Genesis 12:1-4a
Chapter 12
1
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.2
I will make you a great nation.
I will bless you and make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3
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.”
4
So Abram went as the LORD had instructed him, and Lot accompanied him.
Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.
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).