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From: Genesis 12:1-4a

Abram and Lot

[1] Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and
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, so that you will
be a blessing. [3] I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I
will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.”

[4] So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

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Commentary:

12:1-6. God’s call to Abraham (the name he would give him instead of Abram: cf.
17:5) marks the start of a new stage in his dealings with mankind, because his
covenant with Abraham will prove a blessing to all nations. It means that Abra-
ham has to break earthly ties, ties with family and place, and put his trust entire-
ly in God’s promise — an unknown country, many descendants (even though his
wife is barren: cf. 11:30) and God’s constant protection. This divine calling also
involves a break with the idolatrous cult followed by Abraham’s family in the city
of Haran (apparently a moon cult) so as to worship the true God.

Abraham responds to God’s call; believing and trusting totally in the divine word,
he leaves his country and heads for Canaan. Abraham’s attitude is in sharp con-
trast with the human pride described earlier in connection with the tower of Babel
(cf. 11:1-9), and even more so with the disobedience of Adam and Eve which was
the cause of mankind’s break with God.

The divine plan of salvation begins to operate by requiring man to make an act of
obedience: in Abraham’s case, he is asked to set out on a journey. This plan will
reach its ultimate goal with the perfect obedience shown by Jesus Christ “made
obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8), whereby all mankind will
obtain the mercy of God (cf. Rom 5:19). Everyone who listens and obeys the
voice of the Lord, all believers, can therefore be regarded as children of Abraham.
“Thus Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ So
you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture
foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel be-
forehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then,
those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith” (Gal 3:6-9).

Jewish and Christian tradition sees the three things God requires Abram to give
up as epitomizing the demands of faith: “Through these three departures — from
country, kindred and father’s house,” according to Alcuin’s interpretation, “is
meant that we have to leave behind the earthly man, the ties of our vices, and
the world under the devil’s power” (”lnterrogationes in Genesim”, 154).

Abraham’s response also involves an attitude of prayer, an intimate relationship
with God. Although prayer makes its appearance at the very start of the Old Tes-
tament (cf. 4:4, 26; 5:24; etc.), it really comes into its own with our father Abra-
ham, as the “Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “When God calls him,
Abraham goes forth ‘as the Lord had told him’ (Gen 12:4). Abraham’s heart is en-
tirely submissive to the Word and so he obeys. Such attentiveness of the heart,
whose decisions are made according to God’s will, is essential to prayer, while
the words used count only in relation to it. Abraham’s prayer is expressed first
by deeds: a man of silence, he constructs an altar to the Lord at each stage of
his journey. Only later does Abraham’s first prayer in words appear: a veiled
complaint reminding God of his promises which seem unfulfilled (cf. Gen 15:2-3).
Thus one aspect of the drama of prayer appears from the beginning: the test of
faith in the fidelity of God” (no. 2570).

Abraham gets as far as the central part of Palestine, [whence] he moves south,
building as he goes altars to the Lord, to the true God, in places which will be-
come important shrines in later periods. The biblical text shows that Yahweh ac-
companies Abraham and that the latter renders him acceptable worship, in con-
trast with the idolatrous cult practised by the inhabitants of the country (given the
generic name of “Canaanites”). God, for his part, in all his appearances to the pa-
triarch, promises to give this land to his descendants (cf. 13:15; 15:18; 17:8; 26:
4). In this way the text is showing the radical source of the legitimacy of Israel’s
possession of the land of Canaan. However, this promise of a land to the descen-
dants of Abraham goes beyond the empirical fact of acquiring territory, and be-
comes a symbol of the blessings and the divine gifts in which all mankind will
share.

Speaking about Abraham’s faith in the word of God, St Paul interprets Abra-
ham’s “descendants” in the singular, as referring to one descendant only, Jesus
Christ, because only he, being the Son of God and making himself obedient unto
death, possesses all the divine goods and communicates them to man: “Christ
redeemed us [...] that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon
the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit. [...] Now the promi-
ses were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to off-
springs,’ referring to many; but, referring to one, ‘ And to your offspring,’ which
is Christ” (Gal 3:13-16).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.