Go Part 1 (Gen 12:1-5)

The Call of Abram

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.”

 

Go (literally, go to you)—For your own benefit, for your own good: there I will make of you a great nation whilst here you will not merit the privilege of having children (Rosh Hashanah 16b). Furthermore, I will make known your character throughout the world (Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 3).

 

From your country—Now had he not already gone out of there with his father and come as far as Haran? Rather, thus did he say to him, “Distance yourself more from there and leave your father's house.”

 

That I will show you—He did not reveal the land to him immediately, in order to make it dear in his eyes and to give him reward for every command. Similarly (below 22:2): “your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.” Similarly (ibid.): “on one of the mountains that I shall say to you.” Similarly (Jon 3:2): “and call out against it the message that I will tell you.” from Bereishit Rabbah 39:9

Rosh Hashanah 16b:7

And some say: Also, a change of one’s place of residence cancels an evil judgment, as it is written: “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go you from your country’ ” (Gen 12:1), and afterward it is written: “And I will make of you a great nation” (Gen 12:2). The Gemara explains: And the other one, i.e., Rabbi Yitzḥak, who does not include a change of residence in his list, holds that in the case of Abram, it was the merit and sanctity of the land of Israel that helped him become the father of a great nation.

 

31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.

 

32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. GEN 11:31-32

 

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” GEN 15:7

Therefore go out from their midst,

and be separate from them, says the Lord,

and touch no unclean thing;

then I will welcome you, 2CO 6:17

 

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. HEB 11:8

 

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,

“Come out of her, my people,

lest you take part in her sins,

lest you share in her plagues;” REV 18:4

 

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

 

Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. GEN 11:27 

5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

And the people that they had acquired (literally, made) in Haran—The souls which he had brought beneath the sheltering wings of glory. Abraham converted the men and Sarah converted the women and Scripture accounts it unto them as if they had made them (Bereishit Rabbah 39:14). However, the real sense of the text is that it refers to the men-servants and to the maidservants whom they had acquired for themselves, as (in Gen 31:1), “He acquired (עָשָׂה) all this wealth,” and (Num 24:18), “and Israel acquires”—an expression for acquiring and gathering.

 

Avodah Zarah 9a:7

Rather, the two-thousand-year time period of the law is counted from the time when it is stated about Abraham and Sarah: “And the people that they had acquired in Haran” (Gen 12:5), which is interpreted by the sages as referring to the men and women who were brought closer to the law by Abraham and Sarah. Therefore, it was at this point that the law began to spread throughout the world. And it is learned as a tradition that at that time Abraham was fifty-two years old.

 

Sanhedrin 99b:12

Reish Lakish said: With regard to anyone who teaches the law to the son of another, the verse ascribes him credit as though he formed that student, as it is stated: “And Abram took Sarai his wife . . . and the people that they formed in Haran” (Gen 12:5). They are given credit for forming the students to whom they taught the law. Rabbi Elazar says: It is as though he fashioned [asa’an] the words of the law themselves, as it is stated: “Keep the words of this covenant, va’asitem otam” (Deu 29:8), indicating that studying the law is like fashioning it. Rava says: It is as though he fashioned himself, as it is stated: “Va’asitem otam.” Do not read “va’asitem otam” as: And you shall fashion them; rather, read it as va’asitem atem, meaning: You shall fashion yourself.