Genesis 12:3 New International Version (NIV)

I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
I. Introduction

This paper will give an exegesis on Genesis 12. The exegesis will look in to the
importance of the chapter within the Pentateuch. After a short overview of the context will be
given. The different events within the chapter will be discussed as well as the importance for the
original readers.
Genesis 12:1–3 mean and why does it matter to creatively and faithfully live it today?

Verses 1–3 introduce the beginning of God's relationship with Abraham; this is the earliest
history of the nation of Israel. Without any recorded preamble, God shows up in Abram's life
with a command to go away from where he is to an unnamed place. In the going, God promises
to make Abram a great nation, to bless him, to give him a great name, and to make him a
blessing.

The importance of God’s “I will bless” declaration, we see that the world has “devolved
into a pattern of sin, judgment, and token of grace.” The fall, Cain and Abel, the flood, and the
tower of Babel paint such a picture in vivid high-definition color. In Genesis 12, “God now seeks
to address the sin problem and reconcile humanity to himself through the person of Abraham and
promise he will give him.
A. Translation of Genesis 12:3
Now God continues these promises: God will bless those who bless Abraham. God will
curse those who dishonor Abraham. In Abraham, God will bless all the families, or “peoples,”
of the earth.

B. Literal context and flow of the thought

The promise starts with that form a great nation and getting a great name. This is the
big contrast with the Tower of Babel story. The builders wanted to make a big name for
themselves, but their city received the mocking name ‘Babel’ meaning “confusion”. The
promise to Abraham is contrary to this event. God himself will make a big name for
Abraham.

C. Literal Genre
This incident dramatically indicates both the moral quandaries posed by great
disparities in wealth and poverty and the dangers of losing faith in the face of such
problems. Abraham and Sarah were fleeing starvation. It may be hard to imagine being so
desperately poor or afraid that a family would subject its female members to sexual liaisons
in order to survive economically, but even today millions face this choice. Pharaoh berates
Abraham for taking this course of action, yet God's response to a later, similar incident
(Gen. 20:7, 17) shows more of compassion than judgment.

D. Literal forms
The promises themselves all centre on blessing, for Abram himself, for those
associated with him, and indeed for all nations. Hamilton (1990:373f) notes that
YHWH’s promises are given in seven clauses; the verb in the central clause shifts to
imperative, which marks it out syntactically as pivotal in some sense. This clause is the
command to ‘be a blessing’, which moves the focus from Abram as recipient and
emphasizes his role as agent of blessing. Similarly, Hamilton adds that the seventh
clause – if as is likely it has passive force – also emphasizes the need to be a blessing,
this time specifying the clans of the earth as beneficiaries. This suggests that
 international blessing is something of a ‘final goal’ of these promises. In answer to the
worldwide curses of Genesis 1-11, Abram is to be the source of blessing.

E. Structure of Passage
In Genesis 12 there are continual shifts in location, which would suggest a scenic
structure: God first addresses Abram in Haran, then in Canaan; after these divine
encounters, Abram moves to the Negev, and then to Egypt. However, in conjunction with
these changes in location, there is another feature that seems more significant still: each
movement is precipitated by a speech. In his analysis of the structure of vv.10-20,
Westermann (1995:164) suggests that the scholars Koch and Gunkel had made too little of
the ‘opening and closing dialogues’ as structurally significant. Westermann has correctly
noted the importance of these speeches but has himself underplayed the structural
significance of all the speech events in this chapter, not just those in vv.10-20. Each of
these speech events signals a shift in the story and elicits a response, but there is no two-
way dialogue; we are never allowed to hear what the characters think of what is said. We
may only observe and evaluate their response. This unusual patterning of the text suggests
that it has been divided into scenic units, each containing a speech and a response.

II. Commentary
The blessing which Abram receives from God is to be a source of good to his
friends and of evil to his foes. Observe the delicacy with which the recipients of the blessing are
expressed in the plural; but of the curse in the singular (“him that curseth will I curse”). It is
assumed that his friends are numerous and his foes few.
God's word to Abram begins with a command, "Go from your country and your kindred
and our father's house." God commands Abram to sever his ties to his larger nation, his ties to his
larger kinship group, and finally even his ties to his immediate family or father's house
(12:1). God calls Abram to a loyalty and commitment that transcends even his family ties, the
most important of all relationships in the ancient world. But this command comes with a
powerful promise.
 God makes a covenant with Abram, Abram shall become a great nation, His seed shall
bless all the families of the earth, Abram leaves his homeland in Ur of the Chaldees and travels to
Haran and then sojourns in the land of Canaan, because of a great famine Abram goes down into
Egypt, Abram and Sarai are tested in Pharaoh's court.

God’s communication with Abram ends. Now begins Abram’s obedience. Unlike so many
other biblical characters at the time of their call, Abram is mute[4]. His actions speak for him. In
fact, in this whole account, he does not speak at all. He does just as he has been told. The Hebrew
‫ הלְך‬is identical to God.

The commentaries of the Reverend Matthew Henry have been a great blessing to the
readers of the Blue Letter Bible since 1996. He was a 17th and early 18th Century minister of the
Gospel in Chester, England, and died in 1714. Quoting Charles Spurgeon: "First among the mighty
for general usefulness we are bound to mention the man whose name is a household word, Matthew
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The Blue Letter Bible team has Matthew Henry's complete unabridged commentaries for each
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Commentaries.

Benson Commentary Genesis 12:3. In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed —
This promise crowned all the rest; for it pointed at the Messiah, “in whom all the promises are
yea and amen.” Now, with what astonishing exactness has God fulfilled these promises, and yet
how unlikely it was, at the time they were made, that they should be fulfilled! Surely we need no
other proof that the historian wrote by inspiration of God
III. Interpretation

A. Main Theme of Genesis 12:3

How should we expect Chapter 12 to start? More judgment? Mankind continues to
show its wickedness despite God's goodness but God shows us man's wickedness won't
have the final say. God shows us His original plans and purposes for mankind will not be
thwarted. And out of nowhere God calls a man born in a pagan land to leave all that he
knows and to trust Him.

B .Theological Significance

In Genesis, Longman helps pastors and teachers help those they shepherd live and apply
the Story to real life. It also offers them a sturdy resource for hearing the voice of God in the
text and finding an accessible explanation of its passages. Let's look at how Longman
explains and applies Genesis 12:1–3—an important set of verses to be sure! “One cannot
overestimate the importance of these three verses not only for the Abraham story and the
Pentateuch but for the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments.” (159) So what does
Genesis 12:1–3 mean and why does it matter to creatively and faithfully live it today? Keep
reading to find out. The Importance of “I will bless” Walter Brueggemann has described
12:1–3 as a second creation account, which clues us into the importance of God’s “I will
bless” declaration. In the chapters leading up to this narrative shift, we see that the world has
“devolved into a pattern of sin, judgment, and token of grace.” (157) The fall, Cain and Abel,
the flood, and the tower of Babel paint such a picture in vivid high-definition color. In
Genesis 12, “God now seeks to address the sin problem and reconcile humanity to himself
through the person of Abraham and promise he will give him.” (157) And he does so through
blessing. In the introduction, Longman explains how “blessing” is an important word that
holds Genesis together and binds it to the rest of the Old Testament. Humans are blessed at
the beginning (Genesis 1:22, 28); they forfeit that blessing through their rebellion (Genesis
3); and then God blesses humans when he seeks reconciliation through Abraham and his
descendants (Genesis 12:1–3). “Thus, the book of Genesis lays the foundation for all of the
 history of redemption…This story of God’s work of redemption continues throughout the
rest of the Old Testament.” (16)

B. Relevance of Genesis 12:3

When the Greek overran Palestine and desecrated the altar in the Jewish
temple, they were soon conquered by Rome. When Rome killed of Paul and many
others and destroyed Jerusalem under Titus, Rome soon fell. Spain was reduced to
a fifth-rate nation after the Inquisition against the Jews; Poland fell after the
pogroms; Hitler’s Germany went down after its orgies of anti-Semitism; Britain
lost her empire when she broke her faith with Israel. (Barnhouse).
This is also one reason why the United States has been so blessed. The
United States was one of the first modern nations to grant full citizenship and
protection to Jewish people.
This promise has also affected the church. The times when the church took
upon itself the persecution of the Jewish people were dark times not only for the
Jews, but also for the church.

IV. Conclusion
God calls Abraham to be a blessing to "all the families of the earth" and shapes the
future of his family by numerous promises. In order to understand these promises, we must follow
them through the text of Scripture to the points of fulfillment. We should not just read the promises,
forget them and go on. In reading the Old Testament, when we come to a prophecy or a promise -
we need to keep reading to find the point or points of fulfillment. If we neglect that there will be a
hole in our Bible knowledge. Our task is to track these three promises.
“I will bless them that bless thee” That this signifies all happiness to those who
acknowledge the Lord from the heart, is evident from the signification of a "blessing," as involving
all and each of the things that are from the Lord, as well those that are good as those that are true;
thus celestial, spiritual, natural, worldly, and corporeal things; and because in the universal sense
"blessing" embraces all these, it may be seen in each passage, from the connection, what is
signified by "to bless;" for this adapts itself to the things of which it is predicated. From this it is
evident that "I will bless them that bless thee," signifies all happiness to those who acknowledge
the Lord from the heart; for in the internal sense, as already said, the Lord is here treated of.

V. Bibliography
Bouma J. Blue Letter Bible is a 501 © (3) nonprofit organization May 17, 2016
Hamilton, V.P. (1990) The new international commentary on the old Testament, The book
of Genesis: Chapter 1-17 Grand rapids Michigan, Publishing Company.
Janzen, J.G. (1993) Genesis 12-50, Abraham and all the Famlies of the earth. Grand
Rapids Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Levenson D.J. (2004) ‘Genesis’, in berlin A and Brettler M.Z. (eds) The Jewish study Bible
featuring the Jewish Publication Society, Tanakh Translation New York Oxford University Press,
pp. 8-101.
Swedenborg D. (1688-1772). I.J. Thompson, Feb 2002.www.BibleMeanings.info.
Bibliography
All biblical references are taken from The Holy Bible: King James Version (1611).
Alexander, P. and Alexander, D. (1999) The New Lion Handbook To The Bible, 3rd. ed.
Oxford, Lion Publicing PLC.
Brueggemann, W. (2003) An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and
Christian Imagination. London, Westminster John Knox Press.
Gordon, C. H. (1958) ‘Abraham and the merchants of Ura’, Journal of Near Eastern
Studies, vol. 17. January, pp. 28-31.
Hahn, S. W. (2009) Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of
God’s Saving Promises. London, Yale University Press.
Hamilton, V. P. (1990) The new international commentary on the Old Testament, The
book of Genesis: Chapter 1- 17. Grand Rapids Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company.
Janzen, J. G. (1993) Genesis 12- 50, Abraham and All the Families of the Earth. Grand
Rapids Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
 Levenson, D. J. (2004) ‘Genesis’, in Berlin, A. and Brettler, M. Z. (eds.) The Jewish
Study Bible featuring the Jewish Publication Society, Tanakh Translation. New York, Oxford
University Press, pp. 8-101.

Thomas, W. H. G. (1907) Genesis 1 – XXV. 10 A Devotional Commentary, 1st ed. Buckland, A.

R. (ed.), London, The Religious Tract Society.

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