The Blessing of Abram - Reflections on Genesis 12:1-9, Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
by John C. Holbert on Thursday, April 2, 2026
Year A of the lectionary gives the preacher a long and full look at the Hebrew Bible book of Genesis, some 12 weeks, followed by 10 weeks based on the book of Exodus. Thus, we can observe and examine a rich 22 weeks of the two originating texts for the whole of our ancient scripture. It is a rare opportunity to offer to our congregations insights from the older testament that underlie much of what our New Testament has to provide for us as we take with the greatest seriousness the vast range of ideas and treasures that the Bible contains for our continuing faith journeys. I do hope you will spend some of your sermonic time with these fabulous texts that are chock full of wonderful stories, insightful legal traditions, superb poetry, all wrapped up as the Torah of Judaism, and thus a crucial part of our Christian sacred scripture.
Last Sunday, we examined a small part of the creation story of Gen.1, looking especially at the complex first word of that famous account of God’s initial work of the world’s beginnings. Today, we turn to what I have long called the “hinge” text of the entire biblical story; around this wonderful account of the call of Abram from Haran in Mesopotamia swings the entire tale of God’s creation and ongoing sustaining work of all that is. In many ways, Abram is the fulcrum of God’s constant labor to return the earth to God’s original desire for it, despite the continuous human will to impede what God always has in mind for God’s creation. That world created “good” by God is forever in need of God’s efforts to recover that initial goodness in the face of human recalcitrance and full-blown evil. Before Abram’s call, the first couple’s foolishness in the garden, the first murder in history, the cosmic flood brought on by humans’ “evil from their youth,” and the supposed vast tower “with its top in the sky,” were all ways of thwarting the good plan of God. With the call of Abram, God tries again, and we can be sure that this God will never stop trying to bring us back to that first goodness, despite our desires to get in God’s way.
As I did last week, I wish to focus narrowly on a Hebrew grammatical problem that makes an extremely important point about a theological issue that stands at the very heart of Abram’s call. That call of the unknown Mesopotamian to leave his “country, near kin, and the very house of his father,” and go to a place he has never seen, at the behest of this God, YHWH, is the lead-up to the role that the man and his family are to play in God’s labor for the world. What that call entails is made plain, or at least is delineated, in Gen.12:2-3: “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and will make great your name so that you will be a blessing” (vs.2). It is not made altogether clear just what YHWH means by using the word “great” twice in the promise. Exactly what a “great nation” may be could be confined simply to a nation powerful and vast. We US Americans in the 21st century are currently lead by a president who pomises to “make American great again.” He has recently initiated a war with Iran, that at this writing has stretched into four weeks of near-constant bombing and missile attacks that have lead to hundreds of Iranian deaths, including over 100 children at a school struck on the war’s first day. Are we then “great” because of our military power? Is that what YHWH means by the promise to Abram?
The second use of the word “great” in the sentence suggests that greatness has to do less with power than with “blessing;” the definition of “great name” includes blessing, rather than destruction and death. And the final clause of the opening pericope—Gen.12:1-3—employs that central word “blessing” once again. “Through you (“by means of you”) all the families of the earth will be blessed” (or “will bless themselves”). Grammatically, in Hebrew either of those translations is possible, either the passive reading, “be blessed,” or the reflexive reading, “will bless themselves.” I suggest that they imply different ideas, both of which are worth examining.
The former translation, “be blessed,” is the more common reading, found in the NRSV among many modern readings, including the magisterial one of Robert Alter. This passive reading is preferred by many Christian reflections, because it implies that God’s blessing and salvation will be given to the whole world through Abram/Abraham (so Gal.3:8 in Paul’s construal of the promise of God). Thus, the promise to Abram is fulfilled for all people, not simply the Jews, and made certain in the coming of Jesus Messiah, the heir of Abram.
However, the reflexive translation, “will bless themselves” presents a rather different implication. If we read in that way, people will take Abram’s blessing and his well-being as a kind of model for a blessing for themselves. We might thus say, “May we be as blessed as Abram.” This latter reading is perhaps less universally theological and more individually focused, something like, “May I find a blesssing just as Abram did so long ago.” I think you can readily see how the former reading with its vast theological associations became the preferred one as the text played itself out in the New Testament, particularly in the Pauline letters. Still, I think we should not lose sight of the latter one with its modelling behavior from Abram’s call. We, too, like Abram can be a blessing in our own lives as called by God. Both translations bear fruit as we think about God’s blessings on our lives and on the life of the whole world.