Ship of Fools: Call of Abram (Genesis 12:1ff)

Thread: Call of Abram (Genesis 12:1ff) Board: Kerygmania / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=002344

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

12 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. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. 3 I 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.”

Two questions:

1) The Hebrew can be translated

"Go ... and I will bless you"

or it can be translated:

"If you go ... then I will be bless you."

What is the difference between the two translations? Which is correct? Does it change your understanding of the passage?

2) At the end of the passage, the Hebrew can be translated "in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed."

or it can be translated, "by you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

Again, what is the difference between the two translations? Which is correct? Does it change your uderstanding of the passage?"

[ 07. March 2017, 19:59: Message edited by: Gramps49 ]

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
12 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. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. 3 I 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.”

Two questions:

1) The Hebrew can be translated

"Go ... and I will bless you"

or it can be translated:

"If you go ... then I will be bless you."

What is the difference between the two translations? Which is correct? Does it change your understanding of the passage?

I don't see a whole lot of difference between these two. The blessing being contingent on his going is in clear in both, IMO.

quote:

2) At the end of the passage, the Hebrew can be translated "in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed."

or it can be translated, "by you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

Again, what is the difference between the two translations? Which is correct? Does it change your understanding of the passage?"

To me, this one is different as the agency of the blessing isn't entirely the same. The second puts more of it on Abram.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

I find interesting the fact that the tale of Abram doesn’t really begin with him. Rather, it begins as the tale of Terah. We need to ignore the chapter divisions to see this, because the narrative really kicks off in Ge. 11:27 -

quote:
Now this is the family history of Terah. … Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (the son of Haran), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and with them he set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. When they came to Haran, they settled there.

So as far as the narrator was concerned, it was Terah who had the vision to leave behind his family home and head off round the fertile crescent to the land of Canaan. Abram and Co. tagged along with the household. For some reason, though, Terah saw fit to break off half-way and settle in the city of Haran.

When Abram left Haran, he left behind his father and his father’s household, which was something of a major break (Terah was still alive and according to my reckoning from the dates given in the passage he had another 60 years left in him before he left Haran for the choir celestial). Haran continued to be the base for Terah’s household and from there came future wives (Rebekah, Leah, Rachel).

We’re not told if Terah had a call from God to leave his homeland of Ur, but the call to Abram was something of a call to complete a journey, not start one. If history had been different, we could very well have been children of Terah, not Abraham.

Anyway, I think the grammar of the call (Gen. 12:1) is imperative (“Go!”) and that the cohortative mode of the verb in v.2 (“so that I will make you…”) works following an imperative to express a consequence: “Do this, so that I will then do that.” The three cohortatives in that verse are followed by another imperative (“Be a blessing”) plus cohortative chain, which wraps the sequence nicely:

quote:
“Go… (imperative)
I will then make (cohortative) you into a great nation
I will also bless (cohortative) you
And additionally I will make (cohortative) your name great

Be a blessing (imperative)
I will then bless (cohortative) those who bless you
The one who disdains you I will then curse (cohortative)

So in you all the earth’s clans will be blessed.”

Another reason for taking the verbal from in v.1 as imperative is the construction in verse 4, where Abram leaves Haran “…as Yahweh told him…”, which sounds more like a command was given.

The other phrase – “in you / by you all the earth’s clans will be blessed” – is controlled by the earlier imperative: “Be a blessing.” Accordingly I think the thrust of the sense is that Abram was to be active as a blessing, taking God’s blessing to the rest of the world so that all the world would be blessed. It tends to work best seen in reverse: God’s intention was to take back control of the world; he was going to do this through human agency (Abram) because humans had been created to be God’s image (vice-regents) in the world; Abram was to do what humans had been supposed to do – control the world. If a nation / clan accepted this mission, it would be included in God’s family. If not, Curses!

If “By you…” works better to convey this, then that would be the better translation.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
the call to Abram was something of a call to complete a journey, not start one.

[aside, not relevant to the OP]
I was preaching on this passage on Sunday, along with John 3 as the Gospel. I made this same point, contrasting Abram continuing a journey his family had already started with the normal evangelical understanding of being "born again" as the start of a journey. Because for most people, even those who would count themselves as "born again Christians", there isn't a start of a journey, rather we continue a journey that our parents were already on. Nicodemus would have been in that same situation, in a way his Jewish faith was a continuation of the journey Terah started and despite the "new start" idea inherent in being "born again" there isn't any thought in Jesus words (at this point) of repentance and changing the direction of your journey. The journey is still to the Kingdom of God, a spiritualised Promised Land.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

That's a good point; there's a danger in being too individualistic in our western-oriented modern view of faith.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0