July 1996
Genesis Chapter 12
The Book of Genesis in the Bible takes a new development beginning with the 12th Chapter. The book is thus divided into two parts with its history of the world.
As we have covered in recent issues, the first 11 chapters of Genesis deal with the history of the world and some of the major historical events of the Bible: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, and the Tower of Babel.
Last issue we discussed the story of Job. The Book of Job is not in chronological order in the Bible, but because the time frame of the events it appears to have happened in the time frame about the middle of Genesis.
These first stories are of the well-known historical "stories" of the Bible. Each is important because of its very significant lessons and its teachings. However, it is with the 12th Chapter of Genesis that we begin to learn of God's plan with His chosen people.
Beginning with Chapter 12 we learn about God's call of Abraham, and the Lord's plan to make Abraham the head of a great nation of people. It is thus with the story of Abraham that Genesis starts to tell us about the great biblical "patriarchs" of fathers and sons: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's twelve sons (including Joseph) which were the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Abraham is an extremely important person in biblical history, and an understanding of the life and times of Abraham and the Lord's direction for Abraham is crucial to understanding the Lord's plan for His chosen people. We also learn through Abraham about historical events that help us understand the background to major disputes between two great nations of people in the world today: the Jews and the Arabs.
We will divide our review of Abraham into parts and in this issue will discuss only the first part of the Lord's call to Abraham -- primarily covered in Genesis chapter 12.
The background to Abraham actually begins in the final verses of chapter 11 with the genealogy of Noah's son Shem, which included Abraham (then called Abram). Abraham's father was Terah. Abraham had two brothers, Nahor and Haran. Haran died early, leaving a son, Lot.
Terah and his family and his sons and their families initially lived in Ur (which apparently was in modern-day Iraq near the Persian Gulf near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Abraham married Sarah (then spelled "Sarai"), but no children were initially conceived because "Sarah was barren; she had no child". Genesis 11:30.
Terah then took Abraham and Sarah, along with Abraham's nephew Lot and they moved up the rivers to Haran, where Terah died at age 205.
It is beginning at the 12th Chapter of Genesis that we learn of the Lord's call to Abraham and of the intent to make Abraham the father of the Lord's chosen people.
"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Gen. 12:1-3.
Abraham was 75 years old at the time he left Haran at the Lord's instruction, and took with him his wife Sarah and his deceased brother's son, Lot. With all their worldly goods, they traveled to the land of Canaan where the Lord appeared to Abraham and said: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." Gen. 12:7. We are told that Abraham showed his faith and dedication to the Lord by constructing altars unto the Lord and praising the Lord's name (Gen. 12:7-8).
We learn later in chapters 13 and 15 that the Lord said Abraham's seed would be innumerable as the "dust of the earth" (13:16) and the stars in the heaven (15:5).
Abraham's wife, Sarah, remained childless and was beyond what we know to be child-bearing years. Thus we begin to learn the first part of upcoming events told in Genesis about the start of the Lord's chosen plan for earth with a promise of great nation heirship to Abraham. The Lord's call and promise to Abraham had to seem strange to a man whose wife could bare no children.