Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.
Parallel translations
- WEB Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.
- KJV Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
- NKJV Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.
- NASB Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
- NLT The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God commands Abram to leave his country, kin, and father's house for a land God will show him. This call launches the covenant story of redemption.
Overview
Yahweh's summons demands radical faith, calling Abram to forsake security and step into the unknown on God's word alone. This moment begins the great covenant through which God will redeem a people for himself. Abram's call models the obedience of faith later commended in Hebrews 11:8 and fulfilled supremely in Christ, who leads believers to a better country.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Heb 11:8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.
- Neh 9:7You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram, who brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.
- Acts 7:2–6And Stephen declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
- Isa 51:2Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him, he was but one; then I blessed him and multiplied him.
- Josh 24:2–3And Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your fathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.
- Luke 14:26–33“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple.
- Gen 11:31–32And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.
- Gen 15:7The LORD also told him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
- Ezek 33:24“Son of man, those living in the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as a possession.’
- 2 Cor 6:17“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
- Ps 45:10–11Listen, O daughter! Consider and incline your ear: Forget your people and your father’s house,
- Isa 41:9I brought you from the ends of the earth and called you from its farthest corners. I said, ‘You are My servant.’ I have chosen and not rejected you.
- Rev 18:4Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 12:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.