Genesis 12
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Summary
God speaks to Abram and tells him to leave his country and God will lead him to a promised land. Abram will become a great nation, and the Lord will bless him and his posterity. Abram leaves Haran with Sarai and Lot and goes into Canaan. Abram builds an altar to the Lord. There is a famine in the land, so Abram journeys into Egypt. When he meets Pharoah, Abram tells him that Sarai is his sister. They prosper in the land, until Pharaoh learns that Sarai is his wife and casts them out.
Commentary
Bible Central Commentary
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Historical Commentaries
Many of the commentaries below are in the public domain and were authored over 100 years ago. In many cases, they do not reflect the findings of modern scholarship, but they may be helpful for understanding the history of biblical scholarship.
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Historical Settings
Time
*All Dates Are Approximate, according to the narrative of the Bible. These dates may reflect literary significance as opposed to the precise dates of history.
See Biblical Chronology- 2091 BC
Further Reading
Taylor Halverson, “The Lives of Abraham: Seeing Abraham through the Eyes of Second-Temple Jews,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 32 (2019): 253–276.
Taylor Halverson, “Was Adam a Monotheist? A Reflection on Why We Call Abraham Father and Not Adam,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 31 (2019): 245–258.
Victor L. Ludlow, “The Scattering and Gathering of Israel: God’s Covenant with Abraham Remembered through the Ages,” in Window of Faith: Latter-day Saint Perspectives on World History, ed. Roy A. Prete (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2005), 97–120.
Thomas W. Mackay, “Abraham in Egypt: A Collation of Evidence for the Case of the Missing Wife,” BYU Studies 10, no. 4 (1970).
Monte S. Nyman, “The Covenant of Abraham,” in The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 155–170.
Stephen O. Smoot, “‘In the Land of the Chaldeans’: The Search for Abraham’s Homeland Revisited,” BYU Studies 56, no. 3 (2017): 6–37.
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