NL 102: Calling of Abram

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Genesis 12:1-9

September 18, 2022

  • Who was Abram’s brother?

    • Read 11:27-32 and you see that Abram came from somewhere, too. 

    • The narrative of him moving makes less sense if you don’t get an idea of where he starts.

    • “Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot.” (Gen. 11:27, NRSV)

    • “Terah took his Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were two hundred five years, and Terah died in Haran.” (Gen. 11:31, NRSV)

    • This begs the question - were they already on their way to Canaan when God spoke to Abram? 

Bible Study

  • Hard division between chapters 1-11 and chapters 12-50? (Terrence Fretheim, New Interpreter’s Bible Old Testament Survey, p. 21).

    • “It has long been practice in Genesis study to drive a sharp wedge between chaps 1-11, the so-called Primeval History, and chaps 12-50, the Patriarchal History. More recently… there has been renewed interest in the integrity of Genesis as a whole.”

    • For those proposing a hard break, “12:1-3 is a fulcrum text linking Abraham with ‘all the families of the earth.’ Hence, it has been common to claim that God’s choice of Abraham had a universal purpose: to extend God’s salvific goals through his family to the entire world.”

    • God’s salvation is rooted in Creation - not only Abraham’s family. “God’s work of blessing in the world does not begin with Abraham; it is integral to chaps 1-11 and so God’s blessing work through Abraham must involve intensification and pervasiveness, not a new reality. Since God saves Noah, his family… Issues of creation and redemption are integrated throughout Genesis. God’s promises and salvific acts must finally be seen as serving all of creation. God acts to free people, indeed the entire world, to be what they were created to be.”

    • Brueggemann: “There is no doubt that in the construction of Genesis, a major break in the narrative is intended between 11:32 and 12:1. Indeed, it is perhaps the most important structural break in the Old Testament and certainly in Genesis…” And yet, in his Interpretation: Genesis, Brueggemann creates a reading block of 11:30-12:9. “The reason for this arrangement is that God does not begin the history of Israel ex nihilo. The history of promise does not emerge in a vacuum.” (Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: Genesis, p. 116)

  • The nature of the promise

    • All about God’s work

      • I will make of you

      • I will bless you

      • I will magnify your name

      • I will bless those who bless you

      • I will curse those who curse you.

    • All of this is a gift of God. Abraham’s place of promise is a pure gift from God.

    • Provides stark contrast from the situation presented in 11:30. Abram and Sarai are not going to make this happen - only through God.

    • God is in partnership with Abram and Sarai in the same way in which God will work with humanity in the tilling and caring for creation.

    • “The promise is concluded by what seems to be a commissioning. The well-being of Israel carried potential for the well-being of other nations. Israel is never permitted to live in a vacuum. It must always live with, for, and among the others. The barren ones are now mandated for the needs of others.” (Brueggemann, p. 119)

Thoughts and Questions

  • God’s call is one “to abandonment, renunciation, and relinquishment. It is a call for a dangerous departure from the presumed world of norms and security… The narrative knows that such departure from securities is the only way out of barrenness. The whole of the Abrahamic narrative is premised on this seeming contradiction: to stay in safety is to remain barren; to leave in risk is to have hope.” (Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: Genesis, p. 118)

  • When you put this story in the greater context of a bridge between chapter 11 and 12 - when you consider that Abram’s father Terah was taking his family “went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.” This begs the question - “Was God simply nudging Abram to get up and finish the job he had already started?” Abram’s family moving to Canaan was actually a part of the Creation narrative, the calling of Abram was actually the impetus to move toward the completion of Creation.

    • God wanted Abram to finish what he started.

    • How many times do we start a project, a good work, a ministry, but leave it uncompleted when it get difficult, or we burn out? Abram was on his way to Canaan, but settled for five years.

    • Settling - while generally seen as a positive in our culture - is not a Biblical value. In modernity, “to settle down,” means to behave or mature. In the Bible to “settled down” is to stagnate, become barren, and die.

Year 1Eric FistlerGenesisComment