Page 22 - Pentateuch

Chapter 4: Pentateuch Part II:
Abraham: God’s Promise: Genesis 11:26-25:11

Connect…

The book of Genesis changes direction with the life of Abraham. The previous eleven chapters cover many
generations. Now, many chapters cover one generation. In the life of Abraham, two elements stand out:
the promise of God and the gradual revelation of God’s character to Abraham. The promise of God comes
first with God’s gradual revelation of Himself, following in the events of Abraham’s life. Through succeeding
incidents, God teaches Abraham not only about His character but also about His promise in an ever-
deepening understanding,

The Lesson ...

Abraham, God’s Promise

After a brief introduction placing Abraham in the line of descendants from Noah’s son Shem (11:27-32),
God speaks. “Go!” he commands Abraham. Before Abraham can respond, God loads into the relationship a
bunch of promises and one key promise. Five times in two verses, God says, “I will.” I will make, bless, make
great, bless, and curse (12:2, 3). On their own, these would be remarkable promises. Then God says, “All
peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (12:3). Having one’s descendants become a great nation is
one thing, but somehow being a blessing to all peoples on earth is a promise of another magnitude entirely.

The promises are absolute and unconditional. They are given before Abraham responds. He does not earn
them by what he says or does. In fact, we are encouraged to understand Abraham’s response as motivated
by the unconditional nature of God’s promises. We might speculate on Abraham’s right to refuse, but the
option is not explored in Genesis. Abraham responds to God because of the greatness of the promises.

As the record of Abraham’s life continues, the promise of God is repeated. “I will make your offspring like
the dust of the earth” (13:16). “Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them…, so
shall your offspring be (15:5).” “Through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed (18:18; 22:18;
26:4).” The promise is repeated later to Isaac (Gen. 26:3-4) and Jacob (Gen. 28:14).

We might miss the significance of God’s repeated
promise to Abraham due to the word “offspring.”
We assume a reference to a greater and greater
number of descendants. Yet the word is the same
as we found in Genesis 3:15 when God said to
Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your offspring and hers; he
will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The connection is purposeful. Among all the other
promises given to Abraham is this continued
Fig. 14: Southern Night sky promise from Adam and Eve. One special
descendant of Abraham would finally defeat

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