Kejadian 12:2

12:2 Then I will make you ¹  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ² 

and I will make your name great, ³ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ⁴ 

Kejadian 12:13

12:13 So tell them ⁵  you are my sister ⁶  so that it may go well ⁷  for me because of you and my life will be spared ⁸  on account of you.”

Kejadian 13:14-17

13:14 After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, ⁹  “Look ¹⁰  from the place where you stand to the north, south, east, and west. 13:15 I will give all the land that you see to you and your descendants ¹¹  forever. 13:16 And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone is able to count the dust of the earth, then your descendants also can be counted. ¹²  13:17 Get up and ¹³  walk throughout ¹⁴  the land, ¹⁵  for I will give it to you.”

Kejadian 17:4-8

17:4 “As for me, ¹⁶  this ¹⁷  is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations. 17:5 No longer will your name be ¹⁸  Abram. Instead, your name will be Abraham ¹⁹  because I will make you ²⁰  the father of a multitude of nations. 17:6 I will make you ²¹  extremely ²²  fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you. ²³  17:7 I will confirm ²⁴  my covenant as a perpetual ²⁵  covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ²⁶  17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ²⁷  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ²⁸  possession. I will be their God.”

Kejadian 22:17-18

22:17 I will indeed bless you, ²⁹  and I will greatly multiply ³⁰  your descendants ³¹  so that they will be as countless as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession ³²  of the strongholds ³³  of their enemies. 22:18 Because you have obeyed me, ³⁴  all the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another ³⁵  using the name of your descendants.’”

[12:2]  ¹ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ² sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ³ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[12:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “say.”

[12:13]  ⁶ sn Tell them you are my sister. Abram’s motives may not be as selfish as they appear. He is aware of the danger to the family. His method of dealing with it is deception with a half truth, for Sarai really was his sister – but the Egyptians would not know that. Abram presumably thought that there would be negotiations for a marriage by anyone interested (as Laban does later for his sister Rebekah), giving him time to react. But the plan backfires because Pharaoh does not take the time to negotiate. There is a good deal of literature on the wife-sister issue. See (among others) E. A. Speiser, “The Wife-Sister Motif in the Patriarchal Narratives,” Oriental and Biblical Studies, 62-81; C. J. Mullo-Weir, “The Alleged Hurrian Wife-Sister Motif in Genesis,” GOT 22 (1967-1970): 14-25.

[12:13]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew verb translated “go well” can encompass a whole range of favorable treatment, but the following clause indicates it means here that Abram’s life will be spared.

[12:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “and my life will live.”

[13:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the Lord said to Abram after Lot separated himself from with him.” The disjunctive clause at the beginning of the verse signals a new scene.

[13:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “lift up your eyes and see.”

[13:14]  sn Look. Earlier Lot “looked up” (v. 10), but here Abram is told by God to do so. The repetition of the expression (Heb “lift up the eyes”) here underscores how the Lord will have the last word and actually do for Abram what Abram did for Lot – give him the land. It seems to be one of the ways that God rewards faith.

[13:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for all the land which you see to you I will give it and to your descendants.”

[13:16]  ¹² tn The translation “can be counted” (potential imperfect) is suggested by the use of יוּכַל (yukhal, “is able”) in the preceding clause.

[13:17]  ¹³ tn The connective “and” is not present in the Hebrew text; it has been supplied for purposes of English style.

[13:17]  ¹⁴ tn The Hitpael form הִתְהַלֵּךְ (hithallekh) means “to walk about”; it also can carry the ideas of moving about, traversing, going back and forth, or living in an area. It here has the connotation of traversing the land to survey it, to look it over.

[13:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the land to its length and to its breadth.” This phrase has not been included in the translation because it is somewhat redundant (see the note on the word “throughout” in this verse).

[17:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I.”

[17:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “is” (הִנֵּה, hinneh).

[17:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “will your name be called.”

[17:5]  ¹⁹ sn Your name will be Abraham. The renaming of Abram was a sign of confirmation to the patriarch. Every time the name was used it would be a reminder of God’s promise. “Abram” means “exalted father,” probably referring to Abram’s father Terah. The name looks to the past; Abram came from noble lineage. The name “Abraham” is a dialectical variant of the name Abram. But its significance is in the wordplay with אַב־הֲמוֹן (’av-hamon, “the father of a multitude,” which sounds like אַבְרָהָם, ’avraham, “Abraham”). The new name would be a reminder of God’s intention to make Abraham the father of a multitude. For a general discussion of renaming, see O. Eissfeldt, “Renaming in the Old Testament,” Words and Meanings, 70-83.

[17:5]  ²⁰ tn The perfect verbal form is used here in a rhetorical manner to emphasize God’s intention.

[17:6]  ²¹ tn This verb starts a series of perfect verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive to express God’s intentions.

[17:6]  ²² tn Heb “exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition is emphatic.

[17:6]  ²³ tn Heb “and I will make you into nations, and kings will come out from you.”

[17:7]  ²⁴ tn The verb קוּם (qum, “to arise, to stand up”) in the Hiphil verbal stem means “to confirm, to give effect to, to carry out” (i.e., a covenant or oath; see BDB 878-79 s.v. קוּם).

[17:7]  ²⁵ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

[17:8]  ²⁷ tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

[17:8]  ²⁸ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[22:17]  ²⁹ tn The use of the infinitive absolute before the finite verbal form (either an imperfect or cohortative) emphasizes the certainty of the blessing.

[22:17]  ³⁰ tn Here too the infinitive absolute is used for emphasis before the following finite verb (either an imperfect or cohortative).

[22:17]  sn I will greatly multiply. The Lord here ratifies his earlier promise to give Abram a multitude of descendants. For further discussion see R. B. Chisholm, “Evidence from Genesis,” A Case for Premillennialism, 35-54.

[22:17]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) occurring here and in v. 18 may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

[22:17]  ³² tn Or “inherit.”

[22:17]  ³³ tn Heb “gate,” which here stands for a walled city. To break through the gate complex would be to conquer the city, for the gate complex was the main area of defense (hence the translation “stronghold”).

[22:18]  ³⁴ tn In the Hebrew text this causal clause comes at the end of the sentence. The translation alters the word order for stylistic reasons.

[22:18]  sn Because you have obeyed me. Abraham’s obedience brought God’s ratification of the earlier conditional promise (see Gen 12:2).

[22:18]  ³⁵ tn Traditionally the verb is taken as passive (“will be blessed”) here, as if Abraham’s descendants were going to be a channel or source of blessing to the nations. But the Hitpael is better understood here as reflexive/reciprocal, “will bless [i.e., pronounce blessings on] themselves/one another” (see also Gen 26:4). Elsewhere the Hitpael of the verb “to bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 12:2 predicts that Abram will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11. Earlier formulations of this promise (see Gen 12:2; 18:18) use the Niphal stem. (See also Gen 28:14.)