Parashat Lekh Lekha

Abram and Sarai follow God's call to journey to Canaan, where the covenant between God and Abraham is affirmed. Abram, renamed Abraham, has a son with Hagar, Sarai's maid, and God promises that Sarai, renamed Sarah, will bear a son as well. 

By Nancy Reuben Greenfield

The following article is reprinted with permission from Jewish Family & Life!

 

God said to Abram, “Go forth from your homeland to the land that I shall show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great. I wish to bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth shall be blessed through you.” 

 

So Abram went as God had spoken to him. Abram was 75 years old when he took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all their possessions and left for Canaan. In Canaan, at Moreh, God appeared to Abram and said, “To your seed will I give this land.”

 

Abram then built an altar to God there and another altar to God in Bethel.

Abram journeyed south, but there was famine in the land and he ended up in Egypt. When they were about to enter Egypt, Abram said to his wife Sarai, “Look, you are a beautiful woman and it will come to pass in Egypt that they will kill me because you are my wife. Therefore, please say that you are my sister so they will keep me alive.”

It came to pass that when the Egyptians saw the beautiful woman Sarai, she was praised to the Pharaoh. Sarai was then taken into the Pharaoh’s house. The Pharaoh showed kindness to Abram for the beautiful woman’s sake and gave him animals and servants.

Then God struck Pharaoh with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. And the Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why did you say that she was your sister, even when I took her as my wife? Take your wife and go.”

Abram left with Sarai and all their possessions out of Egypt. Now Abram was very rich in herds and silver and gold. He went back to Canaan, near the altar of Bethel. Lot chose the land of Jordan.

 

God said to Abram, “You will have sons, but he who comes forth from your own inner parts shall be your heir.” He then led Abram outside, saying, "Look, please, toward the heavens and count the stars. So shall your seed be."

God changed Abram's name to Abraham. Abraham put all his trust in God, counting the stars as his righteous duty.

Then God said, “I am God Who brought you out of your homeland to give you possession of a new land.” God gave Abraham specific markings of his territory.

Now Sarai, Abraham’s wife, had no children, but she did have a maidservant, Hagar. Sarai asked Abram to go to Hagar so that she might birth him a child. After Hagar conceived, she acted as if Sarai was no longer important. Sarai complained to Abraham, who told Sarai to do whatever is good in her eyes. Then Sarai humbled Hagar and Hagar fled from before her.

An angel of God found Hagar by a fountain of water in the wilderness. The angel told Hagar to return home, promising to multiply her seed exceedingly so that it would not be possible to count it.

 

The angel told her to call her son, Ishmael, because God had heard her affliction. Hagar then called to God, “Thou art a God of seeing.” God then called the well, “The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” Ishmael was born when Abram was 86.

 

When Abraham was 99, God said, “I wish to set My covenant between Me and you. You shall become a father of the multitude of the nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. Kings shall come forth from your nation. This covenant will be for you and your descendants after you for all generations as an everlasting covenant.

 

“I will give you the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession and I shall be God to you and your descendants. But you, too, must keep My covenant. Every male among you shall be circumcised at the age of eight days, including all males that are born in the house or acquired with money from any stranger. My covenant shall thus be on your flesh as an everlasting covenant.”

 

God further said to Abraham, "You shall not call your wife Sarai because her name is Sarah. I will bless her and have already appointed for you a son from her. I will bless her and kings of nations shall descend from her."

 

And Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old or shall Sarah who is 90 years old give birth?”

 

Then Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live before Thy countenance.”

 

But God said, “Not so, Sarah shall bear a son whom you shall name Isaac. With him will I uphold My covenant. As for Ishmael, I have blessed him already and will make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget 12 princes and I shall appoint him to be a great nation. But My covenant is with Isaac.”

 

When God went away from Abraham, that very same day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all the male members of his household and servants. He circumcised the flesh of their foreskins and his own.

Questions For Discussion

1. Abram was called by God. What does it mean to be called by God? Have you ever felt called by God to do anything? How do you know it was God who called you? How did Abram know it was God who called him?

2. Abram laughs at God when God suggests that he and Sarah in their old age, after years of being childless, will become parents. Have you ever laughed at God? Or with God? Explain.

3. Restate in your own words the covenant God made with Abraham. Is this Covenant still relevant and important today? Why?

 

Nancy Reuben Greenfield is a free-lance writer who lives in Carrollton, Texas with her husband and two young children.  She writes frequently on Jewish themes and is finishing a book, co-authored with her father, called The Golden Medina.