Let’s Discuss Genesis 12!
Genesis12 – The Call of Abam
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”[b]
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring[c] I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev. Abram in Egypt
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.
11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are.
12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live.
13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman.
15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace.
16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.
18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?
19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!”
20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
God’s call to Abram initiates the ongoing biblical story of covenant, and it shows what it can mean to trust and follow God’s leading, especially when it disrupts comfort and certainty.
We can explore the tension between faith and fear in Abram’s journey—especially his actions in Egypt.
We can apply insights from Abram’s story to our own spiritual journeys of discernment, obedience, and risk.
1. Genesis 12 is a turning point in the Hebrew Bible. Up to this point, the story has dealt with universal humanity (Adam and Eve, Noah, Babel). Now, it narrows in on one man—Abram—through whom God will bless “all the families of the earth” (v. 3).
Abram is called from Haran (likely in modern-day Syria or Turkey) to Canaan, which was already inhabited. God’s promise involves land, descendants, and blessing—but no road map, no timeline.
The story is theological: it introduces covenant, divine initiative, and the cost of obedience.
1. The Call and the Promise (vv. 1–9)
a. What strikes you about God’s command in verse 1?
What does it mean to “go from your country… to the land I will show you”?
How might this have felt to Abram—at 75 years old, leaving all that was familiar?
b. What is included in God’s promise?
Notice how blessing is a recurring theme. How does God’s promise to Abram expand outward to “all peoples on earth”? Blessing and Covenant.
c. How does Abram respond?
Verse 4 says simply: “So Abram went.”
What does his obedience teach us about faith?
d. What role do the altars in vv. 7–8 play in this story?
What does it mean to “call on the name of the Lord”?
How do we create altars or spiritual markers in our own lives?
2. The Detour in Egypt (vv. 10–20)
a. How does famine shift the story?
Have you ever had a clear sense of calling or direction, only to have circumstances disrupt that path?
b. Why do you think Abram lies about Sarai?
What do his actions reveal about fear and self-preservation—even in someone of great faith?
c. What’s your reaction to the way Sarai is treated in this passage?
How do we wrestle with disturbing moral or relational dynamics in biblical stories?
d. How does God act in this situation? (vv. 17–20)
Despite Abram’s fear and deception, God intervenes. What does this say about divine faithfulness?
Reflection and Application
1. When have you felt a call from God that required you to leave something behind—whether a physical place, a role, a belief, or a relationship?
2. In what ways are you currently “pitching your tent” in uncertain territory, still waiting for clarity or confirmation?
3. How do you reconcile being faithful and being fearful—sometimes in the same season of life?
4. What might God be inviting you to trust or release right now?
Spiritual Practice: Mapping Your Journey
What journey are you on now? Where were you when God called you to “go from” and go “out to a country God would show?” What one or two words represents this starting point: home, former job, a first belief, an unbelief, a false confidence, a particular identity, family of origin, hometown, a former way of being or doing???
Did you travel through a desert, a famine, strange territory? Maybe you’re there now? Maybe you just left that place and feel a quickening?
What is your prayer of hope about where God is leading you? What would you like to say to God about your ideas of this new place?
Looking through a scholar’s eyes: AJ Levine
1. On Covenant and Universal Promise
Levine emphasizes that the call of Abram in Genesis 12 introduces a covenant that is both parenthetical and universal. It doesn’t merely address Abram’s family or nation, but expands to the entire world—“in Abram all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” encompassing Jews and Gentiles alike:
“The covenant with Abraham has a both/and rather than an either/or focus: it is both for Jews and for gentiles…”
2. Historical Context and Humble Listening
Levine urges humility in interpretation—recognizing we cannot know definitively what ancient redactors or first audiences assumed but must approach the text with historical awareness and open ear.
This perspective invites us to see Abram’s call not as a polished final statement, but as part of an evolving oral tradition shaped over generations—a tradition that eventually gave meaning to identity, promise, land, and blessing.
3. Reading with Jewish and Christian Eyes
In The Bible with and Without Jesus (co-authored with Marc Brettler), Levine frequently illustrates how the same biblical text carries distinct resonances in Jewish and Christian readings. While Christians tend to interpret Genesis 12 as a prototype or foreshadowing of Gentile inclusion in Christ, Jewish interpretation typically centers Abram as the origin point of a particular people and divine covenant—without necessarily universalizing it in Christological terms.
Extending Levine’s ideas:
Genesis 12 as the narrative hinge between universal creation narratives and the nation of Israel—God’s covenant pivot begins here.
Encourages readers to view the text through both Jewish and Christian interpretive frames, holding tension between Abram’s particularity and universal promise.
Stress the importance of reading the story with historical, literary, and redactional humility, without assuming modern theological categories shaped the ancient authors’ intentions.
Historical awareness, interfaith respect, and interpretive plurality are important when we as 21st century Christians read an ancient Jewish text and claim it as our own.
Levine offers a helpful lens for understanding Abram’s call. Reading with her influence encourages us to hold both Abram’s rootedness in Jewish origins and the expansive movement of God's promise that reaches beyond every boundary.
Genesis 12:1–3 contains what Paul later called the "gospel preached beforehand to Abraham" (Galatians 3:8). He writes that when “the Lord appeared to Abram” in this chapter, Abram encountered the Word of the Lord—the same divine figure Christians later recognize in Jesus (John 1:1‑14).
Did Abraham receive not just a promise of land or nationhood, but awareness that God would become human to bring blessing to the nations through Abraham’s seed?
The covenant’s promise that “whoever curses you I will curse” (Gen 12:3): what IS this?? Is it the basis for the imprecatory psalms—those bold prayers for God’s judgment on enemies.
Such psalms reflect a plea for God to act on the covenant, to enforce divine justice for those who oppress the heirs of Abraham. That would make those psalms NOT psalms of personal vengeance or revenge for human exploits, but psalms calling for God to consider the “singer” God’s people, to free God’s people from oppression, to deliver God’s people from evil and restore God’s people to the state of blessing and close relationship with God. These calls for vengeance are not punitive but cries to be restored to closeness and safety in God, out of the hands of oppressors.
Abram’s call not only as foundational to Israel but also as pointing to the fullness of the gospel promise—God’s redemptive mission reaching beyond Israel-centric boundaries.
Genesis 12 sets a theological stage: divine blessing comes through Abraham, and divine judgment is promised for those who oppress God’s people, anything and everything that disrupts close, familial relationship between God and God’s people.
Genesis 12 as the place where early covenant language “gels” and we see throughout the Bible story all the way into its fulfillment with Jesus of Nazareth, God coming into human form to be with humanity.
The Bible tells the story of a cosmic conflict and a divine rescue, a love that refuses to let fragmentation and rebellion have the final word.
The One God, the Many Powers, and the Return to Oneness
1. The One Creator and the Rebellious “Sons of God”
In the Old Testament—especially Genesis 6, Deuteronomy 32, and Psalm 82—we see glimpses of a divine council or assembly of “sons of God” (bene elohim):
In Genesis 6, the “sons of God” take human women and bear the Nephilim, a union often interpreted by ancient Jewish sources (like 1 Enoch) as a rebellion by spiritual beings against God's order.
In Deuteronomy 32:8–9 (based on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint texts), God apportions the nations to these divine beings after Babel—each nation receives a spiritual “delegate,” and Israel is God's own portion.
In Psalm 82, God stands in judgment over these “gods” (elohim), condemning their injustice:
“I said, ‘You are gods, all of you sons of the Most High. But you shall die like mortals…’” (Psalm 82:6–7)
Could it be that the rebellious divine beings led the nations astray and the biblical story is, in large part, the regathering of those lost nations back to the one true God, especially through the Messiah.
2. God’s Grief and Persistent Love
Rather than abandonment, God responds to cosmic rebellion and human sin with covenant and calling:
The call of Abram in Genesis 12 isn’t just about starting a new tribe; it’s a mission to bless all the families of the earth.
The Law, the prophets, and ultimately Jesus are about God creating a family of return—a way for both Israel and the nations to come home.
Isaiah 49:6: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant… I will also make you a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” WHO IS BEING ADDRESSED HERE?
3. Jesus as the Regather-er of the Scattered
Jesus comes not only to forgive sins but to break the power of the hostile powers—the “principalities and powers” Paul writes about in Ephesians and Colossians.
Colossians 1:20: “Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things… making peace through the blood of his cross.”
Ephesians 1:10: God's purpose is “to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
At Pentecost (Acts 2), the nations that were scattered at Babel (Genesis 11) are symbolically gathered again as the Spirit speaks to every tongue and tribe.
Scholar N.T. Wright calls this new creation theology: God in Christ is not discarding the world but redeeming and reuniting it.
4. The Bible as the Story of Return
So yes—the Bible tells of:
Disintegration (rebellion of spiritual and human beings),
God’s covenantal rescue (Israel, prophets, Messiah),
and eventual restoration (a redeemed humanity living in communion with God and one another).
Revelation ends not with destruction but with reunion: OUR UNITY IN GOD IS REVEALED
“The dwelling of God is with mortals. He will dwell with them… and death shall be no more.” (Revelation 21:3–4)
What are your thoughts on this outline? Is this new and strange to you? Does it track? Does it relieve, disappoint, disrupt, intrigue you? OR…?
Theme
Description
The One God
Creator of all beings—human and divine—and the source of love and life.
The Sons of God
Created spiritual beings; some rebelled, leading to fragmentation (Genesis 6, Deut. 32, Psalm 82) that spread to humans.
Humanity's Fragmentation
Sin, pride, and idolatry divide the people and obscure the image of God in them. When they do join forces it is to cut out God and be God themselves (Babel). God disperses people and makes a covenant with one group through which to work and bring unity once again through covenant and blessing, through God’s closeness to those people which will then be extended to all through Christ.
Covenant & Christ
God chooses Israel to bless the world and sends Christ to reunite heaven and earth.
The Final Restoration
The whole cosmos is drawn back into love, justice, and divine presence.
Where in your own story have you felt fragmented—and how has God begun to regather you?
Who are the “lost ones” you sense God longing to bring home—not just spiritually, but relationally, culturally, or globally?
Closing Prayer
Faithful God, like Abram and Sarai, we step into the unknown not because we are fearless, but because You are with us. Thank You for calling us even when we are hesitant, for guiding us even when we falter, and for blessing us so that we might be a blessing to others. Help us trust Your voice more than the voices of fear. Make our lives altars of praise, wherever we journey. In Your holy name, Amen.
