Read Genesis 12 here or at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions:
12:1-9 {p} Promise of land and descendants
12:10-13:18 {p} …
Now YHVH said to Abram, ‘Get out of your country, and from your family, And from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you will be a blessing. 3 And I will bless them that bless you, and him that curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ Gen 12:1-3
Last time we learned that in the course of the great Tower of Babel Rebellion against God, all the seventy “seeds” of the nations rejected God from being God over them, and turned to paganism, to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. Satan’s plan was to so thoroughly corrupt the whole earth, in its seeds, that the truth and worship of YHVH would be lost, and the Promised Seed could not come.
God’s counter plan, was to call out one man, who would separate himself from his (now corrupt) nation, out of whom God would make one new nation who would preserve His worship, through whom the Promised Seed could come (Gen 12:1-2). And from that one nation, all the families of the earth would be blessed.
You mean, all the families that just slapped God in the face and rejected Him from being God over them–all those families? Yes, precisely those families. God would undo what Satan had done. Where is the vengeful, wrathful, angry, judgmental God of the Old Testament? That He is, is the Great Lie, as we will continue to discover.
We have just uncovered another important Teaching Tool of the Bible: the Common Theme. When multiple passages reveal the same theme or topic, even if they seem dissimilar at first glance, a comparison of those passages often reveals amazing insight, instruction, and wisdom:
These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and of these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. Gen 10:32
And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. Gen 11:1
They left off building the city because YHVH confounded the language of all the earth. Gen 11:8
‘And I will bless them that bless you, and him that curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ Gen 12:3
If there are questions, these are good resources:
Ur of the Chaldeans – Christian Library
Dating Abraham – Associates for Biblical Research
Egypt and the Bible – Associates for Biblical Research
Chronology Wars – Answers in Genesis
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