Bible Timeline · About 2000 BC, traditional count 2091 BC

God Calls Abraham

God told Abram to leave his country and go to a land He would show him. He promised to make Abram a great nation and to bless all the families of the earth through him. Abram was 75. He lived about 2000 BC, give or take a couple hundred years, and the traditional count puts his call at 2091 BC.

Read it in the Bible: Genesis 11:27-32 Genesis 12:1-9 Genesis 15:1-21 Galatians 3:6-9 Hebrews 11:8-10 Acts 7:2-4

The call of Abraham is the moment in Genesis 12 when God told a man named Abram to leave his home and family and go to a land He would show him. God promised to make him a great nation, to give his family the land of Canaan, and to bless all the families of the earth through him. Abram was 75 years old. He lived about 2000 BC, give or take a couple hundred years, and the traditional count from the genealogies puts his call at about 2091 BC. Everything else in the Bible, all the way to Jesus, grows out of this promise.

Where Was Abraham From?

Abram grew up in Ur of the Chaldeans, according to Genesis 11:31. His father Terah moved the family north to a city called Haran, along with Abram's wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. Terah died there.

Most scholars place Ur in what is now southern Iraq, near the Euphrates River. From 1922 to 1934, a team from the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania led by Leonard Woolley dug it up. They found a great city with a huge ziggurat and royal tombs full of gold. Woolley hoped to find Abraham's home. He found a rich and powerful city, which shows just how much Abram left behind. A few scholars suggest a different Ur in the north, closer to Haran, but the southern Ur is the traditional view.

Joshua 24:2 adds that Terah's family "worshiped other gods." Abram was not raised in a godly home. God called him out of a world of idols.

What Did God Promise Abraham?

Then Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:1 to 3

Bible teachers often sum it up as three promises:

A land: the land of Canaan, which became Israel.
A nation: descendants as many as the stars, from a man with no children.
A blessing: through Abram's family, every family on earth would be blessed.

Notice the contrast with the chapter before. At Babel, people tried to make a name for themselves. Here God says, "I will make your name great." The difference is who does the making.

How Old Was Abraham When God Called Him?

So Abram departed, as Yahweh had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Genesis 12:4

Seventy five is not when most people start a new life. Abram did not have a map or a moving company. He just had a promise. Stephen says in Acts 7:2 that God first appeared to Abram while he was still in Mesopotamia, before Haran, so the call may have started in Ur and been renewed at Haran.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8

When Did Abraham Live?

The Owner's Manual places Abraham about 2000 BC, give or take a couple hundred years. The traditional count adds up the ages in Genesis 11 and later passages and lands on his birth about 2166 BC and his call at 2091 BC. Others who date the Exodus later, in the 1200s BC, move Abraham closer to 1800 BC. Customs in Genesis, like a barren wife giving her servant to her husband, match what we see in ancient tablets from Mesopotamia in the 2000s and 1000s BC.

What Happened in the Covenant of Genesis 15?

Years went by and Abram still had no son. He asked God about it, and God took him outside at night.

And Yahweh took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed Yahweh, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:5 to 6

That last sentence is one of the most important in the whole Bible. Paul quotes it in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 to show that people are made right with God by faith, not by their own works.

Then God made a covenant in a way that sounds strange to us but made perfect sense back then. Animals were cut in half and laid in two rows. In ancient covenants, the people making the deal would walk between the pieces, as if to say, "May this happen to me if I break my word." But Abram fell into a deep sleep, and only God passed through.

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses. Genesis 15:17

God put the whole weight of the promise on Himself. In the same chapter, God told Abram that his descendants would be slaves in a foreign land for 400 years before coming back, in Genesis 15:13. That is a preview of Israel in Egypt and the Exodus.

How Does God's Promise to Abraham Point to Jesus?

Paul says the promise that all nations would be blessed through Abraham was actually the gospel, announced ahead of time.

The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and foretold the gospel to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” Galatians 3:8

Matthew 1:1 opens the New Testament by calling Jesus "the son of Abraham." Jesus is the promised seed through whom the blessing goes to every nation. That is why Paul can say in Galatians 3:7 that everyone who has faith is a child of Abraham. Jews, Christians and Muslims all honor Abraham as a father of faith, which shows how far this one man's story has reached.

Why Abraham's Call Matters for You Today

Abram's story says God can start something new with anyone, at any age, from any background. He called a 75 year old man from a family of idol worshipers and built the whole story of salvation through him. Abram was not perfect, and the next chapters show that clearly. But he believed God, and God counted it as righteousness. The same is true for you. You don't have to see the whole map. You just have to trust the One who made the promise and take the next step.

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Questions People Ask

When did God call Abraham?

The Owner's Manual places Abraham about 2000 BC, give or take a couple hundred years. The traditional count from the genealogies puts his call at about 2091 BC, when he was 75 years old. Some who use a later Exodus date place him closer to 1800 BC.

What were the three promises God made to Abraham?

God promised Abraham a land, a great nation of descendants, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him. These are in Genesis 12:1 to 3 and are repeated in Genesis 15, 17 and 22.

Where is Ur of the Chaldeans?

Most scholars place it at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, excavated by Leonard Woolley from 1922 to 1934. A minority view places Abraham's Ur farther north, nearer Haran. The southern site is the traditional view.

What does it mean that Abraham's faith was credited as righteousness?

Genesis 15:6 says Abram believed God, and God counted that faith as righteousness. Paul uses this verse in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 to show that people are made right with God by trusting Him, not by earning it.

Sources

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