NOTES for Gen 12:1-20
From this point on, the author of Genesis turns to a new genre: sacred history. This is not history in the modern sense of the word, not biographies of great people, not a chronicle. It is a panorama of a long process in which God turns not only to individual people, but to a community capable of enduring through time: to a family, to a people. The connecting link in this continuous line must be the promise given at the very beginning. And the first person in this community is Abram, the legendary forefather of the Jewish people. As we will see later, he is the first to receive from God a promise that begins to be fulfilled during his lifetime, but is to be fully accomplished in an undefined future: through him all nations are to know God. Abram, despite his advanced age and childlessness, responds to this promise, and a chain of faith begins, one that can also draw us in and thereby bring us into the sacred history of the world.