Chapter 12

Genesis

1 note in this chapter

19 Abraham: Genesis 12:19

1Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. 9And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

10Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” 14When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

17But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”✦

19Abraham: Genesis 12:19

Critical Commentary

Two points are made about Abraham. The first concerns marriage. When Pharaoh rebukes Abram in Genesis 12:19 for saying “She is my sister” so that he took her as his wife, and Abraham admits in Genesis 20:12 that Sarah really is his sister, his father’s daughter, who became his wife, the Bible is shown telling this without embarrassment. Genesis 16:3 adds that Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham “as a wife”. These are the patriarchs held up as models of faith, and their household arrangements are told plainly and without comment.

The second point is a promise that did not come true as stated. God promises Abraham and his offspring all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession in Genesis 17:8, and says the same in Genesis 13:15 and Exodus 32:13. Yet Acts 7:5 says God gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length. The question put is how an everlasting gift can be said to be given to a man who never owned any of it.

Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
Genesis 20:12

And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Genesis 17:8

Source: see Credits and references (no. 2, p. 4).

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20And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

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