Genesis 12:4

Memory Verse

And Abram walked as the LORD had spoken to him. And Lot walked with him, and Abram was a son of seventy-five years when he went out from Haran (Genesis 12:4).

God initially spoke to Abram when he resided in Ur of the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans were a Semitic people associated with the marshlands of southern Mesopotamia, near the head of the Persian Gulf. After Terah, Abram’s father, died in Haran, Abram followed the word of the LORD and went to the land of Canaan. At this stage, the text notes only that Abram acted on what the LORD had said to him a decade or so earlier, not that he had yet had faith in God.

Abram did not fully obey God’s word when he left Haran, as he took Lot with him. God had told him to leave his country and family. Abram’s faith in God appears later, when God promises him a seed that will be as numerous as the stars of the heavens.

Abram and Lot crossed the Euphrates into the merchants’ land. This act gave Abram and his descendants the name Hebrew. ‘Hebrew’ means ‘one from beyond’ or ‘one who has passed over,’ referring to a foreigner in Canaan (Genesis 14:13).