Genesis 12:1-9
God calls Abram out in faith and establishes covenant promises that will bring blessing to the nations.
1 Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.
2 I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as Yahweh had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5 Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they went to go into the land of Canaan. They entered into the land of Canaan.
6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, Canaanites were in the land.
7 Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” He built an altar there to Yahweh, who had appeared to him.
8 He left from there to go to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to Yahweh and called on Yahweh’s name.
9 Abram traveled, still going on toward the South.
God calls Abram out in faith and establishes covenant promises that will bring blessing to the nations.
To record God’s sovereign call of Abram and the initial establishment of covenant promises that will shape redemptive history.
The LORD Calls Abram, Promises Blessing, and Begins His Redemptive Mission Through One Man
The LORD begins His redemptive answer to the ruin of the nations by calling Abram in grace, attaching to him covenant promises of land, seed, and blessing, and showing that His purposes stand even when His chosen servant falters.