1These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suf, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea. 3In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that Yahweh had given him in commandment to them, 4after he had struck Sihon the king of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan who lived in Ashtaroth, at Edrei. 5Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to declare this law, saying, 6“Yahweh our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying, ‘You have lived long enough at this mountain. 7Turn, and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all the places near there: in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the lowland, in the South, by the seashore, in the land of the Canaanites, and in Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. 8Behold, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob—to give to them and to their offspring after them.’”
9I spoke to you at that time, saying, “I am not able to bear you myself alone. 10Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as the stars of the sky for multitude. 11May Yahweh, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has promised you! 12How can I myself alone bear your problems, your burdens, and your strife? 13Take wise men of understanding who are respected among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.”
14You answered me, and said, “The thing which you have spoken is good to do.” 15So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and respected men, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, captains of hundreds, captains of fifties, captains of tens, and officers, according to your tribes. 16I commanded your judges at that time, saying, “Hear cases between your brothers and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is living with him. 17You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.” 18I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do. 19We traveled from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Yahweh our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea. 20I said to you, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which Yahweh our God gives to us. 21Behold, Yahweh your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as Yahweh the God of your fathers has spoken to you. Don’t be afraid, neither be dismayed.”
22You came near to me, everyone of you, and said, “Let’s send men before us, that they may search the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we must go up, and the cities to which we shall come.”
23The thing pleased me well. I took twelve of your men, one man for every tribe. 24They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of Eshcol, and spied it out. 25They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, “It is a good land which Yahweh our God gives to us.”
26Yet you wouldn’t go up, but rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God. 27You murmured in your tents, and said, “Because Yahweh hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. 28Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our heart melt, saying, ‘The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to the sky. Moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there!’”
29Then I said to you, “Don’t be terrified. Don’t be afraid of them. 30Yahweh your God, who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31and in the wilderness where you have seen how that Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.”
32Yet in this thing you didn’t believe Yahweh your God, 33who went before you on the way, to seek out a place for you to pitch your tents in: in fire by night, to show you by what way you should go, and in the cloud by day. 34Yahweh heard the voice of your words and was angry, and swore, saying, 35“Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers, 36except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it. I will give the land that he has trodden on to him and to his children, because he has wholly followed Yahweh.”
37Also Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, saying, “You also shall not go in there. 38Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. 39Moreover your little ones, whom you said would be captured or killed, your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, shall go in there. I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. 40But as for you, turn, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”
41Then you answered and said to me, “We have sinned against Yahweh. We will go up and fight, according to all that Yahweh our God commanded us.” Every man of you put on his weapons of war, and presumed to go up into the hill country.
42Yahweh said to me, “Tell them, ‘Don’t go up and don’t fight; for I am not among you, lest you be struck before your enemies.’”
43So I spoke to you, and you didn’t listen; but you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh, and were presumptuous, and went up into the hill country. 44The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah. 45You returned and wept before Yahweh, but Yahweh didn’t listen to your voice, nor turn his ear to you. 46So you stayed in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you remained.
We first encounter Abraham (father of many nations) as Abram (great father) in Genesis 11:26-31). He was the son of Terah, brother of Nahor and Haran, and uncle of Lot. Abram's brother Haran died while Abram was still in Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 11:28), where he also married Sarai, his half-sister. We discover toward the end of Genesis 11 that his father Terah left Ur, and went to the land of Canaan, via a city named Harana, where Terah died.
The story of Abraham becomes important in chapter 12, in which we are introduced to important biblical characters, locations, and events that set the stage for the remainder of the Bible. Yahweh came to Abram was commanded him to go to a land that He would show him. In this passage, Yahweh sets forth a unilateral and unconditional covenant, in which He promised to make from him a great nation, make his name great, and through him bless all of the families of the earth.[1]
"Abraham (Abram) was first of the patriarchs, father of Isaac and Ishmael, grandfather of Jacob and the traditional ancestor of the Jewish people. Abraham (originally Abram, which means "exalted father") came from Ur in Mesopotamia. His father, Terah, took him (with his wife, Sarah, and his nephew, Lot) to Haran. God called Abraham to leave this new home and to find another home elsewhere in Canaan. After a brief stay in Egypt, Abraham settled near Hebron where he became involved in a local political quarrel when Lot was taken prisoner by an alliance of four eastern chieftains. Abraham launched a successful attack against this confederacy and on his victorious return encountered the mysterious Melchizedek, king of Salem, to whom he gave a tenth of all the spoil he had taken in the battle.
For many years of their marriage, he and Sarah were childless, but God assured Abraham that he would eventually become the father of a great nation. Sarah disbelieved and persuaded Abraham to beget a child by her maid, Hagar, who bore him his first son, Ishmael. When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, God appeared to him, and instituted with him a covenant of circumcision, giving him the new name of Abraham (meaning "father of a multitude") and told him that a son, to be named Isaac was shortly to be born to Sarah. When the boy was in his childhood, God ordered Abraham to take him up to a mountain in the land of Moriah and offer him up as a sacrificial victim. Abraham prepared to do so, but was prevented at the last moment from carrying out the sacrifice, and told that he would be blessed for his faithfulness in being ready to offer up his son.
When Sarah died Abraham bought the plot of ground (the field of Ephron in Machpelah) that became the burial place for many generations of his descendants. He subsequently made arrangements for the marriage of Isaac, and took another wife, Keturah, who bore him Zimran, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. At the age of one hundred and seventy five, Abraham died and was buried in Machpelah.
The principal narrative of the part of Genesis dealing with Abraham's history is interrupted in various places by other stories involving the patriarch. These include the parallel stories of his sojourns in Egypt and in Gerar. On both occasions Abraham lied about his relations with Sarah, jeopardising the fulfilment of God's promise (as both Pharaoh and Abimelech intended to take Sarah for themselves), while protecting himself. Both times God intervened to save him from the consequences of his deception. In another story we read of Abraham's intercession on behalf of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed for their wickedness."[2]
[1] See Genesis 12:1 for an explanation of God's covenant with Abraham.
[2] Based on the website Mini-Biografias de Personajes Biblicos Web de Recursos Cristianos) (trans. Mini-Biographies of Biblical Characters, Christian Resources Web).