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Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree[a] of Moreh[b] at Shechem.[c] (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.)[d] The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants[e] I will give this land.” So Abram[f] built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

Then he moved from there to the hill country 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 worshiped the Lord.[g]

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Footnotes

  1. Genesis 12:6 tn Or “terebinth.”
  2. Genesis 12:6 sn The Hebrew word Moreh (מוֹרֶה, moreh) means “teacher.” It may well be that the place of this great oak tree was a Canaanite shrine where instruction took place.
  3. Genesis 12:6 tn Heb “as far as the place of Shechem, as far as the oak of Moreh.”
  4. Genesis 12:6 tn The disjunctive clause gives important information parenthetical in nature—the promised land was occupied by Canaanites.
  5. Genesis 12:7 tn The same Hebrew term זֶרַע (zeraʿ) may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.
  6. Genesis 12:7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.
  7. Genesis 12:8 tn Heb “he called in the name of the Lord.” The expression refers to worshiping the Lord through prayer and sacrifice (see Gen 4:26; 13:4; 21:33; 26:25). See G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:116, 281.