Genesis
Chapter 12
Abram’s Vocation
The LORD said to Abram:
“Leave your country,
your family and your father’s house,
for the land I will show you.
I will make you a great nation.
I will bless you and 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 through you,
all people of the earth will be blessed.”
So Abram went as the LORD had instructed him, and Lot accompanied him.
Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.
Abram took Sarai, his wife, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set out for the land of Canaan.
They arrived in Canaan.
Abram traveled through the country as far as Shechem to the oak of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
The LORD appeared to Abram and said:
“To your descendants, I will give this land.”
There, he built an altar to the LORD who had appeared to him.
From there, he went on to the mountains east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There, he also built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
Then Abram set out in the direction of the Negeb.
Abram in Egypt
There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to stay there for a while, for the famine was severe.
Just as he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife:
“Now I know you are a beautiful woman.
When the Egyptians see you, they will say: ‘That is his wife!’ They will then kill me, but they will let you live.
Say that you are my sister so they will treat me well on your account, and my life will be spared because of you.”
In fact, when Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians noticed that the woman was very beautiful.
Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh. The woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house;
because of her, he treated Abram well. He received sheep, cattle, donkeys, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels.
But the LORD inflicted severe plagues on Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai.
So Pharaoh summoned Abram and said:
“What have you done to me?
Why did you say: ‘She’s my sister,’ so I took her for my wife? Now, here is your wife! Take her and go!”
And Pharaoh gave orders to his men regarding Abram, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and all that belonged to him.
Commentaries
Abram’s Vocation.
God interrupts the story of a previously unknown person in the Bible. Surely, Abram must have traveled through many places before. However, the itinerary we read here presents several novelties: 1. It is undertaken by divine command. 2. The displacement is no longer temporary but permanent, as it is based on the promise of territory donation. His presence in the territory becomes permanent with the construction of an altar in Shechem (7) to the God who appeared to him there, and another in Bethel, where he established his camp and invoked the Lord (8).
Abram in Egypt.
Verse 9 indicated that Abram moved in stages to the Negev, a region to the south of the territory he had symbolically taken possession of. The Negev is, in fact, the most arid and barren part of the territory; if a drought occurs, famine is not far behind. Given its proximity to Egypt, the most practical choice is to travel there in search of food.
In this account, we discover a tradition concerning the patriarch and his wife in Egypt that bears parallels to Genesis (cf. 20:1-18; 26:1-11). The writer aims to emphasize Abram’s “untouchable” figure as a crucial element in the beginnings of salvation history. One would not expect the protagonist to display deceitful behavior, ultimately causing serious ailments and afflictions for Pharaoh and his court (17). Pharaoh’s reaction (18-20) is perhaps more admirable than the attitudes of both the patriarch and the matriarch. This creates a powerful narrative where God is writing a story of salvation through the ups and downs, failures, and mistakes of its main characters. God understands human frailty and weakness and knows that He will gather the pieces of the mosaic of his salvific action in the world from these very aspects.