Genesis 12

Now the LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to a land that I will show you.

1Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

Note"The LORD" in capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four consonants (YHWH). Ancient Jewish practice was to avoid pronouncing it aloud, and English Bibles inherited that by substituting "the LORD." Where the text says "God" instead, a different Hebrew word (Elohim) lies behind it. "Had said" is the King James translators' choice, not a feature of the Hebrew, which simply reads "said." It matters because chapter 11 already has the family leaving Ur for Haran; "had said" makes this command the reason for that earlier move, while the plain Hebrew leaves open that the command came only now, in Haran. Abram is the name he carries until chapter 17, where it is changed to Abraham; his wife Sarai likewise becomes Sarah.

2I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you will be a blessing.

2And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

Note"Make your name great" means to give someone lasting fame and standing, the same expression used of kings. It is not about a name in the sense of a label. The last clause is grammatically ambiguous in Hebrew: the form can be read as a statement, "and you will be a blessing," or as a command, "and be a blessing."

3I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse the one who curses you. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

3And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

NoteThe Hebrew uses two different words where English has "curse." The first means to treat someone as light, small, of no account (to belittle or slight. The second is a stronger, formal word for placing someone under a curse. The line reads more exactly: "the one who slights you, I will put under a curse." "In you all the families of the earth will be blessed" is also ambiguous in Hebrew. The verb form can be passive) others receive blessing through Abram, or reflexive, others will bless themselves by his name, that is, they will say "may God make me like Abram" when pronouncing a blessing. Both readings are grammatically available, and translators have divided over them for centuries.

4So Abram left, just as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

4So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

NoteHaran is a city in the upper Euphrates region, in what is now southern Turkey, a major stop on the trade routes between Mesopotamia and Canaan. In English it looks identical to the name of Abram's dead brother Haran (chapter 11), but the two are spelled differently in Hebrew and are not connected.

5Abram took his wife Sarai, his brother's son Lot, everything they owned that they had gathered, and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set out for the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan.

5And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

Note"The people they had acquired in Haran" translates a phrase that literally reads "the souls they had made." "Soul" in Hebrew means a person or a life, not an immaterial part of someone. The people in question are household dependents (servants and slaves, bought or otherwise attached to the family) who were counted as part of a wealthy man's household along with his livestock. Canaan is the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, roughly modern Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and southwestern Syria.

6Abram traveled through the land as far as the place called Sichem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites were in the land at that time.

6And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

NoteSichem is the King James spelling, taken from Greek, of the town more usually written Shechem. It sits in the central hill country between two mountains, Ebal and Gerizim, about thirty miles north of Jerusalem. The King James "plain of Moreh" is a mistranslation: the Hebrew word means a great tree, an oak or terebinth, not flat ground. Single large trees served as fixed landmarks and as recognized sites for oracles and legal proceedings; "Moreh" means "teacher" or "one who gives direction," which suggests this particular tree was known as a place where guidance was sought. "The Canaanites were in the land at that time" is an aside from the narrator to the reader, noting who already occupied the territory when Abram arrived. It is written from a standpoint later than the events described.

7The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "I will give this land to your offspring." So Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

7And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.

Note"Offspring" translates a Hebrew word meaning seed. Like the English word "descendants," it is a collective: singular in form but referring to a line of people extending forward in time. An altar was a raised platform of earth or unworked stone on which animals and other offerings were burned. Building one at a place marked it as a site where the builder's god had been encountered and could be approached.

8From there he moved on to a mountain east of Bethel and set up his tent, with Bethel to the west and Hai to the east. There he built an altar to the LORD, and he called on the name of the LORD.

8And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.

NoteBethel means "house of God" in Hebrew. The narrator uses the name that the site bore in his own day; according to Genesis 28 the town was called Luz at this period. Hai is the King James spelling of the place elsewhere written Ai. "Called on the name of the LORD" is a set phrase meaning to invoke a god by name in worship, calling out to him, and proclaiming his name publicly at that spot. It does not mean a private prayer.

9And Abram traveled on, still going toward the south.

9And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.

Note"Toward the south" renders a Hebrew word, Negev, which is the proper name of a specific dry region in the far south of Canaan, not a compass direction. Because the Negev lay south of the settled hill country, the word came to be used loosely for "southward" as well, but here it names the territory Abram is heading into: semi-arid grazing land, habitable for herdsmen but not for farming.

10There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to live there for a while, because the famine was severe in the land.

10And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

Note"Went down into Egypt" is standard idiom. Travel from the hill country of Canaan to Egypt is described as going down, and travel from Egypt to Canaan as going up, regardless of compass direction, because of the difference in elevation. The same idiom persists throughout the Bible. To "live there for a while" translates a verb meaning to reside as a resident alien: a foreigner permitted to stay in a country without owning land there, dependent on local protection and without the rights of a native. Egypt, watered by the Nile rather than by rainfall, was the standard refuge when the rains failed in Canaan.

11When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman.

11And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:

12So when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.

12Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

13Please say that you are my sister, so that things will go well for me because of you, and my life will be spared because of you."

13Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

NoteThe claim is not simply false. According to Genesis 20:12, where Abram uses the same tactic again, Sarai was his half-sister, daughter of his father but not of his mother. Presenting her as his sister rather than his wife leaves her available for marriage negotiations, in which he would figure as the brother whose consent and payment must be obtained, rather than as a husband who would have to be removed first.

14When Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

14And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

15Pharaoh's officials also saw her, and they praised her to Pharaoh. So the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

15The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.

Note"Pharaoh" is a title, not a personal name. It comes from an Egyptian phrase meaning "great house," originally referring to the palace and then, by extension, to the king who lived in it. Genesis never gives this king's name. "Taken into Pharaoh's house" means taken into the royal household as a wife or concubine. "House" here means both the palace building and the household as an institution.

16Pharaoh treated Abram well because of her, and Abram came to have sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

16And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.

NoteThis list is a standard inventory of moveable wealth: livestock and slaves. "Male servants and female servants" translates words for owned slaves, not hired employees. Gifts of this kind passed from a groom's side to the woman's family as the marriage payment, so the transfer marks Pharaoh treating Abram as Sarai's brother and legal representative, exactly as Abram had arranged. The mention of camels is often noted as anachronistic: archaeological evidence for domesticated camels in this region is much later than the period the story describes.

17But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his household with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

17And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.

NoteThe Hebrew word behind "plagues" means blows or strikes, and is used elsewhere of afflictions of the skin. The text does not specify what the afflictions were, and "plague" in the modern sense of an epidemic disease is narrower than the word allows.

18So Pharaoh called for Abram and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife?

18And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?

19Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now here is your wife. Take her and go."

19Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.

Note"So that I took her to be my wife" reflects a Hebrew clause that is genuinely open. It states that Pharaoh took Sarai as a wife, the formal act of adding a woman to the household, but the narrative says nothing about whether the marriage was consummated, and the King James "I might have taken her" is one translator's attempt to leave that open. The ambiguity is in the text, not in the translation.

20Then Pharaoh gave his men orders about Abram, and they sent him away, along with his wife and everything he had.

20And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

NoteThe verb translated "sent him away" can carry the sense of escorting under guard as well as of expelling. Pharaoh assigns men to the job, so the departure is supervised rather than voluntary, Abram leaves Egypt keeping the wealth he had been given.