GENESIS
ABRAHAM
Genesis 12:4-13:18
INTRODUCTION
In Gen. 12:1-3 God has made the great covenant of history with Abram. In a general way this covenant promises to bless Abram. As we saw from the NT standpoint, this blessing is a synonym for "salvation." God not only promises to save Abram but also to be the source of blessing for the entire universe.
Now this covenant of blessing is going to take on some specific elements. First, God is going to bless Abram by giving him a son through Sarai. Second, God is going to give the land of Canaan to Abram and his descendants. Third, God is going to bless those who bless Abram and curse those who curse Abram.
Note one thing about God's promise to "curse" those who "curse" Abram. The 2 words for "curse" in the Hebrew are actually 2 different words. When God warns people not to curse Abram, the word "curse" actually means "to make small, insignificant." It has the idea of treating somebody lightly. On the other hand, when God says He will "curse" such people, it is the same word for "curse" that God uses in Gen. 3 when He curses the serpent and the ground. Cursing or treating Abram and his descendants lightly brings about God's wrath. (There are serious implications here.)
Finally, throughout most of the OT the concept of "blessing" also involves the idea of material blessing. This element will play a significant role in the way God actually blesses Abram in his lifetime.
ABRAM: THE MAN OF FAITH (12:4-9)
God places one condition upon Abram when He promises to bless Abram: Abram must leave all his relatives and follow God to the land which He will give him and his descendants. That is all. Abram in an act of sheer faith and obedience picks up camp and follows God. First, he will head to Haran which is northwest of Ur, then he will turn south to the land of Canaan. It is at Shechem that God appears to Abram, giving him this promise: "To your seed I will give this land" (12:7). (Although the newer translations uses the word "descendants" instead of "seed," I am going to stick with the word "seed" because of what happens later on.) Abram responds to this promise by building an altar at Shechem and worshipping God.
From there Abram will travel on to a spot between Ai on the east and Bethel on the west. (Bethel will play a significant role later on in the life of Abram's grandson, Jacob.) There too Abram pitches his tent, builds an altar and worships God. Whatever else is true about Abram, he consistently worships God. Since Abram epitomizes the man of faith, if we are serious about being people of faith like Abram, then we too must consistently worship God, primarily on Sundays but also throughout the rest of the week as well.
At first all seems well. There is a problem though bubbling beneath the surface. Although Abram has left his father behind in Haran, he has not left ALL his relatives behind as God had instructed him. In the band that leaves with Abram to Canaan is Abram's nephew, Lot. Abram will face many troubles on account of Lot. The major threat though is unspoken. God is going to give Abram an heir by means of Abram and Sarai. As long as Lot is around, his presence probably suggested to Abram the idea that he, Lot, could be the heir. That is not the way though that God is going to fulfill His promises the Abram. Moreover, since Lot was not part of God's original instructions, Satan can use Lot for his own purposes. We are entering treacherous ground whenever we refuse to put away EVERYTHING God tells us to put away. Lot will have to go, either by the way God had earlier instructed Abram or by another way; either way he has to go.
ABRAM: THE MAN OF UNFAITH (12:10-20)
In his journeys up to this point, Abram has been slowly heading south, towards Egypt. Although it is not his intention to go to Egypt, Abram is getting closer and closer to Egypt. It will take just a few more steps for him to enter Egypt itself--NOT the land God promised to give Abram and his seed. When a famine hits the land of Canaan, it is only "natural" and easy for Abram to take those few extra steps and head for Egypt.
Now note that nowhere does God instruct Abram to go to Egypt. God had told Abram to follow Him to the land that He would give him and his descendants. At Shechem God informs Abram that the land of Canaan is that land of promise. The implication is that Abram is not only to go to Canaan but that he is supposed to STAY in Canaan. When famine strikes the land, Abram without any word from God does the LOGICAL thing and heads for Egypt. Disaster strikes.
Why does Abram head for Egypt when famine strikes Canaan? (We will see Jacob and his family doing the exact same thing over a hundred years later.) The reason is that Egypt was the breadbasket of the ancient world. Each year the Nile River would flood its banks and water the fertile ground surrounding it. The story of Joseph will show us that the crops of 7 years which were were so abundant that they could produce enough food to last an additional seven years. It was only NATURAL then for Abram to head for Egypt. The only problem is that on the surface whenever God is moving in our midst, God may not always seem logical and natural; that's because He is in the process of performing a miracle. We don't need to lag behind God when He is moving, and we don't need to run ahead of God whenever He is moving.
When Abram enters Egypt, he is definitely feeling threatened by the power of Pharaoh. The source of his discomfort was the beauty of his wife, Sarai. Although Sarai was already 65 years old, she was still middle age by the customs of those days (in fact she lived to be 127 years old). Moreover, according to the author of the New American Commentary since Sarai had not undergone childbirth by this time, she had not lost her beauty. In contrast Egyptian women of that day and time were reputed to be ugly by the time they reached 65 years of age. Abram justifiably fears that Pharaoh's court will recognize Sarai and desire to bring her into the Pharaoh's harem. Abram fears that Pharaoh will find it necessary to dispense with Abram when he discovers that he and Sarai are married.
Because of these justifiable fears Abram hatches a plot. He collaborates with Sarai in order to deceive Pharaoh. He will have Sarai tell the Egyptian court that she is only Abram's sister. There is an element of truth in this because they are in fact half-brother and half-sister, having the same father but different mothers. Sarai goes along with the scheme. Pharaoh's court does indeed notice Sarai who then informs them that she is only Abram's sister. Pharaoh takes Sarai then into his harem.
This time disaster strikes the court of Pharaoh. The word translated "plague" (NASB) is the same word for "plague" in the Exodus accounts of the great wrath God pours out upon the Pharaoh and the Egyptians at Moses' command. We're not sure how Pharaoh discovers he's been deceived (later when the same thing happens to Abimelech, he is informed by God in a dream); however, when he discovers the source of the plagues, he is upset with Abram, not upset enough to kill him, but upset enough to give Sarai back to Abram, to shower wealth upon Abram, and to escort him out of Egypt.
It's interesting that even though Pharaoh is upset with Abram, he nevertheless showers Abram and his company with gifts of livestock and servants. Apparently God had gotten through to Pharaoh and had let him know how significant Abram was to Him and how it would be in Pharaoh's best interests to treat Abram kindly. We see in the plagues which God inflicted upon Pharaoh and in the kindness Pharaoh showed to the deceptive Abram a type of fulfillment of God's promise to Abram, that He would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him. Because Pharaoh had cursed Abram by taking his wife—even unknowingly, God had cursed Pharaoh. Because God had promised to bless Abram, even wounded Pharaoh blesses Abram. Right at the very beginning of the Abram stories we see God making good on the promise to bless Abram.
This story shows that the blessing of God does not depend upon our conduct; otherwise, Abram might have lost Sarai forever or have been killed instead of being escorted out of Egypt a very wealthy man.
This episode shows us that even though Abram has been royally blessed by God, he is still human, not perfect. We need though to give Abram some slack here. Remember that we ourselves are so full of unfaith even though we have 66 books of the Bible in our treasury whereas Abram had only 11 chapters of the Bible, and even these 11 chapters are not filled with examples of men of faith. If we condemn Abram for lack of faith, then we are doubly condemned whenever WE do not demonstrate faith.
The bottom line is this: the main problem was not that Abram devised this scheme and gave up his wife to Pharaoh. This was a result of the main problem. Many times after we've done something terribly wrong, we need to realize that the problem did not start whenever we did the terribly wrong thing; it was when we first started down the path to the wrong thing. The beginning, not the end, was the critical moment. The main problem was that Abram left Canaan in the first place. God had led Abram to Canaan, not to Egypt. There is absolutely no mention at all of God directing Abram to Egypt. It was at Shechem in Canaan that God indicates to Abram that the land of Canaan is the promised land. We need to stick with what God has shown us and go no further. We are to go WITH God, not behind Him or ahead of Him.
Why else is this story so vitally important? As the story of Abram progresses, we shall see that a child will be born to Abram and to Sarai and that this child will also receive the covenant of blessing that God promised to Abram. In this episode we see a grave danger, a threat to the identity of the seed. If God had not intervened when He did, it is just possible that Sarai would have gotten pregnant and then the identity of the father would have been in doubt, at least from a human standpoint. Why would Satan even care about this child of Abram? Remember that it is the descendant of Abram who will lift the curse and crush the serpent (Gen. 3:15). So much is at stake with the coming of Abram's child, and because Satan was in the Garden, he knows it.
ABRAM: THE MAN OF FAITH (13:1-18)
God has promised to bless Abram; He uses Pharaoh to do so. Abram returns to Canaan a wealthy man indeed. Pharaoh has escorted him out of Egypt loaded with livestock and with slaves. (One of those slaves is most likely a young Egyptian maid named Hagar.) He is now so blessed by God that trouble breaks out between him and his nephew Lot. Although Canaan is a fertile land, it is also very rocky. It has grazing pastures, but it is not overly abundant with grazing pastures. Moreover, whenever Lot and Abram live in Canaan, they are not the only ones living there. Genesis informs us that both the Perizzite and the Canaanite were living in the land of Canaan. In other words, with the increase in the number of livestock which the 2 men own, plus the lack of grazing land, plus the number of Canaanites, etc., living in the land, there is not enough grazing pasture for the flocks of both Abram and Lot. In fact fighting breaks out between the servants of Lot and Abram because of the lack of grazing land.
Abram and Lot realize that the land cannot sustain both of them. They must part ways in order to find adequate grazing land for their flocks. Abram who is the elder of the 2 and therefore the patriarch, the head of the clan, has the right to decide which direction he will take his flocks, thereby leaving what remains to Lot. Moreover, God had promised to bless Abram by giving him the land, something He NEVER promised Lot.
Yet what does Abram, the man of faith, do? Does he cling to his rights and demand that he get the best of the land? So many times we feel like WE have to make God's promises come true in our lives. We act as if God can't fulfill His promises to us if we don't help Him out, if we don't cling to or demand our rights. That is not the attitude which Abram adopts. In an act of sheer magnanimity and sheer faith Abram leaves the decision to Lot. Abram doesn't have to protect the promise God made to him. God made the promise; therefore, God, not Abram, is responsible to make sure that this promise comes to pass.
Later Abram's son Jesus will follow in Abram's footsteps. He too never held onto His rights: "who although He existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself . . " (Phil. 2:6-7). If Christ and Abram did not grasp their rights but emptied themselves, how much more should we?
So what does Lot choose? He chooses the valley of the Jordan. Even today some of the most fertile areas in Israel center around the Jordan River. On the east side of the Jordan River you can see Jordanians harvesting abundant crops during the fall. Even as you get to the Dead Sea (the approximate location of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah), you see oases: Jericho and Engedi. Lot spies this land and decides that he will settle there with his household because of the abundance of the land. It looks like Abram has lost out by Lot getting the "best" of the land. The author of Genesis forewarns us though that Lot has chosen unwisely. Why? Because the valley of the Jordan is also the location of Sodom and Gomorrah, proverbial names for wickedness. Caring only about the abundance of the land, Lot heads for the valley of the Jordan.
From what follows, it is easy to assume that Abram was a little low in spirits whenever Lot chose the best of the land. I say this because at this point God once more appears to Abram and reaffirms His promise to him:
"Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are,
northward and southward and eastward and westward;
for all the land which you see,
I will give it to you and to your seed forever.
And I will make your seed as the dust of the earth;
so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth,
then your seed can also be numbered.
Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth;
for I will give it to you" (Gen. 13:14-17).
Notice some elements in the promise:
Finally, from this passage we see that nothing, and I mean nothing, can thwart the promise of God. God has promised to bless Abram and bless him He shall. Abram going down to Egypt did not keep God from blessing him; giving the "best" of the land to Lot did not keep God from blessing him. What is even more wonderful is that we shall soon see that God has promised to bless us. Nothing will be able to thwart God in His attempts to bless us as well.