Genesis 12:1–9

There came the moment when God — "the God of glory" — made Himself known to a poor dark idolater, and won his heart forever. It was not a new religion that Abram learned, nor a new set of opinions, but he came to know a Person. The result was that, like the Thessalonians later, he turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

The revelation and the renunciation were as cause and effect. The second was possible in the strength and joy of the first. The glory of Ur of the Chaldees faded before the God of glory. As he eagerly stretched out his hands toward the one, Abraham turned his back on the other.

If we only look at the Hebrew, there is room for discussion. Its tenses took their sense from the context, and old and new versions differ. But God has given us help here, and all who are humble enough to value it may be glad. Stephen, in Acts 7:2-3, makes it certain that the Lord appeared and gave this call in Mesopotamia, not in Haran. The call came there. Abram carried it out only in part while Terah lived, for Terah was quite content to settle in Haran. But after his death the power of the Lord's call revived in Abram's heart.

From both these passages it plainly appears that Terah and his family moved, as Genesis 11:31 records, because "the God of glory" had revealed Himself to Abram. But it does not appear that Terah had any such revelation from God. He appears as a hindrance to Abram more than anything else. Until he died, Abram did not come into the land of Canaan — the destination God had appointed for him.

Abraham is not told to stay in the city of Ur and deal with man's wickedness. He is not told to improve its social conditions, reform its home life, or make it a better and brighter world. He is called to come out of it in every form. He is to leave the political world — "your country"; the social world — "your kindred"; and the family world — "your father's house."

It is not that we are to despise government — it is still God's appointment. Nor can we neglect family ties — they are ordered of God. Nor are we to stop being courteous and kind and doing good to all people as we have opportunity. But God calls us, as believers, away from taking part in the world's political activities, its social round, and the whole sphere where unconverted members of our families find their pleasure without God.

Later, Abram may find that obeying this command means staying in a land where nothing but starvation seems to await him. But even so, God had not qualified the command in any way. The word was simple and definite: "the land that I will show you." It should have bound Abram just as much when famine surrounded him as when peace and plenty prevailed. Famine should not have persuaded him to leave the land, and abundance should not have persuaded him to stay. The words that carried weight were, "I will show you."

To preserve a testimony to Himself, God called Abram right out of the evil, to become a pilgrim and stranger in the earth. Mankind was already divided into nations under God's government. Now it would see a division of another kind — a godly line separated from the mass of the ungodly. This was a division produced by divine grace.

The nation's history began when God called Abraham out of his old place and connections. He was to go to the land of God's choice, and there God would make him a great nation. This is shown in Genesis 12:1-3, and it was an event that opened a new age. Genesis 1-11 covers a slightly longer stretch of time than all the rest of the Old Testament. Yet it packs that time into a few chapters, while the rest is spread out over many books. The call of Abraham marked a new departure in God's ways with the earth.

Notice the Lord's word to Abram in Genesis 12:2, "I will make your name great." Compare it with the ambition of the men in chapter 11:4: "Let us make a name for ourselves." Men's schemes, whether the Tower of Babel or any other, come to an end. The names of those who plan them and push them through die with the world they belong to. But the man who ties himself to God's interests gets a name that will last for ever. Far better to let God make our name great than to seek anything for ourselves in a scene like this.

The call of God carried Abraham into a path far away from the power and fame of the men who built Babel. He started his pilgrimage with God's promise to make him a great nation, to bless him, to make his name great, and to make him a blessing. God has been as good as His word. People still honour the name of Abraham today. That, however, is a small thing. Far greater is the honour that God Himself calls him "Abraham, my friend" (Isaiah 41:8). Here is true greatness — greatness that lasts, while Nimrod's tower and city are only shapeless ruins on the plains of Mesopotamia.

Fourthly, there is great present blessing for the one who answers the call. As separated from this present evil world, God says to Abraham, "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great." The men of this world seek to make a great name for themselves; they say, "Let us make us a name." But God says to the separated man, "I will bless you and make your name great."

Sixty years before this, God had said to Abraham that one result of answering the call of God, and taking the outside place, would be that God would make his name great (Genesis 12:2). Here we see this word fulfilled, for the world itself has to own that this separate man is "a mighty prince of God."

It was much for God to say, "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great." But there was another word, and this was especially dear to the heart of one so blessed himself. "You shall be a blessing." This was to make him not only the object of grace, but the instrument of it. It was to give him fellowship with God Himself in the activity of His own goodness.

God says, "I will make of you a great nation, and you shall be a blessing." He puts him at the centre of blessing... and then you get the point Galatians 3 presses: "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." The seed is not mentioned here: the great nation is the line of natural descendants. Abram is the root of the tree of promise.

This is above all a prophecy concerning Christ, the Seed of Abram, through whom blessing is to come to the entire world.

God's covenant set no conditions. It made no demands. It put no yoke on the neck and no burden on the shoulder. When "the God of glory appeared to Abraham" in Ur of the Chaldeans, He did not speak to him with words like "you shall do this" and "you shall not do that."... His word to Abraham was, "I WILL GIVE."

This word was especially dear to the heart of one so blessed himself. It made him not only the object of grace, but the instrument of it. It was to give him communion with God Himself in the activity of His own goodness.

No one can limit such a word as this. It shows how the heart of God went out to all, even in earliest times. Blessing for Gentiles was always before His mind. But on what ground? Certainly not the ground of law, to which the foolish Galatians were turning in vain. The law did not yet exist when God spoke this way to the father of the faithful. The promise was unconditional and depends on God alone for fulfilment. It was not drawn out by anything in man, nor even in Abraham individually; it flowed only from the grace of His heart.

Blessing marked his calling. He is blessed and a blessing. Blessing comes to others according to their attitude towards him. And he is the one source of blessing to all the families of the earth... God is blessedness in Himself. It marks Him. He is the source of it to all who have any. This was, in a derived way, exactly Abraham's place... If there was a curse, it was only for hostility to this.

Balaam therefore closes his prophecy with the words of God to Abraham: "Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you." Matthew 25 shows how this is fulfilled. There the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory. He separates the nations one from another by how they treated one of the least of His brothers, the children of Israel.

Abraham acted in faith in God's word, and God said to him, "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." We know the use that the Spirit of God makes of this promise. He says, "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed" (Gal. 3:8). Abraham did not, and could not, foresee how far the effect of that faith would reach. He acted on it in answering the call of God. But God foresaw that faith was the one way of blessing for all the families of the earth. So now, in our small measure, only God can foresee how far the blessing to others may reach from one soul who answers the call of God in simple, whole-hearted faith.

God certainly fulfilled the first part of this promise to Abraham. But as a whole it goes far beyond him. It looks on to the Seed, "which is Christ" (Gal. 3:16). Those who bless Him will be blessed forever. Those who curse or despise Him and reject His salvation will be cursed forever. Not all Israel were blessed in faithful Abraham. But in his Seed, in the glory of His coming reign, all Israel and all the nations are to be blessed.

And all God promised to Abram He has kept. God has fulfilled every word to the letter. Nation after nation has hated Abraham's seed, his natural descendants. Each has found to its great sorrow how true Abraham's God is. These promises still hold good... The nations of the earth, all the families, are waiting, without knowing it, to be blessed by Abraham's seed.

This calling, however special and personal, however much it marked him out for favour, necessarily involved obedience. The call of blessing to Abraham was a call to leave his country for a land which God would show him. Whatever the power acting on his mind might be, obedience was the result. The very terms of the call made it clear — no obedience, no blessing.

Terah, as long as he lived, was a dead weight on Abraham's obedience. But when Terah died, "Abram went, as the LORD had told him." Then the language is pointedly different: "And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions … and they set out to go to the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came." There was no failure now, because his faith was no longer hampered by the natural ties that almost always take the upper hand. That was why the earlier move had lacked the power of God to give it effect. Once that weight was gone, the blessing followed at once.

Terah fulfills his name ("delay"), and ends his days at Haran, named after his dead son. Natural things hold him fast, though death is written on them, and memory only keeps the loss fresh. "Haran" means "parched," yet there he stays (and Abram with him) till he dies. Then we find that Terah had been holding back the very man he had led. Abram rises up in the power of a divine call — a call that had come to him, and to him alone at the first.

We are not told how long Abraham stayed at Haran. Yet God kindly waited on His servant until he was free of nature's hold and could fully obey His command. There was, however, no adjusting of that command to the circumstances of nature. That would never do. God loves His servants too well to rob them of the full blessedness of complete obedience. There was no fresh revelation to Abraham's soul during his stay in Haran. It is good to see this. We must act up to the light already given, and then God will give us more.

Lot appears as a companion who walks alongside people of faith, not as a man who has faith and acts in its energy himself. This marks his path from the beginning. So when he is put to the test, there is only weakness. In how many things do we act alongside those who have faith, before having it for ourselves! The soul will not stand when sifted by temptation, if it is walking in another's light.

In Terah we have seen the man of nature. He can make a fair profession, but he cannot take the path of faith that leads outside the world. In Abraham we have seen the man of faith. Acting on the word of the LORD, he takes the outside place, though at times he may fail in that path. In Lot we see a true believer, who takes the outside place, not in faith in God, but under the influence of man. We have already read that when Abraham departed from Haran, "Lot went with him."

The conclusion seems to be that Terah's family began when he was seventy years old. Abram was not born till Terah was a hundred and thirty. Abram is named first because Terah's other children were of small importance compared with him. These things should teach us that God cares about moral and spiritual matters, not about dates.

The word of the Lord was now fully honoured, and the result was simple, pure and bright. It was no longer man trying only to hinder: God was obeyed. It is not now "Terah took Abram," but "Abram took Sarai." It was the walk of faith, separate to the Lord, Abram blessed and a blessing.

When nature took the lead, we read, "They went forth… from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan." But under Terah's leading they never reach the land. Now, when faith takes the lead, we read again, "They went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came."

Terah, as long as he lived, was a dead weight on Abraham's obedience… God told Abraham to leave his relatives as well as his country. Until he did that, he did not reach Canaan. It would hardly have been proper for Abram as the son to take Terah his father. So "Terah took Abram…" This, however, was not at all according to God's call to Abram. That is why we read, "they came to Haran, and settled there."

Stephen speaks of the God of glory appearing to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran… As a result he left his country, and perhaps many of his relatives. But his father went with him, along with Sarah and Lot, and they settled in Haran. They stayed there long enough for people to be gained in Haran (Gen. 11:31; 12:5). Then it seems God called him to leave his country, his relatives and his father's house, and come into a land that He would show him (Gen. 12:1). The effect of this call was that he left Haran.

We only note here that Abram brought his household with him out of Chaldea and Haran into Canaan. This happened on the same principle as with Noah: the household is linked before God with its head.

Not nature now, but the man of faith leads, and they no longer linger on the road; but Lot merely follows Abram, as before he had followed Terah. Abram walks with God; Lot only with Abram. How easy it is, even for a believer, to walk where another's bolder faith leads and clears the way! He can go on without ever searching his own conscience, and without real faith about the way itself.

When Abraham first entered on the path of faith, and Lot went with him, they took "all their possessions." But it caused no strife (Gen. 12:5). In Egypt, however, Abraham gains great wealth, so that after his restoration we read, "He was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold."

He might have set out and never finished the journey. But they "came to the land of Canaan." So let us not only have a goal; let us also seek grace to reach it.

Here we have the position of the heavenly people. God's grace and power have placed them in a heavenly position, pictured by Canaan, and there they live. They have everything in promise, but nothing yet in possession.

He came to stay for a while, not to settle. He moves from place to place, and in every place it is only a tent he pitches. The God of glory had told him that He would show him the land. His descendants would have it forever, but he himself would only see it. And so we find him looking it over, but not settling on any of it. For this was the right answer to such a promise... The Canaanite was then in the land and held the soil. Abraham did not argue with him over a single foot of it. He looked it over. He owned it only as faith and hope own a thing. He looked for no inheritance of his own there and then.

We hear of the first stop at Sichem (Shechem), at the oak of Moreh. The first of these words means "shoulder," the second "instructor." It is when we bend our shoulder to carry a load that we are taught. Whoever is willing to do God's will, will know the teaching. Whoever wants to learn from Christ must take His yoke.

Shoulder speaks of bearing responsibility. This is a first step of real value for the child of God. Too many of us would rather avoid responsibility. But if we accept the place of bearing a responsible witness for the Lord Jesus, we will be well taught, as Moreh — "teacher" — implies.

The presence of the Canaanite in God's land was bound to be a trial to Abraham. It would be a demand on his faith and hope, an exercise of heart, a test of patience... But there, too, he finds the Lord... The connection between the two statements is beautiful and touching. The Canaanites were in the land at that time. So that Abraham's eye would not rest on the Canaanite, who then held the land, the Lord appears to him as the One who was going to give that land to him and to his descendants forever. So Abraham's attention was on the Lord, not on the Canaanite.

Canaanite means "trader." That reminds us there are people who claim to be Christians but only use it to make money. This is a real trial of faith for those who want to walk with God. But despite the Canaanites, Abram would take up proper responsibility and learn from God. Let us also not use the Canaanites as an excuse for failing to obey the word of God fully.

There is no ground for saying that these words, or Genesis 13:7, mean the Canaanites and Perizzites were gone from the land by the time the writer lived. They show that the first, if not the second, were in the land when Abram entered it... We can easily understand that this was a trial to Abram. But he did not have to wait for the days of Moses, or of Joshua, to know that these invaders and all the others were doomed...

They are in the place of strangers, that is clear ("at that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land"). They have nothing in possession, "not even a foot's length"; everything rests on their valuing the promises. They have just two things, the altar and the tent. Journeying about, and worshipping God, they are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Abram was not called to drive out the Canaanite. Yet we find his altar to the Lord, and his tent too, on the very ground of those wicked nations. He was a worshipper and a stranger in the very place where the Canaanite was doing well. The smoke of an accepted sacrifice rose from his altar right in front of the enemy. It is a wonderful sight.

His first act, on arrival at the plain of Moreh, near Shechem, was to put up an altar. At this spot the LORD appeared to him and renewed His promise: "to your offspring I will give this land." This is the first recorded time God showed Himself since Abram left Ur of the Chaldeans. It illustrates our Lord's words to His disciples in John 14:21: "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Obedience always brings the light and joy of the Lord's presence as its reward to the soul.

"The LORD appeared to Abram" — He not only spoke but "appeared." To my mind that word is not casual but deliberate... The first time, all we read is that "the LORD had said." Now we find that "the LORD appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land." Nothing is vague any longer. It is precise. It is not "a land that I will show you," but "to your offspring I will give this land." What is the consequence? There "he built an altar to the LORD" — and not only that, but "to the LORD who had appeared to him." So it is clear to my mind that this was what had to come before worship. Worship waits until the Lord shows Himself.

The presence of the Canaanite in God's land was bound to test Abraham. It would be a demand upon his faith and hope, an exercise of heart, a trial of patience... But there, too, he finds the Lord... "The Canaanites were in the land." The Canaanite held it at that moment. So that Abraham's eye would not rest on him, the LORD appears to Abraham as the One who was going to give the land to him and to his offspring forever. So Abraham was taken up with the Lord, and not with the Canaanite... instead of dwelling on Satan's power to keep us out of the inheritance, we should grasp Christ's power to bring us in.

Abraham had answered God's call and reached the land of his pilgrimage. Then God appeared to him and told him His purpose about his inheritance. Only then did Abram build his altar. You could say he built it in the light of God's purpose. To the Canaanite in the land, the altar was a witness that this pilgrim and stranger among them had a God he worshipped. To God, the altar was the evidence that Abraham wanted to meet His mind and will by having communion with Him.

We hear of the first halt at Sichem (Shechem), at the oak of Moreh. The first of these words means "shoulder." The second means "instructor." We find instruction when we bow our shoulder to carry the load. He who is willing to do God's will shall know the teaching: he who will learn of Christ must take His yoke.

In Galatians 3:16 the apostle is speaking of Genesis 12 and 22, but there he means one special offspring. God made the promise to Abraham alone, and confirmed it to his offspring in Genesis 22... The reasoning in Galatians is that Christ alone is the offspring meant in Genesis 22, where God speaks of the nations of the world. And if we are in Christ, then we too are the offspring of Abraham.

"And Abraham built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him." He serves God and enjoys communion with Him. From there he goes to another place and pitches his tent. He builds a new altar to the LORD and calls on the name of the LORD. He is a pilgrim in the land of promise; and that is his entire history... Abraham's tent and altar here shape his whole history, and every experience of faith grows out of those two things.

Abraham and those with him answered God's call by faith, and so became strangers and exiles. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit says that they "acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13). This stands out in his history. In Haran, Abraham stayed for a time, and we read that he "settled there." Once he reached the land, we read that he "pitched his tent," like a man with no fixed home. We also read that he "passed through the land." As a stranger he had only a tent in this world. As a pilgrim he was passing through to another world.

He built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. Again he built an altar, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he called upon the name of the LORD. The revelation of the LORD produces worship. The basis of worship is a conscious and precious relationship with the LORD. Abram knew the LORD's grace toward him; therefore he worshipped Him and called upon His name.

The tent and the altar clearly present him to us as a stranger and a worshipper. As such, he was a man entirely separated from the course of this evil world.

He worships in the fullness of blessing, and then his "tent" also comes into view for the first time, pitched on the mountain east of Bethel. "Ai" means "a heap of ruin." It is the city that resists the power of Israel in Joshua, after Jericho falls to the ground. It is as if the ruins of Jericho had risen up against those who had lost God's victorious presence, their strength. As a picture, Ai is no doubt the ruined old creation. So Abram pitches his tent between a judged world and the "house of God," with both in view.

Calling on the name of the LORD showed Abram's knowledge of the LORD and his dependence on Him. The altar was the outward evidence of his link with God, a testimony for everyone to take account of. But his calling on the name of the LORD was not only a profession of faith in Him. It was also the evidence of a living link formed by the call of God. Abram would never have called on the name of the LORD if God had not first called Abram while he was in Ur of the Chaldeans. God's call gave him the power to answer it. That call also gave him the desire and understanding to call upon the LORD's name.

Abram was not called to drive out the Canaanite. Yet we find his altar to the LORD on the very ground of the wicked nations, and his tent as well. Here is a worshipper and a stranger in the very place where the Canaanite was flourishing. Here is an altar with the smoke of accepted sacrifice rising in the very face of the enemy. It is a wonderful sight. We may well travel back in spirit to the tent pitched between Bethel and Ai. There we can bless the LORD, who could sustain the pilgrim father and his household in true worship in the enemy's own stronghold.

Pressed by circumstances, he does not consult God. He finds himself in the presence of the world, where he had sought help and refuge, and he denies his true relationship with his wife. The world cherishes him, and God at last judges that world, sending Abram out of it again. During this whole period, and until he had returned to the place from which he started, he had no altar.