety. Leaving his country means leaving the land he has always known, the land of people who share his story, who broadly share his values and his culture. Leaving his kindred means leaving the extended network of connections and his safety net. As we discussed last week, the bonds of kindred for Abram represents the pool of marriageable partners for any offspring he might have. Of course, the prospect of offspring is dwindling for Abram as well. Leaving his father’s house means leaving behind his closest kin. Even though we learned of his father’s death in 11:32, in verse 12:4 we will learn that the call of Abram happens when he is 75 years old, well before his father’s death. Since Abram seems to be the oldest son of Terah, this also means that he is leaving behind his birthright and his inheritance. All that Terah has will be passed on to Nahor. These three things Abram must leave behind represent the cost of following this God for Abram.

Why does Abram decide to follow God’s command? While the passage in Genesis 12 does not lay out his reasons for us, I think we have to assume that Abram believed that God was able to keep the promises, and that made following God worth the cost. The next several chapters will make clear that Abram’s faith is far from perfect and that he will have to face many challenges. Taking the first step away from the life he knows in Haran, in spite of the challenges and the (for now) unfulfilled promises, makes Abram a model of faith for us.

The faith of Abram is most clearly seen when we consider the fundamental first promise of God. God promises to make Abram into a nation. At this point, Abram is seventy-five years old and has no children. His wife is just a few years younger than he is and they have most likely long since given up on trying to have children of their own. The importance of Genesis 11:30 cannot be overstated. The barrenness of Sarai represents a long struggle by Abram and Sarai to secure a legacy for themselves in the way their culture would have expected them to. God effectively promises them a child here, and later the promise will become more explicit. But Abram and Sarai will have to wait a long time for God to bring the child into the world.

Likewise, Abram will spend the rest of his life as a traveler. He will move through the Promised Land over the course of his life, but he will never lay claim to it himself. He will own a small piece of it as a place to bury his family, but he will live there as a foreigner. Sometimes faith in God means trusting the promise to future generations. This is certainly the case for Abram.

12:4-9

Very quickly Abram moves into the land of Canaan. These verses focus on two holy sites of the future northern kingdom of Israel (Shechem and Bethel), and conclude with Abram moving toward the south. In both Shechem and Bethel, Abram builds altars. Abram will live among the Canaanites his whole life without violence or much conflict. The Canaanites serve in Abram’s story as neighbors, from whom he must remain distinct, but with whom he largely has no quarrel. Walter Brueggemann points out that the main distinction between Abram and the Canaanites is that Abram “calls on the name of the Lord” (v. 8). This will be an important feature of life under the covenant with God and it will shape the worship of Israel and the Church.

Conclusion: Calling on the Name of the Lord

Calling on the Name of the Lord is a posture of worship for God’s people. According to Brueggemann, there are two basic situations in which the people of God call upon the name of the Lord. The first is in thanksgiving, as in Psalm 105:

O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name,

make known his deeds among the peoples.

  Sing to him, sing praises to him;

tell of all his wonderful works. (Ps. 105:1-2)

In thanksgiving, we both reach out to the Lord in praise and we tell our neighbors of the wonderful things God has done for us. We share our testimonies about times we have been in trouble and God has rescued us. Abram’s altars in these verses are a form of testimony. In building the altars Abram loudly declares his allegiance to this God and his faith that God will make good on the promise to grant this land to Abram’s descendants, even though Abram and Sarai are as yet still struggling with infertility. Abram praises God even in the midst of the struggle to live according to his faith.

The second situation in which we call on the name of the Lord is in distress, when we ask for help:

The snares of death encompassed me;

the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;

I suffered distress and anguish.

  Then I called on the name of the LORD:

“O LORD, I pray, save my life!” (Ps. 116:3-4)

In distress, we learn about our faith. When we are struggling, we turn to people who we think can and will help. I don’t tell of my financial woes to people who don’t care for me, who can’t help me. If I’m sick, I seek help from doctors and from people who know where to go to get help. We can turn to God with any problem we have because God knows the answer and because we believe that God has our best interests at heart. Abram models this throughout his life, and he starts it in this passage. He can say, “God, you have promised, and I believe that you will accomplish your promise. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

In the New Testament, we find the promise that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13). This is the outworking of the promise of God to Abram, that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Abram becomes a model of faith, not just for his Jewish descendants, but for his Canaanite neighbors and for the Gentiles who will come to believe in his God through the salvation work of Jesus Christ. We who believe now should call on the name of the Lord when we need help and in praise for the help we receive.