Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
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Genesis
Book: Genesis
Chapter: 12
Overview:
God calls
Abram, and blesses him with a promise of
Christ.
(1-3) Abram departs from
Haran.
(4,5) He journeys through
Canaan, and worships
God in that land.
(6-9) Abram is driven
By
a
Famine into
Egypt, He feigns his
Wife to be his sister.
(10-20)
1-3 God made choice of
Abram, and singled him out from among
his fellow-idolaters, that he might reserve a people for
himself, among whom his true
Worship might be maintained till
the
Coming of Christ. From henceforward
Abram and his seed are
almost the only subject of the history in the
Bible.
Abram was
tried whether he loved
God better than all, and whether he could
willingly leave all to go with
God. His kindred and his
Father's
House were a constant
Temptation to him, he could not continue
among them without danger of being infected
By them. Those who
leave their sins, and turn to
God, will be unspeakable gainers
By the change. The command
God gave to
Abram, is much the same
with the
Gospel Call, for natural
Affection must give way to
Divine
Grace.
Sin, and all the occasions of it, must be
forsaken; particularly bad company. Here are many great and
precious promises. All
God's precepts are attended with promises
to the obedient. 1. I will make of thee a great nation. When
God
took
Abram from his own people, he promised to make him the head
of another people. 2. I will
Bless thee. Obedient believers
shall be sure to inherit the blessing. 3. I will make thy name
great. The name of obedient believers shall certainly be made
great. 4. Thou shalt be a blessing. Good men are the blessings
of their country. 5. I will
Bless them that
Bless thee, and
Curse him that curseth thee.
God will take care that none are
losers,
By any service done for his people. 6. In thee shall all
the families of the
Earth be blessed.
Jesus Christ is the great
blessing of the world, the greatest that ever the world
possessed. All the true blessedness the world is now, or ever
shall be possessed of, is owing to
Abram and his posterity.
Through them we have a
Bible, a
Saviour, and a
Gospel. They are
the stock
On which the
Christian Church is grafted.
4,5 Abram believed that the blessing of the Almighty would make
up for all he could lose or leave behind, supply all his wants,
and answer and exceed all his desires; and he knew that nothing
but misery would follow disobedience. Such believers, being
justified
By Faith in
Christ, have peace with
God. They
Hold On
their way to
Canaan. They are not discouraged
By the
difficulties in their way, nor drawn aside
By the delights they
meet with. Those who set out for
Heaven must persevere to the
End. What we undertake, in obedience to
God's command, and in
humble attendance
On his
Providence, will certainly succeed, and
End with comfort at last.
Canaan was not, as other lands, a mere
outward possession, but a
Type of
Heaven, and in this respect
the patriarchs
So earnestly prized it.
6-9 Abram found the country peopled
By Canaanites, who were bad
neighbours. He journeyed, going
On still. Sometimes it is the
Lot of good men to be unsettled, and often to remove into
various states. Believers must look
On themselves as strangers
and sojourners in this world, Heb 11:8,13,14. But observe how
much comfort
Abram had in
God. When he could have little
satisfaction in converse with the
Canaanites whom he found
there, he had abundance of pleasure in
Communion with that
God,
who brought him thither, and did not leave him.
Communion with
God is kept up
By the
Word and
By Prayer.
God reveals himself
and his favours to his people
By Degrees; before, he had
promised to show
Abram this land, now, to give it to him: as
Grace is growing,
So is comfort. It should seem,
Abram
understood it also as a grant of a better land, of which this
was a
Type; for he looked for a heavenly country, Heb 11:16.
As soon as
Abram was got to
Canaan, though he was but a
Stranger
and sojourner there, yet he set up, and kept up, the
Worship of
God in his family. He not only minded the ceremonial part of
religion, the
Offering of
Sacrifice; but he made
Conscience of
seeking his
God, and
Calling On his name; that spiritual
Sacrifice with which
God is
Well pleased. He preached concerning
the name of the
Lord; he taught his family and neighbours the
knowledge of the true
God, and his holy religion. The way of
family
Worship is a good old way,
No new thing, but the ancient
usage of the saints.
Abram was rich, and had a numerous family,
was now unsettled, and in the midst of enemies; yet, wherever he
pitched his
Tent, he built an
Altar: wherever we go, let us not
fail to take our religion along with us.
10-20 There is
No state
On Earth free from trials, nor any
character free from blemishes. There was
Famine in
Canaan, the
Glory of all lands, and unbelief, with the evils it ever brings,
in
Abram the
Father of the
Faithful. Perfect happiness and
perfect purity
Dwell only in
Heaven.
Abram, when he must for a
time quit
Canaan, goes to
Egypt, that he might not seem to look
back, and meaning to tarry there
No longer than needful. There
Abram dissembled his relation to
Sarai, equivocated, and taught
his
Wife and his attendants to do
So too. He concealed a
Truth,
So as in effect to deny it, and exposed thereby both his
Wife
and the Egyptians to
Sin. The
Grace Abram was most noted for,
was
Faith; yet he thus fell through unbelief and distrust of the
Divine
Providence, even after
God had appeared to him twice.
Alas, what will become of weak
Faith, when strong
Faith is thus
shaken! If
God did not deliver us, many a time, out of straits
and distresses which we bring ourselves into,
By our own
Sin and
folly, we should be ruined. He deals not with us according to
our deserts. Those are happy chastisements that hinder us in a
sinful way, and bring us to our duty, particularly to the duty
of restoring what we have wrongfully taken or kept.
Pharaoh's
reproof of
Abram was very just: What is this that thou hast
done? How unbecoming a
Wise and good
Man! If those who profess
religion, do that which is unfair and deceptive, especially if
they say that which borders upon a
Lie, they must expect to hear
of it; and they have reason to thank those who will tell them of
it. The sending away was kind.
Pharaoh was
So far from any
design to kill
Abram, as he feared, that he took particular care
of him. We often perplex ourselves with fears which are
altogether groundless. Many a time we fear where
No fear is.
Pharaoh charged his men not to hurt
Abram in any thing. It is
not enough for those in authority, that they do not hurt
themselves; they must keep their servants and those about them
from doing hurt.