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1When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die.”

2Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

3She said, “Behold, my maid Bilhah. Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain children by her.” 4She gave him Bilhah her servant as wife, and Jacob went in to her. 5Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son. 6Rachel said, “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice, and has given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan. 7Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, conceived again, and bore Jacob a second son. 8Rachel said, “I have wrestled with my sister with mighty wrestlings, and have prevailed.” She named him Naphtali.

9When Leah saw that she had finished bearing, she took Zilpah, her servant, and gave her to Jacob as a wife. 10Zilpah, Leah’s servant, bore Jacob a son. 11Leah said, “How fortunate!” She named him Gad. 12Zilpah, Leah’s servant, bore Jacob a second son. 13Leah said, “Happy am I, for the daughters will call me happy.” She named him Asher.

14Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

15Leah said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes, also?”

Rachel said, “Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.”

16Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, “You must come in to me; for I have surely hired you with my son’s mandrakes.”

He lay with her that night. 17God listened to Leah, and she conceived, and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18Leah said, “God has given me my hire, because I gave my servant to my husband.” She named him Issachar. 19Leah conceived again, and bore a sixth son to Jacob. 20Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good dowry. Now my husband will live with me, because I have borne him six sons.” She named him Zebulun. 21Afterwards, she bore a daughter, and named her Dinah.

22God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her, and opened her womb. 23She conceived, bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” 24She named him Joseph, saying, “May Yahweh add another son to me.”

25When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country. 26Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know my service with which I have served you.”

27Laban said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, stay here, for I have divined that Yahweh has blessed me for your sake.” 28He said, “Appoint me your wages, and I will give it.”

29Jacob said to him, “You know how I have served you, and how your livestock have fared with me. 30For it was little which you had before I came, and it has increased to a multitude. Yahweh has blessed you wherever I turned. Now when will I provide for my own house also?”

31Laban said, “What shall I give you?”

Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed your flock and keep it. 32I will pass through all your flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats. This will be my hire. 33So my righteousness will answer for me hereafter, when you come concerning my hire that is before you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and black among the sheep, that might be with me, will be considered stolen.”

34Laban said, “Behold, let it be according to your word.”

35That day, he removed the male goats that were streaked and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons. 36He set three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.

37Jacob took to himself rods of fresh poplar, almond, and plane tree, peeled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. 38He set the rods which he had peeled opposite the flocks in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. They conceived when they came to drink. 39The flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted. 40Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the streaked and all the black in Laban’s flock. He put his own droves apart, and didn’t put them into Laban’s flock. 41Whenever the stronger of the flock conceived, Jacob laid the rods in front of the eyes of the flock in the watering troughs, that they might conceive among the rods; 42but when the flock were feeble, he didn’t put them in. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. 43The man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Person

Abraham

Also called Abram
Lived
1997 BC – 1821 BC (approximate)
Born
Ur of the Chaldees
Father Terah
Spouse HagarKeturahSarah
Children Ishmael (Son of Hagar)MedanMidianZimranShuahJokshanIshbakIsaac
Siblings Haran (brother of Abraham)Nahor (brother of Abraham)
 Biography | Hershel Wayne House

The man Abram appears suddenly on the scene in the book of Genesis. He was born in the area around the modern Persian Gulf at Ur of the Chaldeans. According to Genesis 11:26, 27, his father was Terah (Gen 11:26, 27), and married the daughter of his father by someone other than his own mother (Gen 11:29). After being visited by the true God, who called him to leave his home in Ur and go to a place that God would lead him (Gen 12:1-3; Josh 24:3; Neh 9:7; Isa 51:2; Acts 7:2, 3),  he left his home in Ur, along with his father Terah, his wife, and other relatives, and moved to Haran (Gen 31; Neh 9:7; Acts 7:4). After residing in Haran for a period of time, Abram then moved to Canaan (Gen 12:4-6; Acts 7:4).

When Abram was initially called by God, God told him that the land to which he was being led would be given land from the river Euphrates, which includes the land Canaan (Gen 21:1, 7; 15:7-21; Ezek 33:24). Upon coming to Canaan, Abram moved to Bethel (house of God) (Gen 12:8), near the location of Ai, conquered later by Joshua. Between these cities, Abram and Lot looked toward the city of Sodom and the cities of the plain. 

Due to a famine in Canaan, Abram went to Egypt, where he revealed some weakness in his character. First, God had given Abram a promise of the land from which he left to go to Egypt, but he failed to trust in God's care for him and his family. Second, upon arriving in Egypt he identified Sarai as his sister, rather than his wife, which in one way was accurate since she was the daughter of Terah, the father of Abram, but his subterfuge caused a serious problem, in that Abram's wife was apparently attractive so he was taken into the home of the Pharaoh, who provided much wealth to Abram (Gen 12:10-20; 26:1).

Despite all of this, Abraham was chosen by God to be the father of many nations (Gen 12:3). We discover in Genesis 15 that the covenant he made with Abraham was unilateral and unconditional. His success would be based on the work of God.

Short Outline of Abraham's Life

Biblical verses that deal with Abraham, the Father of Nations

Copyright © 2026 Hershel Wayne House. All rights reserved.
 Biography | Hershel Wayne House

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 Haran, 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 and 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). ↩︎

Copyright © 2026 Hershel Wayne House. All rights reserved.
Person & place data: Theographic Bible Metadata by Robert Rouse (Viz.Bible), CC BY-SA 4.0.