1 - 6 The Calling of Abram
1 Now the LORD said to Abram,
“Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
3 And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
4 So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5 Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
6 Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite [was] then in the land.
The Darby Translation translates verse 1 that the LORD “had said to Abram”. This translation is to be preferred, for the LORD speaks to Abram while he is still in Ur of the Chaldeans (Acts 7:2-4a). There God tells him to go out of his land, to the land He will show him. He has to leave his family to form a new one. He even has to leave his father’s house, of which he is still a member, to become a father of many nations. God’s calling is always personal. God’s way is always with the individual. God calls Abram when he is alone (Isa 51:2).
This calling of Abram should later make it clear to Israel that their existence as a people is entirely God’s work and started with a man who in faith obeyed what God has said to him. This should convince Israel of Abram’s Divine calling and of the necessity of faith when the people leave Egypt to go to Canaan.
When God calls, He always connects promises to it. Abram receives a sevenfold promise (verses 2-3). That’s enough to get him on his way. He goes, without knowing where he will end up. This means that he goes in faith. As we saw at the end of the previous chapter, it took Abram time and effort to get out of his father’s house. Yet he goes. In Hebrews 11 we read about his obedience (Heb 11:8). God sees the willingness in his heart and has patience in overcoming the obstacles.
Abram obeys, in faith in the word of the LORD. This obeying in faith makes Abraham in Scripture the great example of faith: “Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, [saying,] “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer” (Gal 3:6-9). Its characteristic is to give up the visible things for an invisible goal (2Cor 4:18).
When Abram comes into the land, the Canaanites are there, and they are in charge. The land of Canaan is for Israel literally the promised land, in which God has all blessings waiting for them. The condition is that Israel remains faithful to the LORD and fights in His strength to drive out the Canaanites.
For the Christian, the land of Canaan spiritually represents the heavenly places, in which he is blessed with all spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph 1:3). But also for the Christian this blessing can only be enjoyed if he is willing to struggle for it. We read about this in Ephesians 6. Fortunately, we do not have to struggle in our own strength (Eph 6:10). God makes His own armor available to us (Eph 6:11-18).
7 The LORD Appears to Abram
7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.
When Abram has arrived in Canaan, the LORD appears to him. He could not do that in Haran. Abram, after his calling and the promise of blessing for him and his descendants, receives here the promise that his descendants will receive the land in which he has now arrived. Following this announcement Abram builds an altar to the LORD. His heart is so full of thanks that he can only worship Him for His promises.
The LORD has appeared to him; he has seen Him. The LORD has spoken to him; he has heard Him. Abram believes in Who appeared to him, and he believes in what the LORD promised him. This is living faith.
Thus the Lord also appears to us when we read His Word. Then we see Him. And we hear Him speak. We can be confident that He does what He says. If that lives for us, we will worship Him.
8 Abram: Tent and Altar
8 Then he proceeded from there to the mountain 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.
Abram’s life is characterized by a tent and an altar. He goes to the mountains, he seeks to be close to God. He pitches his tent between Bethel and Ai. His tent is a symbol of his pilgrimage. He is a traveler, someone who has no permanent residence and abode. He does not seek a place on earth. He expects the city of God (Heb 11:8-10).
His altar is a symbol of worship. A worshiper is a pilgrim and a pilgrim is a worshiper. The altar is for the LORD, and there he calls upon His Name (cf. Gen 21:33; 26:23-25). To call upon the name of the LORD means to call Him by His name Yahweh and on that basis to approach Him in prayer and in worship. Abram honors God for Whom He is. He will have worshiped Him for the promises he has received from Him and of which he knows that they will be fulfilled by Him. By this God has among the Canaanites, who live in the land, a witness for His Name.
“Bethel” means “house of God”. Thus in our time, the time of the New Testament, the church is called (1Tim 3:15). “Ai” means “ruin”. That is the actual situation of the house of God, the church. The Christian who is a pilgrim lives in the midst of the ruins of the Christian testimony of God on earth, while on the other side he tries to realize God’s thoughts about His church.
9 - 20 Abram in Egypt
9 Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev. 10 Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.” 14 It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels. 17 But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why 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.” 20 Pharaoh commanded [his] men concerning him; and they escorted him away, with his wife and all that belonged to him.
With the departure from Bethel the deviation begins for Abram. He goes to a border area. It is always dangerous for a believer to live in a border area. This is the area where the danger of a spiritual fall is defied. Hunger comes in that area. In Bethel Abram was not hungry.
Abram goes even further away. He crosses the border and enters Egypt. He has not received a command from God for this. By the way, he does not intend to live there, but to sojourn there, he wants to stay there as a foreigner, for as long as he considers it necessary. Egypt is a picture of the world. When we go back to that area, we increasingly lose sight of God.
The result is that Abram is afraid that something will happen to him. His trust in God is gone. He devises an excuse to secure himself at the expense of his wife. Here we see to what the most God-fearing believer can come when he leaves the place God has given him. His selfishness leads him to have his wife Sarai deny her true relationship to him. He incites his wife to lie. What he says is partly true (Gen 20:12), but he says it with the purpose of misleading.
It turns out differently than he thought. He wants to prevent Sarai from being lost by his lie, but by his trickery he loses her. Ironically, it indeed goes well with him for Sarai’s sake, which he has given up as the motive for his misleading proposal of their relationship (verses 13,16). However, all the gifts he receives do not compensate the loss of Sarai. He also lost his altar, as well as his place in the land to which God has sent him. He has also lost the blessing attached to his stay in the country.
He who strays from the way God has shown, loses a lot. For the world, too, someone who strays is not a blessing. We see that here too. Through Abram’s behavior God must bring plagues over Pharaoh and his house. Finally, Abram is admonished by Pharaoh, we can say the world. Something similar we see in the history of Jonah (Jona 1:6).
All in all, the situation in which Abram finds himself is a sad one. It is a great grace of God that He saves Abram from this situation. That is no honor for Abram, but all honor is to God.