Genesis 12
New Catholic Bible
Origin of the People of God[a]
Abraham, Man of Faith[b]
Chapter 12
“Leave Your Country [and] Your People.”[c]1 The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people, and the house of your father, and go to the land to which I will lead you.
2 “I will make of you a great
people and I will bless you.
I will make your name great
and it will become a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless
you and curse those who curse you.
And through you
all the nations on the earth shall be blessed.”
4 Abram therefore departed, just as the Lord had ordered him. Lot went along with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai, Lot, the son of his brother, and all the possessions that they had accumulated in Haran, and all the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and left for the land of Canaan. Thus, they arrived in the land of Canaan.
6 Abram traveled through the land until he arrived at Shechem near the oak of Moreh. In those days the Canaanites lived in that land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I will give this land to your descendants.” Abram therefore built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
8 From there he traveled into the mountain region to the east of Bethel and he pitched his tent so that Bethel was to the west and Ai was to his east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 Then Abram set out again, gradually traveling toward the Negeb.[d]
10 Abram a Refugee in Egypt.[e] There was a famine in the land and Abram went down to Egypt to stay there for a time, for the famine was very serious in the land. 11 But, when he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, “Look, I realize that you are a very beautiful woman. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will think, ‘She is his wife,’ and they will kill me, leaving you alive. 13 Therefore, say that you are my sister, so that they will treat me well and let me live because of you.”
14 When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians saw that his wife was very beautiful. 15 The stewards of Pharaoh saw her and told Pharaoh how beautiful she was. They took the woman and brought her to the house of Pharaoh. 16 Because of her they treated Abram well. He received flocks and herds, male and female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.
17 But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with terrible plagues because of Sarai, the wife of Abram. 18 Therefore, Pharaoh summoned Abram and said to him, “What have you 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 ended up taking her as my wife? Here is your wife; take her and leave!” 20 Then Pharaoh entrusted him to some men who accompanied him to the borders along with his wife and all his belongings.
Footnotes
- Genesis 12:1 The second part of Genesis gathers and arranges the memories that Israel has preserved regarding its distant origins (which can be dated to between the 19th and 17th centuries B.C.). These memories reduce to a few essential traits the life of the ancestors of the chosen people.
- Genesis 12:1 God has never abandoned the human race that he created; the universe and nature speak of him to human beings (Wis 13; Rom 1:20), but the human conscience, blinded by self-centeredness and pride, reaches out to him only in a groping way (Acts 17:27).
This is the reason why God enters our history, chooses Abraham, forms a people for himself, progressively reveals himself to them, and remotely prepares them to welcome someday the true descendants of Abraham, Christ the Savior and the Church. Abraham is the father and model of believers (Gal 3; Rom 4) because he promptly responds to the voice of God. - Genesis 12:1 Chapters 12–13 are from the Yahwist tradition. We do not know how the true God made himself known to the heart of Abraham.
It is certain that the Israelite tradition, diligent in safeguarding the memory of the Patriarch, has preserved the knowledge that his ancestors were pagans (Jos 24:2) and that at a certain moment Abraham’s family came to know the true God and abandoned the religion of their fathers (Jud 5:7-8). - Genesis 12:9 Negeb: the desert region south of Palestine.
- Genesis 12:10 Having followed the Lord’s lead, Abraham encounters a famine. The momentary temptation would be to return to his home, but Abraham respects God’s command and takes refuge in another country. However, the Patriarch is human and concerned for his life. The expedient he chooses is not a lie because Sarai is in fact his half-sister (see Gen 20:12).
