Abraham’s original name, Abram, meant “exalted father” or “my father is exalted.” God promised Abram that he would be the father of a great nation that would bless all peoples (Gen 12:1-3). This passage is a prologue to the set of passages that together form the Abrahamic Covenant (See 15:1-21). In 17:5 God changes Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” God’s promises are highlighted here, that from a man with no heir, He would from Abraham’s own loins be the progenitor of a great multitude of people devoted to God. God’s covenant with Abraham was sealed by circumcision, and eventually Isaac, a son of promise (Gal 4:28) was given to the one who ever after was to be known as “the father of all them that believe” (Rom 4:11).
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
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
See Genesis 12:1 for an explanation of God's covenant with Abraham. ↩︎
1What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. 3For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. 5But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. 6Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7“Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
8Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.”
9Is this blessing then pronounced only on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. 11He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them. 12He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.
13For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect. 15For the law produces wrath; for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience.
16For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. 17As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were. 18Against hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.” 19Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God, 21and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. 22Therefore it also was “credited to him for righteousness.” 23Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, 24but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.