1Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name!
Make his doings known among the peoples.
2Sing to him, sing praises to him!
Tell of all his marvelous works.
3Glory in his holy name.
Let the heart of those who seek Yahweh rejoice.
4Seek Yahweh and his strength.
Seek his face forever more.
5Remember his marvelous works that he has done:
his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth,
6you offspring of Abraham, his servant,
you children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
7He is Yahweh, our God.
His judgments are in all the earth.
8He has remembered his covenant forever,
the word which he commanded to a thousand generations,
9the covenant which he made with Abraham,
his oath to Isaac,
10and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute;
to Israel for an everlasting covenant,
11saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan,
the lot of your inheritance,”
12when they were but a few men in number,
yes, very few, and foreigners in it.
13They went about from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to another people.
14He allowed no one to do them wrong.
Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes,
15“Don’t touch my anointed ones!
Do my prophets no harm!”
16He called for a famine on the land.
He destroyed the food supplies.
17He sent a man before them.
Joseph was sold for a slave.
18They bruised his feet with shackles.
His neck was locked in irons,
19until the time that his word happened,
and Yahweh’s word proved him true.
20The king sent and freed him,
even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
21He made him lord of his house,
and ruler of all of his possessions,
22to discipline his princes at his pleasure,
and to teach his elders wisdom.
23Israel also came into Egypt.
Jacob lived in the land of Ham.
24He increased his people greatly,
and made them stronger than their adversaries.
25He turned their heart to hate his people,
to conspire against his servants.
26He sent Moses, his servant,
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
27They performed miracles among them,
and wonders in the land of Ham.
28He sent darkness, and made it dark.
They didn’t rebel against his words.
29He turned their waters into blood,
and killed their fish.
30Their land swarmed with frogs,
even in the rooms of their kings.
31He spoke, and swarms of flies came,
and lice in all their borders.
32He gave them hail for rain,
with lightning in their land.
33He struck their vines and also their fig trees,
and shattered the trees of their country.
34He spoke, and the locusts came
with the grasshoppers, without number.
35They ate up every plant in their land,
and ate up the fruit of their ground.
36He struck also all the firstborn in their land,
the first fruits of all their manhood.
37He brought them out with silver and gold.
There was not one feeble person among his tribes.
38Egypt was glad when they departed,
for the fear of them had fallen on them.
39He spread a cloud for a covering,
fire to give light in the night.
40They asked, and he brought quails,
and satisfied them with the bread of the sky.
41He opened the rock, and waters gushed out.
They ran as a river in the dry places.
42For he remembered his holy word,
and Abraham, his servant.
43He brought his people out with joy,
his chosen with singing.
44He gave them the lands of the nations.
They took the labor of the peoples in possession,
45that they might keep his statutes,
and observe his laws.
Praise Yah!
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).