לך לך

God spoke to Abram and said, “Go forth from your land and your father’s house to the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you, make your name great, and you will be a blessing. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

Abram trusted God. At seventy-five, he left Haran with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, their wealth, and the people with them. They traveled until they reached Canaan.

Abram walked through the land to Shechem, to the terebinth of Moreh, where the Canaanites lived. God appeared to him there and promised, “I will assign this land to your offspring.” Abram built an altar to honor God.

Then he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel, pitching his tent with Bethel on one side and Ai on the other. He built another altar and called on God by name as he journeyed south toward the Negeb.

A severe famine came, so Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while. Near the border he told Sarai, “You are very beautiful. If the Egyptians think you are my wife, they may kill me. Please say you are my sister, so it may go well for me.”

In Egypt, Sarai was taken to Pharaoh’s palace, and Abram gained many animals and servants. But God struck Pharaoh’s household with mighty plagues because of Sarai. Pharaoh demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?” He returned Sarai and sent Abram away with everything he owned.

Abram went back to the Negeb and then to Bethel, to the place of his altar, and called on God again. Abram and Lot had so many flocks and tents that the land could not support them together, and their herders quarreled. Abram said, “Let there be no strife between us, for we are kin.” Lot chose the well-watered Jordan plain near Sodom, and Abram stayed in Canaan. God told Abram to look north, south, east, and west, promising the land to his offspring, as countless as dust.

Later God spoke in a vision: “Fear not, Abram; I am a shield to you.” Abram worried he had no child, but God promised his own offspring would inherit, as many as the stars. God made a covenant about the land, and Abram saw a smoking oven and a flaming torch pass between the pieces of the offering.

Sarai still had no child, so she gave Hagar, her Egyptian maid, to Abram. Hagar conceived, fled after harsh treatment, and an angel of God told her to return and said her son would be named Ishmael. Abram was 86 when Ishmael was born.

When Abram was 99, God appeared and said, “I am El Shaddai,” meaning “God Almighty,” and changed Abram’s name to Abraham. God commanded circumcision for every male in Abraham’s household as the sign of the covenant. God also renamed Sarai as Sarah and promised she would bear a son, Isaac. That very day Abraham circumcised himself, Ishmael (then thirteen), and all the men of his household.