Genesis 12:1

Hebrew Bible

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you. 2 Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but the one who treats you lightly I must curse, so that all the families of the earth may receive blessing through you.” 4 So Abram left, just as the Lord had told him to do, and Lot went with him. (Now Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.)

Isaiah 29:22

Hebrew Bible

20 For tyrants will disappear, those who taunt will vanish, and all those who love to do wrong will be eliminated— 21 those who bear false testimony against a person, who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges. 22 So this is what the Lord, the one who delivered Abraham, has said to the family of Jacob: “Jacob will no longer be ashamed; their faces will no longer show their embarrassment. 23 For when they see their children, whom I will produce among them, they will honor my name. They will honor the Holy One of Jacob; they will respect the God of Israel. 24 Those who stray morally will gain understanding; those who complain will acquire insight.

 Notes and References

"... Whether Abraham was an idol maker's son who rebelled, or an astronomer whose research led him to conclude that there is only one God, interpreters could safely conclude that Abraham's new ideas about God would not have been acceptable to the Chaldeans. That was why God began by telling Abraham to "go forth from your country and from your kindred" (Genesis 12:1). Yet there was another side to this tradition. It held that Abraham did not just casually leave his homeland, but that God had in fact rescued him from the hands of his own countrymen. Support for this idea was found elsewhere in the Bible ... "Redeemed" means not only "bought back," but "ransomed" or "rescued from captivity." These words of Isaiah [29] might thus be seen to suggest that, in telling Abraham to leave Ur, God had in fact rescued him, taking him out of some difficult or dangerous situation. It was not hard for ancient interpreters to imagine such a scene (especially since many Jews in later times—including the interpreters' own days—had found themselves in just such a position ..."

Kugel, James L. The Bible as it Was (pp. 141-142) Harvard University Press, 1998

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