Welcome back to my study/review of Genesis. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Genesis 12:2-3
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
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great: גָּדוֹל gâdôwl, gaw-dole’; or גָּדֹל gâdôl; (shortened) from H1431; great (in any sense); hence, older; also insolent:— aloud, elder(-est), exceeding(-ly), far, (man of) great (man, matter, thing,-er,-ness), high, long, loud, mighty, more, much, noble, proud thing, × sore, (×) very.
nation: גּוֹי gôwy, go’-ee; rarely (shortened) גֹּי gôy; apparently from the same root as H1465 (in the sense of massing); a foreign nation; hence, a Gentile; also (figuratively) a troop of animals, or a flight of locusts:—Gentile, heathen, nation, people.
bless: בָּרַךְ bârak, baw-rak’; a primitive root; to kneel; by implication to bless God (as an act of adoration), and (vice-versa) man (as a benefit); also (by euphemism) to curse (God or the king, as treason):—× abundantly, × altogether, × at all, blaspheme, bless, congratulate, curse, × greatly, × indeed, kneel (down), praise, salute, × still, thank.
name: שֵׁם shêm, shame; a primitive word [perhaps rather from H7760 through the idea of definite and conspicuous position; compare H8064]; an appellation, as a mark or memorial of individuality; by implication honor, authority, character:—+ base, (in-) fame(-ous), named(-d), renown, report.
dishonors/curse: אָרַר ʼârar, aw-rar’; a primitive root; to execrate:—× bitterly curse.
curse: קָלַל qâlal, kaw-lal’; a primitive root; to be (causatively, make) light, literally (swift, small, sharp, etc.) or figuratively (easy, trifling, vile, etc.):—abate, make bright, bring into contempt, (ac-) curse, despise, (be) ease(-y, -ier), (be a, make, make somewhat, move, seem a, set) light(-en, -er, -ly, -ly afflict, -ly esteem, thing), × slight(-ly), be swift(-er), (be, be more, make, re-) vile, whet.
families: מִשְׁפָּחָה mishpâchâh, mish-paw-khaw’; from H8192 (compare H8198); a family, i.e. circle of relatives; figuratively, a class (of persons), a species (of animals) or sort (of things); by extension a tribe or people:—family, kind(-red).
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From Ellicott’s Bible Commentary:
Verse 2-3
(2, 3) Thou shalt be a blessing.—More correctly, Be thou a blessing. The promises made to Abram are partly personal and partly universal, embracing the whole world. In return for all that he abandons he is to become the founder of a powerful nation, who will honour his name, and teach the inheritors of their spiritual privileges to share in their veneration for him. But in the command to “be” or “become a blessing,” we reach a higher level, and it is the glory of Abram’s faith that it was not selfish, and in return for his consenting to lead the life of a stranger, he was to be the means of procuring religious privileges, not only for his own descendants, but also “for all families of the earth” (Heb., of the ground—the adâmâh). Not for the earth as the material universe, but solely in its connection with man. Wherever man makes his home upon it, there, through Abram, spiritual blessings will be offered him.
I will bless . . . —These words indicate relations mysteriously close between Jehovah and Abram, whereby the friends and enemies of the one become so equally to the other. But in the second clause our version has not noticed an essential difference between the verbs used. They occur together again in Exodus 22:28, and are there more correctly rendered by “revile” and “curse.” The one word signifies to treat lightly and contemptuously, the other to pronounce a curse, usually in a judicial manner. We might, therefore, translate, “I will curse—pass a sentence of rejection upon—him that speaketh lightly of, or revileth thee.”
In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.—Some authorities translate, “shall bless themselves;” but there is a different conjugation to express this meaning, and no reason exists for forcing it upon the text. Henceforward Abram and the nation sprung from him were to be the intermediaries between God and mankind, and accordingly revelation was virtually confined to them. But though the knowledge of God’s will was to be given through them, it was for the benefit of all the families of every race and kindred distributed throughout the habitable world, the adâmâh (Romans 3:29; Romans 10:12, &c).
And from David Guzik:
c. I will make you a great nation: God promised to make a nation from Abram. He will have enough children and grandchildren and further descendants to populate a nation.
d. And make your name great: God promised to bless Abram and to make [his] name great. There is probably no more honored name in history than the name of Abram, who is honored by Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
e. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you: God also promised He would bless those who bless you and to curse him who curses you. This remains true today and is a root reason for the decline and death of many empires.
i. “When the Greeks overran Palestine and desecrated the altar in the Jewish temple, they were soon conquered by Rome. When Rome killed Paul and many others, and destroyed Jerusalem under Titus, Rome soon fell. Spain was reduced to a fifth-rate nation after the Inquisition against the Jews; Poland fell after the pogroms; Hitler’s Germany went down after its orgies of anti-Semitism; Britain lost her empire when she broke her faith with Israel.” (Barnhouse)
ii. This is also one reason why the United States has been so blessed. The United States was one of the first modern nations to grant full citizenship and protection to Jewish people.
iii. This promise has also affected the church. The times when the church took upon itself the persecution of the Jewish people were dark times not only for the Jews, but also for the church.
f. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed: Not only was Abram promised blessing, but God also promised to make him a blessing, even to the point where all the families of the earth would be blessed in Abram.
i. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. (Galatians 3:8-9)
ii. And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Revelation 5:9). The work of Jesus will touch every people group on the earth.
iii. Luther said the promise in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed should be written “in golden letters and should be extolled in the languages of all people,” for “who else … has dispensed this blessing among all nations except the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ?” (Boice)
The world was reminded of the import still placed on the name of Abram/Abraham recently. The Abraham Accords were signed in 2020 and venerate the name of the patriarch almost FOUR THOUSAND YEARS after many scholars agree that he lived.
This seems like a good place to share some of the more out-there and alternative beliefs regarding Abraham. (I’m not teaching or defending this perspective – merely sharing its existence.)
From afrikaiswoke.com
According to Zechariah Sitchin, Abraham’s lineage as a member of the Ancient Sumerian Priesthood is significant in understanding the Anunnaki Pyramid Wars, how the Biblical Covenant eventually came to exist and the origins of Religion.
According to Sitchin, Terah, the son of Nahor and the Father of Abraham was born in Ur of the Chaldees. Initially, Abraham was an Enlil Oracle Priest chosen to be the Chief Priest of Enlil’s new City Base at Haran, after Kingship was granted to the City of Ur.
It was from Abraham that the nation of Israel descended, and as Sitchin points out, Abraham is recorded as having left Ur for Haran in Genesis.
On his way to Haran, Sitchin observes that Abraham met ‘God’ and he was promised that his descendants would one day possess the lands of Canaan of which Haran was a part, although it is unclear at this stage why such a promise is being made to Abraham.
Whilst its unclear from the Bible why God made a promise to Abraham on his way to Haran, the Sumerian texts, on the other hand, explain that the reward/blessing given to Abraham was because of the service he performed for the Anunnaki God EN.LIL when he was commanded to travel to Canaan in order to defend the Anunnaki Spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula, or place of the Celestial Chariots which at the time was under siege from the forces of Marduk during the Anunnaki 2nd Pyramid War.Abraham succeeded in repelling Marduk but his victory would not be enough to prevent further attempts by Marduk, leading eventually to the destruction of the Sinai Peninsula Spaceport using Nuclear Weapons by Enlil in order to prevent the Spaceport’s takeover by a persistent Marduk.
Highlights:
- Anunnaki Pyramid Wars
- Enlil Oracle Priest
- Anunnaki Spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula
- Marduk and the Second Pyramid War
- Nuclear Weapons
If you search online regarding these topics, you will likely be directed to the same site linked above. SitchenStudies.com contains a lot of his “translations” from the Sumerian texts. (I put translations in quotes because a lot of his work is disputed.) As I am not a scholar of Sumerian cuneiform, I cannot give much in the way of an opinion about his work except to say that it *is* disputed.
THAT SAID: There does seem to be some general consensus on a lot of what is written in the Sumerian cuneiform tablets and it is pretty fascinating. Cornell University has an online site covering Sumerian tablet collections HERE. The beliefs of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians should be of interest to any person interested in the ancient history described in The Book of Genesis. Why? Because this is the world and the context in which the earliest parts of the Bible are written.
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