Descendants of Shem
10These are the descendants of Shem. When Shem was one hundred years old, he became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood; 11and Shem lived after the birth of Arpachshad five hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.
12When Arpachshad had lived thirty-five years, he became the father of Shelah; 13and Arpachshad lived after the birth of Shelah four hundred three years, and had other sons and daughters.
14When Shelah had lived thirty years, he became the father of Eber; 15and Shelah lived after the birth of Eber four hundred three years, and had other sons and daughters.
16When Eber had lived thirty-four years, he became the father of Peleg; 17and Eber lived after the birth of Peleg four hundred thirty years, and had other sons and daughters.
18When Peleg had lived thirty years, he became the father of Reu; 19and Peleg lived after the birth of Reu two hundred nine years, and had other sons and daughters.
20When Reu had lived thirty-two years, he became the father of Serug; 21and Reu lived after the birth of Serug two hundred seven years, and had other sons and daughters.
22When Serug had lived thirty years, he became the father of Nahor; 23and Serug lived after the birth of Nahor two hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.
24When Nahor had lived twenty-nine years, he became the father of Terah; 25and Nahor lived after the birth of Terah one hundred nineteen years, and had other sons and daughters.
26When Terah had lived seventy years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Descendants of Terah
27Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot. 28Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32The days of Terah were two hundred five years; and Terah died in Haran.
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a Or migrated eastward
b Heb balal, meaning to confuse
11.1–9 The Tower of Babel story (J) is the last tale in the primeval narratives of human hubris and its consequences and also serves to mock the pretensions of the contemporary imperial power of Mesopotamia. As in the garden of Eden story, humans attempt to cross the boundary between human and divine and are thrown back permanently into the human world. The diversity of languages and nations become limiting conditions of human existence. As a story about language and power, it employs language artfully to express and undermine the human pretensions to power. The two parts of the story have a series of verbal echoes and reversals, creating a dramatic symmetry. Vv. 1–4 describe the humans’ actions; vv. 5–9 describe God’s response. The story is built on the following symmetrical pattern: A the whole earth had one language (v. 1), B they said to one another (v. 3), C Come, let us make (nlbnh) bricks (v. 3), D let us build ourselves (v. 4), E a city, and a tower (v. 4), E' the city and the tower (v. 5), D' which mortals had built (v. 5), C' Come, let us go down, and confuse (nblh; v. 7), B' they will not understand one another’s speech (v. 7), Á the language of all the earth (v. 9).
11.2 Land of Shinar, southern Mesopotamia or Babylonia, the ancient land of Sumer; see 10.10.
11.4 A tower with its top in the heavens, probably a Mesopotamian temple tower, or ziggurat, but here taken as an unauthorized incursion into God’s domain. The humans’ fear that they will be scattered abroad upon…the whole earth ironically comes to pass as a consequence of their deeds in v. 8. The desire of the men of Babel to make a name for themselves (which equals fame and renown) comes to naught with anonymous infamy, but the ruined city gets a name in v. 9. The desire for a name anticipates God’s promise of a great name to Abraham (12.2), who serves as a counterpoint to the men of Babel.
11.9 Babel (Babylon), so named because it is the place of balal, Hebrew, “confusion.” Babylon was one of the most famous cities of antiquity, but it is mocked here as a ruined site of ancient hubris, transgression, and confusion.
11.10–26 The genealogy of Shem continues the “book of the generations of Adam” (5.1–32 + 9.28–29) and also resumes the Shemite genealogy of 10.21–23 (all P). It provides a transition to the story of Abraham, who is born to Terah in v. 26. Abraham is the tenth generation in this list. The age of the postdiluvian patriarchs gradually shortens from Shem (600 years) to Abraham (175 years; see 25.7). Some members of this genealogy (Serug, Nahor, and Terah) are known as place-names in the region of Haran, the patriarchal homeland (see v. 31).
11.26 The vertical genealogy from Shem to Terah branches into three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran, just as the vertical genealogy from Adam to Noah branched into three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, in 5.32. Abram means “the father is exalted,” highlighting Abraham’s role as father and patriarch. God changes Abram to Abraham in 17.5.
11.27–32 These are the descendants, a genealogical rubric that begins the Abraham story (see note on 2.4). Lot, Abram’s nephew, will accompany Abram to Canaan and become the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites (19.37–38). Nahor, Abram’s brother, will dwell in Haran and become father of the Aramean peoples, including his son, Bethuel, father of Laban and Rebekah (22.20–24; 24.10). Sarai means “princess,” but her origins are not given. God changes Sarai to Sarah in 17.15. The migration of Terah’s family from Ur of the Chaldeans in southern Mesopotamia to Haran in the middle Euphrates region occurs only in the P source, which perhaps joined together two traditions about Abram’s origin. Chaldeans, an Aramean people who become prominent in southern Mesopotamia beginning in the eighth century BCE.
11.30 The notice that Sarai…had no child is an anticipatory announcement of the central problem of the Abraham narrative, which will come to the foreground in gradual stages after God’s promise that Abram will be father of a great nation in 12.2.
GENESIS 12
The Call of Abram
1Now 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. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”a
4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oakb of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspringc I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and invoked the name of the LORD. 9And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
Abram and Sarai in Egypt
10Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien, for the famine was severe in the land. 11When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know well that you are a woman beautiful in appearance; 12and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’ then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.” 14When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians
saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15When the officials of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.
17But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.” 20And Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.
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a Or by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves
b Or terebinth
c Heb seed
12.1–9 The call of Abram (largely J), with its fivefold repetition of bless/blessing, effectively reverses the accumulation of curses and punishments of the primeval narratives. Henceforth in Abram all the families of the earth shall be blessed (v. 3). The standard for this blessing seems to be the degree to which the families of the earth bless Abraham and the great nation (v. 2) that descends from him, Israel: God’s blessing goes to those who bless them and God’s curse to the one who curses them (v. 3). The call of Abram thus serves as a turning point in the moral history of humanity. The promises to Abram include blessing, a great name (fame, renown), numerous descendants who will become a great nation, and land. The promise of land is given in v. 7, when Abram reaches the land that God will show him (v. 1; a phrase ominously echoed in 22.2). God (or his angel) reiterates the patriarchal promises several times in the Abraham narrative (13.14–17; 15.5; 22.17–18) and later grants them to Isaac (26.2–5) and Jacob (28.13–15; cf. 32.12; 35.11–12; 46.2–4). The book of Kings depicts the promises as fulfilled during Solomon’s glorious reign (1 Kings 4.20–21), though Genesis is never so specific. Heb 11.8 finds in Abraham’s call a model of faith.
12.4 Abram’s righteousness and faithfulness are shown by his simple response: So Abram went, as the LORD had told him. Lot accompanies him, perhaps as a presumptive heir, since Sarai is barren.
12.6–7 God’s first revelation to Abram is at Shechem, later site of the all-Israel covenant ceremony in Josh 24. Oak of Moreh (or “oak of the Teacher”), a sacred tree where Jacob later buries the household gods of his family (35.4) and where Joshua erects a standing stone (Josh 24.26). Abram founds this sacred shrine by building an altar there. He also founds shrines at or near Bethel and Ai (v. 8), Hebron (13.18), Beer-sheba (21.33), and Moriah (22.14). At that time the Canaanites were in the land, an aside that serves as a backdrop to God’s promise of the land to Abram’s offspring. It also betrays the post-Mosaic chronological perspective of the biblical narrator, as the medieval commentator Ibn Ezra hinted, calling it “a great secret.”
12.10–20 The story of the matriarch in danger occurs in three varying forms: here with Abram and Sarai in Egypt (J); in ch. 20 with Abraham and Sarah in Gerar (E); and in 26.6–11 with Isaac and Rebekah in Gerar (J). Each story expresses a threat to the promise of progeny that is narrowly averted. In each the patriarch uses the ruse that the woman is really his sister, so that he will not be killed because of her beauty. This version also has a number of features that foreshadow the exodus: famine in the land, descent into Egypt, Sarai being taken into Pharaoh’s house, the great plagues with which God afflicts Pharaoh’s house in order to release her, and the acquisition of wealth (see Ex 12.35–36). Abram’s character is resourceful yet somewhat problematic—note that when Pharaoh castigates Abram for his duplicity, he offers no reply (cf. 20.11–13).
GENESIS 13
Abram and Lot Separate
1So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.
2Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. 3He journeyed on by stages from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, 4to the place where he had made an altar at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the LORD. 5Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, 6so that the land could not support both of them living together; for their possessions were so great that they could not live together, 7and there was strife between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land.
8Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. 9Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” 10Lot looked about him, and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the LORD had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. 11So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward; thus they separated from each other. 12Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. 13Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD.
14The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; 15for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspringa forever. 16I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. 17Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” 18So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaksb of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the LORD.
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a Heb seed
b Or terebinths
13.1–18 Although Abram’s nephew Lot is his only eligible heir, the two now separate because their great possessions lead to strife. The moral qualities of the two are subtly contrasted: Abram is wise and magnanimous, offering Lot the first choice of land. Lot is implicitly disrespectful by taking the choice rather than yielding it to his elder. Lot pays for his disrespect by choosing the region of Sodom and Gomorrah, which will later become desolate. Abram takes the remaining portion, the land of Canaan, which God confirms as the land of the promise.
13.7 At that time the Canaanites…lived in the land, an aside that recalls 12.6 and serves as a backdrop to the issue of the inheritance of the land, which is now potentially endangered by the strife between Lot and Abram.
13.10, 13 The comparison of the lush Jordan plain with the garden of the LORD (a synonym for the garden of Eden; see Ezek 28.13) and the land of Egypt evokes two fertile lands that are also places of transgression. This was before…Sodom and Gomorrah, the people of Sodom…against the LORD, notices indicating the dark side of this land and pointing forward to ch. 19.
13.14–17 God reiterates his promise of land and offspring (cf. 12.1–3, 7), adding the intensifying word forever (v. 15). That Abram’s offspring will be like the dust of the earth, numerous and uncountable, recurs in the promise to Jacob (28.14). This image alternates with the stars of heaven (15.5; 26.4) and the sand of the sea (32.12; 22.17 combines stars and sand).
13.18 Abram settles at Hebron, which later becomes the chief city of Judah; there David is first crowned king (2 Sam 2.1–4; 5.1–5). Abram builds an altar by the oaks of Mamre, which may be sacred trees; cf. 12.6–7. The region from Shechem to Hebron was the principle area of Israelite settlement; hence Abram is a cultural and religious founder for all Israel.
GENESIS 14
Lot’s Captivity and Rescue
1In the days of King Amraphel of Shinar, King Arioch of Ellasar, King Chedorlaomer of Elam, and King Tidal of Goiim, 2these kings made war with King Bera of Sodom, King Birsha of Gomorrah, King Shinab
of Admah, King Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). 3All these joined forces in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Dead Sea).a 4Twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. 5In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and subdued the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, 6and the Horites in the hill country of Seir as far as El-paran on the edge of the wilderness; 7then they turned back and came to En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and subdued all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who lived in Hazazontamar. 8Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out, and they joined battle in the Valley of Siddim 9with King Chedorlaomer of Elam, King Tidal of Goiim, King Amraphel of Shinar, and King Arioch of Ellasar, four kings against five. 10Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country. 11So the enemy took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way; 12they also took Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.
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