Genesis 12

The Call of Abram

The Lord calls Abram away from his country, his kindred, and his father’s house, and promises him a great nation, a great name, and a blessing for all the families of the earth. Abram goes, marks the land with altars, and then, driven to Egypt by famine, watches the promise put at risk and the Lord protect it.

Genesis chaptersChapter 12 of 50

Abram is seventy-five when he leaves Haran (verse 4; Abraham 2:14 says sixty-two). The text gives no year. Abraham’s life is usually dated somewhere between about 2100 and 1750 B.C., and one Latter-day Saint reading of the Book of Abraham places his early years in the 1800s B.C. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

With chapter 12 Genesis narrows from the nations to one man. After the scattering at Babel and the line of Shem traced down to Terah and his sons (chapter 11), “Abraham is now the…

With chapter 12 Genesis narrows from the nations to one man. After the scattering at Babel and the line of Shem traced down to Terah and his sons (chapter 11), “Abraham is now the chief figure,” and stays so until Gen. 25:18. Terah had already brought the family from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran (Gen. 11:31); this chapter takes Abram from Haran into Canaan and down to Egypt.

Restoration scripture tells the same journey in Abraham’s own voice. Abr. 1–2 gives what Genesis leaves out: the idolatry of his fathers, his deliverance from an altar in Ur, and the Lord’s words to him in Ur and again in Haran. The notes bring that account in where it answers a question about a verse.

Verses 1–3 are the first statement of the covenant that runs through the rest of Genesis. Here God promises a covenant relationship; He formally makes it in chapter 15, enlarges it in chapter 17, and confirms it by oath in chapter 22. Later scripture keeps returning to this call. Isaiah tells the exiles, “Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him” (Isa. 51:2); Hebrews makes Abram’s leaving the pattern of faith (Heb. 11:8–10); and Paul calls verse 3 the gospel preached in advance (Gal. 3:8).

The thread through the chapter

The chapter turns on one Hebrew verb, ra’ah, “see.” The Lord sends Abram to “a land that I will shew thee” (verse 1), using the form that means “cause one to see.”

The chapter turns on one Hebrew verb, ra’ah, “see.” The Lord sends Abram to “a land that I will shew thee” (verse 1), using the form that means “cause one to see.” When Abram arrives, “the LORD appeared unto Abram” (verse 7), the form that means “was seen,” and Abram builds an altar to the LORD “who appeared unto him.” The first half of the chapter belongs to the God who shows and appears.

In the second half the same verb belongs to the Egyptians. Abram fears what will happen “when the Egyptians shall see thee” (verse 12); “the Egyptians beheld the woman” (verse 14); “the princes also of Pharaoh saw her” (verse 15). What they see puts the promise in danger, because Sarai is the one through whom the promised seed must come, and she is taken into Pharaoh’s house. Abram cannot get her back. The LORD does it Himself (verse 17).

So the chapter sets the pattern for the story of Abraham: a promise given before there is any sign of it, a threat that seems to end it, and the Lord keeping His word.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–3

The call and the promise

In plain words

The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

1 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:

Related Scriptures #

When did the Lord call Abram?

The Lord called Abram before he ever reached Haran, and the King James “had said” reflects that.

The Lord called Abram before he ever reached Haran, and the King James “had said” reflects that. The Hebrew has only the ordinary narrative form, wayyomer, “and [the LORD] said.” The translators’ “had said” was very likely chosen because of Stephen’s speech in Acts, which puts the call earlier: “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran” (Acts 7:2).

The Book of Abraham agrees and fills in the story. Abraham gives the words of this verse almost exactly and sets them in Ur: “Now the Lord had said unto me: Abraham, get thee out of thy country…. Therefore I left the land of Ur, of the Chaldees” (Abr. 2:3–4). They echo what the Lord told him when He rescued him from the altar of the idolatrous priests: He had “come down to deliver thee, and to take thee away from thy father’s house, and from all thy kinsfolk, into a strange land which thou knowest not of” (Abr. 1:16). In Haran the Lord appeared again: “I, Abraham, and Lot, my brother’s son, prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared unto me, and said unto me: Arise, and take Lot with thee; for I have purposed to take thee away out of Haran” (Abr. 2:6). That is why, in verse 4, “Lot went with him.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Context #

What Abram left behind

The call asks Abram to give up the three ties that held a life in place: his land, his clan, and his father’s household.

The call asks Abram to give up the three ties that held a life in place: his land, his clan, and his father’s household. Abram is to leave “not only where he lives but also his ‘kindred’ and his ‘father’s house,’” because the Lord is calling him “to leave his old relationships and to build a new covenant relationship with the Lord.” The command also withholds the one thing a traveler would want to know. The land is not named, only “a land that I will shew thee.” Hebrews makes that the definition of Abraham’s faith: “he went out, not knowing whither he went” (Heb. 11:8).

His father’s house had already failed him. In Abraham’s account Terah followed him as far as Haran, and there “my father turned again unto his idolatry, therefore he continued in Haran” (Abr. 2:5).

The Hebrew for “Get thee out” is lekh-lekha, literally “go, for yourself.” The same two words come back at the last great test of Abraham’s life: “get thee into the land of Moriah” (Gen. 22:2). The first call asks him to leave his father; the second asks him to give up his son.

Sources: Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

Related Scriptures #

A blessing to others

The promise does not stop with Abram. God will bless him and make him a great nation, but the last step is that he will “be a blessing”: the Lord promises Abram blessings and also…

The promise does not stop with Abram. God will bless him and make him a great nation, but the last step is that he will “be a blessing”: the Lord promises Abram blessings and also “the ability to bless the whole world.” At its core the covenant “is centered on its ability to bless others.”

“Make thy name great” answers the chapter before. At Babel the builders said, “let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad” (Gen. 11:4), and were scattered. Here God makes Abram’s name great Himself.

The Book of Abraham says how Abram will be a blessing. He will be “a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations,” and “as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed” (Abr. 2:9–10). Abraham’s family is open to all who come to it. President Russell M. Nelson taught, “All who accept the gospel become part of the lineage of Abraham,” and “we can become heirs to the covenant either by birth or by adoption.”

Sources: Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant”, Liahona, Oct. 2022.

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Language #

Many who bless, one who curses

The verse puts those who bless Abram in the plural and the one who curses him in the singular: in Hebrew, “those who bless you” but “the one who curses you.”

The verse puts those who bless Abram in the plural and the one who curses him in the singular: in Hebrew, “those who bless you” but “the one who curses you.” In one reading the difference is itself part of the promise: “grace expects that there will be many to bless, and that only an individual here and there will render not blessing for blessing, but curse for curse.”

Two different Hebrew verbs are translated “curse.” The man’s curse is qalal, from a root meaning “be slight, swift, trifling”; in this form it means to curse, “properly make contemptible,” to treat someone as of no account. God’s curse is ’arar, the word of the curses on the serpent and on the ground in Eden (Gen. 3:14, 17). The same reading takes the first as a man’s contempt and the second as God’s judgment: whoever treats Abram as nothing will meet a curse that is not light.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

Witness of Christ #

The gospel preached to Abraham

Paul calls this line the gospel itself: “the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall…

Paul calls this line the gospel itself: “the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed” (Gal. 3:8).

The Hebrew verb, nivrekhu, is in a form that can be passive (“shall be blessed”) or reflexive (“shall bless themselves”), and the lexicon gives “bless oneself” here. Read the second way, the nations would only wish for themselves the blessing Abram had, and a modern translation gives “by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” as an alternative. Peter and Paul both read it as passive (Acts 3:25; Gal. 3:8), and so did the ancient Greek translation, which has “in thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.” In one reading the reflexive sense breaks off “the point of the promise,” which is that the nations “would really receive this blessing.”

Latter-day revelation settles what the blessing is: “in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed… shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal” (Abr. 2:11). In 1836, in the Kirtland Temple, Elias “committed the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham” to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, “saying that in us and our seed all generations after us should be blessed” (D&C 110:12), and with it the right to give the blessings of the covenant to others. How Christ is the seed in whom the nations are blessed is taken up at Gen. 22:18.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant”, Liahona, Oct. 2022.

Verses 4–9

Into the land of promise

In plain words

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had gathered, and the people they had gained in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they came there.

Abram passed through the land as far as Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites were in the land at that time. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There too he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Then Abram traveled on by stages toward the Negev, the dry country in the south.

4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

Context #

Seventy-five or sixty-two?

Abraham’s own record gives a different age: “I, Abraham, was sixty and two years old when I departed out of Haran” (Abr. 2:14).

Abraham’s own record gives a different age: “I, Abraham, was sixty and two years old when I departed out of Haran” (Abr. 2:14). Neither text explains the difference. The Church’s chronology of Abraham’s life follows the Book of Abraham’s sixty-two and notes Genesis’s seventy-five beside it, without reconciling them.

Genesis’s own numbers are hard to fit together too. Terah was seventy when his sons were born (Gen. 11:26) and died in Haran at 205 (Gen. 11:32). If Abram left at seventy-five, Terah lived another sixty years, yet the natural reading of Genesis is that Terah died first, and Stephen says Abram left Haran “when his father was dead” (Acts 7:4). The Book of Abraham has Terah still alive in Haran, back at his idols (Abr. 2:5). The figures in these chapters were handed down in more than one ancient form, and the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch “do not agree together, so that many dates cannot be fixed with certainty.” What the numbers agree on is that Abram set out as an old man, with no child, on the strength of a promise.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Abraham 2:14–25, Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (Church Educational System, 2017). Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. “Chronology”, Bible Dictionary.

5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

Language #

The souls they had made

The Hebrew says “the souls that they had made” (‘asu) in Haran. Abraham’s account reads “the souls that we had won in Haran” (Abr. 2:15), which suggests people won to the Lord.

The Hebrew says “the souls that they had made” (‘asu) in Haran. Abraham’s account reads “the souls that we had won in Haran” (Abr. 2:15), which suggests people won to the Lord. That fits what the Lord had just told him in Haran, that He would “make of thee a minister to bear my name in a strange land” (Abr. 2:6). The blessing of others promised in verse 2 is “perhaps implied in the ambiguous phrasing” of this verse, and Jewish tradition too “understands this as bringing souls to the worship of Jehovah.” On that reading, Abram arrived in Canaan already at the head of a household that included converts.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310.

6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

Language #

The oak of Moreh

The Hebrew behind “plain” is elon, a great tree, a terebinth or oak, the kind that often marked a shrine; a modern translation reads “the oak of Moreh.”

The Hebrew behind “plain” is elon, a great tree, a terebinth or oak, the kind that often marked a shrine; a modern translation reads “the oak of Moreh.” Moreh is probably not a name at all but a participle of the verb “to teach,” from the same root as torah, “instruction.” The lexicon renders the phrase “teacher’s terebinth,” and it was probably one of the sacred trees under which “a priest, or seer, gave oracles and returned answers to devout questioners.”

So Abram’s first stop in the promised land was probably already a holy place at Shechem, in the central hill country at the foot of Mount Gerizim, and there the LORD Himself appeared to him (verse 7). The tree may be the one that appears again in Israel’s story at Shechem: Jacob buried his household’s foreign gods “under the oak which was by Shechem” (Gen. 35:4), and Joshua set up a stone of witness “under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord” (Josh. 24:26).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Context #

A promised land already occupied

The aside tells the reader that the land was already held by others, and it sets up the next verse.

The aside tells the reader that the land was already held by others, and it sets up the next verse. The land promised to Abram’s seed was “‘then’ in the possession of the Canaanites. It was not to be taken by merely encamping in it.” Abram arrives, finds it occupied, and only then hears, “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (verse 7).

The promise is to his seed, not to him, and he has no children. Stephen draws out the point: God “gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child” (Acts 7:5). Hebrews says, “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country” (Heb. 11:9).

Abraham’s own account says what the Canaanites meant to him. At Moreh he “offered sacrifice… and called on the Lord devoutly, because we had already come into the land of this idolatrous nation” (Abr. 2:18). It also gives a condition Genesis does not state: the land would be his seed’s “for an everlasting possession, when they hearken to my voice” (Abr. 2:6).

Sources: Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.

Witness of Christ #

The LORD appeared

Genesis says that the LORD “appeared” but not in what form. The verb is the passive of “see” (vayyera, “was seen”), used especially of God appearing to someone, and it comes twice…

Genesis says that the LORD “appeared” but not in what form. The verb is the passive of “see” (vayyera, “was seen”), used especially of God appearing to someone, and it comes twice in this verse. Abraham’s account adds that the appearance came “in answer to my prayers” (Abr. 2:19), and elsewhere he says, “I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another” (Abr. 3:11).

The One who appeared had already told Abraham His name: “My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee” (Abr. 2:8). Jehovah “is the premortal Jesus Christ.” The God who called Abram and promised him the land is the One who would be born, centuries later, of Abraham’s seed.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary. Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).

8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.

Context #

Altars across the land

Abram marks his way through Canaan with altars: at Shechem (verse 7), here between Beth-el and Hai, and, after Egypt, at Hebron (Gen. 13:18).

Abram marks his way through Canaan with altars: at Shechem (verse 7), here between Beth-el and Hai, and, after Egypt, at Hebron (Gen. 13:18). His journey “is characterized by his building of altars, many of which become holy places or other important locations in later Israelite history.” The altars “define and delineate the land for his descendants” and “mark places of divine promise.” Calling “upon the name of the LORD” goes back to the days of Enos, when “began men to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26).

The place had not yet been named Beth-el, “House of God,” when Abram camped there. Jacob gave it that name after his dream, and “the name of that city was called Luz at the first” (Gen. 28:19); Genesis uses the name its readers knew. Hai (Ai) means “ruins,” and the text uses it only as a landmark; “it does not say that anyone actually lived there when Abraham was in the area.”

Sources: Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Bethel”, Bible Dictionary. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78.

9 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.

Verses 10–20

Famine, and Sarai in Egypt

In plain words

There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while, because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife,’ and they will kill me but let you live. Please say you are my sister, so that it will go well with me because of you, and my life will be spared.”

When Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was very beautiful. Pharaoh’s officials saw her too and praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh’s household. Pharaoh treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels. But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. So Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her as my wife? Now here is your wife. Take her and go!” Pharaoh gave his men orders about Abram, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

Context #

Down to Egypt

Famine was a common threat in Abram’s world, and it drove him twice: once from Ur to Haran, and now from Canaan to Egypt.

Famine was a common threat in Abram’s world, and it drove him twice: once from Ur to Haran, and now from Canaan to Egypt. Egypt was “manifestly a powerful kingdom before and during the patriarchal times.” Abram went “to sojourn” (lagur), to stay as a foreigner and wait out the famine, not to settle.

Restoration scripture gives the journey a purpose beyond food. Before he went, the Lord showed Abraham the heavens and said, “I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words” (Abr. 3:15). Facsimile 3 in the Book of Abraham shows him doing it: “Abraham sitting upon Pharaoh’s throne, by the politeness of the king,” and “reasoning upon the principles of Astronomy, in the king’s court.” Genesis tells only the danger of the visit; the Book of Abraham shows that Abraham went as a teacher too.

Sources: John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. “Chronology”, Bible Dictionary. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:

12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

Context #

Did Abram lie?

The Book of Abraham answers the question most readers ask here: the plan was not Abram’s idea.

The Book of Abraham answers the question most readers ask here: the plan was not Abram’s idea. As they neared Egypt, “the Lord said unto me: Behold, Sarai, thy wife, is a very fair woman to look upon…. Let her say unto the Egyptians, she is thy sister, and thy soul shall live” (Abr. 2:22–24). The Church reads the episode in that light: “Abraham and Sarah obeyed the Lord’s counsel and were spared from a dangerous situation,” and the chapter heading calls it a test: “Abram and Sarai are tested in Pharaoh’s court.”

Nor was the word false. Sarai was Abram’s half-sister, “the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother” (Gen. 20:12), and “customs of their time would likely have allowed for Abraham to accurately refer to Sarah as his sister.” Hebrew kin words stretched wide: biblical Hebrew makes “no definite linguistic separation between siblings and their offspring,” so that Abram twice calls his nephew Lot his “brother” (Gen. 14:14, 16). In Egypt the word worked better still. The Egyptian of Abraham’s day had two words for a wife: one (hmt) “means only ‘wife’”; the other (snt) “means principally ‘sister’ but can also mean ‘wife,’” and a wife was often called her husband’s “sister” as a term of affection. “So by using an ambiguous term, Abraham was not saying something that was false.”

The danger was real: “Egyptian kings, at all time periods from the Old Kingdom through the Roman period, at least had the reputation of being able to seize and marry any woman whom they desired.” A retelling of Genesis found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Genesis Apocryphon, also has Abram warned in a dream before he entered Egypt, which “harmonizes nicely with the account in the Book of Abraham.”

Abraham uses the same plan again with Abimelech (Gen. 20:2), and says it had been agreed from the time “God caused me to wander from my father’s house” (Gen. 20:13); Isaac does the same with Rebekah (Gen. 26:7).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Gaye Strathearn, “The Wife/Sister Experience: Pharaoh’s Introduction to Jehovah”, In Sperry Symposium Classics: The Old Testament, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Provo and Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2005), 100–116. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, and John S. Thompson, “Did Abraham Lie about His Wife, Sarai?”, BYU Studies Quarterly 61, no. 4 (2022): 125–28.

14 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

15 The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.

Context #

Taken into Pharaoh’s house

“Pharaoh” is a title, not a name; it means “Great House.” Genesis does not name this king; he was “probably one of the Hyksos or Shepherd kings.”

“Pharaoh” is a title, not a name; it means “Great House.” Genesis does not name this king; he was “probably one of the Hyksos or Shepherd kings.” If Abraham’s early years fall in the 1800s B.C., as one Latter-day Saint dating holds, he reached Egypt after its Twelfth Dynasty had ended, when, on one view, the Nile Delta was ruled by a Fourteenth Dynasty that “was not native Egyptian.”

Pharaoh meant to marry Sarai. His gifts to Abram in verse 16 were a bride price: “Rather than kill Abraham, Pharaoh pays a bride price.” A bride price was normally paid to the woman’s family, and two things stand out here: “the bride price was much higher than typical, and Pharaoh did not ask for the return of the bride price” when he sent them away. At the end he says, in the Hebrew, “and I took her to me for a wife” (va’eqqach), which a modern translation renders “so that I took her for my wife”; the King James “so I might have taken her” is softer. Genesis says nothing more of what happened in Pharaoh’s house. It says that the LORD acted “because of Sarai Abram’s wife” (verse 17).

The camels in verse 16 have long been called an anachronism, but that view rested largely “on an argument from silence”: camels are attested in the Nile Delta by Egypt’s First Dynasty, and “domesticated camels appear already in the Early Bronze Age,” long before Abraham.

Sources: “Pharaoh”, Bible Dictionary. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.

16 And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.

17 And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.

Related Scriptures #

Plagues on Pharaoh

The word for “plagues,” nega‘im, is a “stroke,” especially of disease, “regarded as sent by a divine chastisement.”

The word for “plagues,” nega‘im, is a “stroke,” especially of disease, “regarded as sent by a divine chastisement.” It is the word the Lord uses when He tells Moses, “Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt” (Ex. 11:1). Abram’s encounter was “only the first of a number of contacts between Egypt and Abraham and his descendants.” Centuries later Moses “also confronted an Egyptian Pharaoh,” and “once again, Jehovah orchestrated the events so that His power was manifested both to the Pharaoh and to the children of Israel.”

The plagues also show how far the Lord’s reach goes. “Throughout the ancient world, nations worshiped a pantheon of gods that were responsible for particular geographical areas,” but Abraham “worshipped a god who knew no geographical boundaries.” In Egypt “the God of Abraham was announcing His jurisdiction over all the families of the earth.” A psalm remembers the patriarchs’ wanderings the same way: “He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes” (Ps. 105:14), warning them not to touch His anointed and to “do my prophets no harm” (Ps. 105:15).

Genesis does not say what the plagues were. When the story is repeated with Abimelech, “Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech” and his household (Gen. 20:17).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gaye Strathearn, “The Wife/Sister Experience: Pharaoh’s Introduction to Jehovah”, In Sperry Symposium Classics: The Old Testament, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Provo and Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2005), 100–116.

18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?

19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.

20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 12

The LORD who called Abram and appeared to him is Jehovah, the premortal Christ (see the note on verse 7). Jesus said of the patriarch, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad” (John 8:56).

The promise of verse 3 is fulfilled through Him. Paul names the seed to whom the promises were made: “to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). And the covenant can be kept only because of what He did: “The fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant becomes feasible because of the Atonement of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is at the center of the Abrahamic covenant.”

Worth exploring next

Abraham’s own account. Read Abr. 1:1–19 and Abr. 2 beside this chapter, then Abr. 3:11–15 and Facsimile 3 for Abraham in Egypt.
The call remembered. Isa. 51:1–3; Acts 7:2–5; Heb. 11:8–16; Gal. 3:6–9, 29.
The promise restated. Gen. 13:14–17; Gen. 15:1–21; Gen. 17:1–8; Gen. 22:15–18; D&C 110:12.
The wife-sister stories. Gen. 20 and Gen. 26:1–11. The short BYU Studies article “Did Abraham Lie about His Wife, Sarai?” sets out the Egyptian evidence.
Abraham’s world. “The Wanderings of Abraham” (in From Creation to Sinai, Religious Studies Center) follows him from Ur to Haran, Canaan, and Egypt, place by place.

This chapter elsewhere in scripture

Abr. 2:3–25 — Abraham’s own account of the call in Ur and in Haran, the journey into Canaan, and the Lord’s counsel about Sarai.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
“Genesis”, Bible Dictionary.
“Chronology”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Pharaoh”, Bible Dictionary.
“Bethel”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Abraham 2:14–25, Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (Church Educational System, 2017).
Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant”, Liahona, Oct. 2022.
Shon D. Hopkin, “The Covenant among Covenants: The Abrahamic Covenant and Biblical Covenant Making”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 223–50.
Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310.
John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78.
Gaye Strathearn, “The Wife/Sister Experience: Pharaoh’s Introduction to Jehovah”, In Sperry Symposium Classics: The Old Testament, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Provo and Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2005), 100–116.
Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, and John S. Thompson, “Did Abraham Lie about His Wife, Sarai?”, BYU Studies Quarterly 61, no. 4 (2022): 125–28.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.
Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).

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