The Bible's Hinge - Reflections on Genesis 12:1-4, Second Sunday of Lent, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Sunday, January 4, 2026

         This very brief text overwhelms its brevity with extraordinary power and significance. In many ways, a few of which I hope to show, Gen.12 is nothing less than the hinge text of the entire scripture, that is of both testaments, the fulcrum around which the scripture rotates, the central claim that our Bible wishes to make. Furthermore, Gen.12 is a vital text for the particular time in which we now find ourselves immersed, a time of fear and turmoil, of danger and horror. The message of Gen.12 needs to be heard and applied to our own lives today.

         Gen.12 is proceeded in Gen.11 by the infamous story of the tower of Babel, that tale that speaks of wandering migrants, who come to the plain of Shinar, a place of mythical origin, and decide to build a gigantic tower “with its top in the sky” in order to avoid their God-demanded scattering throughout the earth (Gen.1:28). The goal is apparently to usurp the power of God and thus fulfill the hopes of the garden snake (Gen.3) who promised the woman that she would be “like God” (or another reading “precisely God”) if only she ate of the forbidden fruit. She ate, and gave some to the silent man with her who also ate, but instead of becoming God-like, they rather found their nakedness a problem and attempted to solve that problem by “sewing fig leaves” to cover themselves, leaves that are like number-two grade sandpaper, hardly fit coverings for naked humans! 

         But the tower-builders now wish to scale the heights of God’s domain, so they think, by erecting a mud-brick tower, a rickety sort of structure, hardly worthy of anything God might build. In fact, God cannot even see the puny thing from where God sits, and must “come down” even to see it (Gen.11:5). In order to prevent the wretched tower from collapsing on the heads of the foolish builders, God “confuses” (balal, in Hebrew) their languages so thoroughly that the construction site becomes unmanageable, and all stop the project. Hence, the tower is named Babel (an assonantal pun on balal), both a jibe against the great city of Babylon, and a tale about the origins of all the world’s languages.

         And thus we come to Gen.12, set within a world of fig-leaf clothing and mud-brick towers, a world that God refuses to give up on, despite the ridiculous and dangerous actions of God’s human creations. God has chosen Abram (“great father”) to start again with God’s ongoing efforts to reconstitute the harmony of the creation, laid out so beautifully in Gen.1 and undercut so sadly and hilariously in the chapters that follow. “YHWH said to Abram, ‘Take yourself (a very odd and rare Hebrew construction) from your land, your larger family, and the house of your father to a land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will become a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and anyone who curses you I will curse, so that through you all the families of the earth will be blessed’” (or “will bless themselves;” the grammar yields either reading) (Gen.12:1-3). The implications of Gen12:3 are monumental, and bear deep reflection and clear memory.

         Abram’s role, as the progenitor of God’s people Israel, is nothing less than to be “a blessing to the nations,” quite literally to “all the nations.” YHWH’s announcement of Abram’s greatness has exactly nothing to do with his own power, his military might, his financial wizardry, or his vast wisdom. Greatness, according to YHWH’s call, is only to be found in Abram’s ability to bless other nations, all other nations. Thus, Israel, as God’s chosen one, has only one task, and that is to be a blessing to the nations. The rest of the story of Israel, as discovered in the long history of the nation, is to be measured by whether or not such a blessing for all is forthcoming. Too often, as any reading of that story reveals, Israel comes up far short of that initial call of YHWH. Yet, the subsequent story as the Bible unravels it, must always be seen in the light of YHWH’s clear call in Gen.12:3.

         And I would suggest that the modern actions of the state of Israel, always eager to wrap itself in the ancient biblical text as God’s chosen people, have in ways almost too numerous to count fallen woefully short of the call of Gen 12:3. During Israel’s astonishingly savage assault against the Palestinians of Gaza over the past two years, just how may they claim to be “a blessing to all the nations?” And, I would add, how may those in the current administration of US America, many of whom who claim Christianity as their religious commitment, say that they are following the call of the God who equates greatness with blessing when they summarily blow unidentified boats out of the waters of the Caribbean, when they demean those who disagree with them, calling them “piggy,” or “morons” or “stupid,” who degrade Democrats as “enemies” and unworthy of any sort of blessing from them or from God? 

         Gen.12:3 is a very high bar when it comes to God’s understanding of just who is great in this world. “Making America great again” has nothing to do with other nations’ fear of our might, or envy of our economic status, or our so-called victories over other nations either politically or militarily. US America, exactly like ancient Israel, may only be seen as great when it expends itself in blessings for all other nations. Gen.12:3 is a beacon light, guiding all nations to greatness through blessing. Just how can we, as a people, as a nation, be a blessing to the rest of the world? That remains after all these centuries the standard by which true greatness is to be judged.