Genesis12chapter 12

This chapter opens the third portion of the annual cycle, and the portion runs from its first verse to the end of Genesis 17 (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). A congregation hears the call of Abram, the covenant of the pieces and the sign of circumcision in one sitting. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, and Radak from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Rashi reads the words of the call as spoken for the good of the man who is called. The going is for his own benefit, since he would have children there and would be known through the world (Rashi on Genesis 12:1:1, citing Rosh Hashanah 16b and Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 3). He reads the three blessings of the second verse against the three things travel costs a man. Travel breaks up family life, spends wealth and loses a name, so children, wealth and a great name are promised (Rashi on Genesis 12:2:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 39:11).

On the blessing of the families of the earth Rashi gives the plain sense before the sayings. A man will say to his son that he should become like Abraham, as Israel later blesses children by Ephraim and Manasseh (Rashi on Genesis 12:3:1). Radak reads the going out of the fourth verse as trust rather than obedience alone. Abram asked for no further word, because he believed the promise would be kept (Radak on Genesis 12:4:2).

The souls gotten in Haran are read two ways by Rashi. The plain sense is the servants they had acquired. The other is that Abraham brought the men "beneath the sheltering wings of the Shechinah" and Sarah brought the women. The text counts that as making them (Rashi on Genesis 12:5:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 39:14). He reads the famine of the tenth verse as a test of whether Abram would question the command that sent him to that land (Rashi on Genesis 12:10:1, citing Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 26).

Ibn Ezra carries three comments on this chapter that the corpus holds by reference alone, and one comment of Rashi is held the same way. They are Ibn Ezra on Genesis 12:1:1, 12:3:1 and 12:18:1, and Rashi on Genesis 12:17:1.

Rashi carries three sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The first is on the beauty of Sarai. Rashi reports the Midrash that Abram had never seen it until then, because both of them were so modest. He reports a second saying, that travel makes a person plain and that she had kept her beauty through it (Rashi on Genesis 12:11:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 5 and Genesis Rabbah 40:4). He gives the plain sense beside both, that the danger of Egypt was what made him speak.

The second is the chest at the border. Rashi reports that the singular verb of the fourteenth verse teaches that Abram hid Sarai in a chest. The customs men opened it and found her (Rashi on Genesis 12:14:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 40:5).

The third is on the sending away. Rashi sets Pharaoh beside Abimelech, who offered Abraham his land to live in, where Pharaoh told him to go and to stay no longer (Rashi on Genesis 12:19:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 5). Rashi reads the last verse as an escort given for his protection (Rashi on Genesis 12:20:1). Radak reads the fear of Abram in Egypt from the character he gives the Egyptians of that day (Radak on Genesis 12:12:1).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty three under Midrash and seven under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. Bereshit Rabbah reads the fourth verse at 39:8 and 39:13, the sixth to the eighth at 39:15, the seventh at 39:16 and the tenth at 25:3. It reads the twelfth verse at 39:11, the thirteenth at 52:4, the fourteenth at 40:5, the sixteenth at 52:12 and the eighteenth at 51:6.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the first verse at 31:2 and 47:1, the second at 37:1, the third at 13:3, the eleventh at 34:1 and the seventeenth at 29:3 and 67:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the second verse at 11:2, the third at 20:19, the seventh at 10:5 and the fifteenth at 18:2 and 20:2. Bereshit Rabbati reads three verses in Parashat Lech Lecha, at 3, 9 and 12.

The Talmud is cited at Avodah Zarah 9a:7 on the fifth verse, Bava Kamma 60b:6 on the tenth, Bava Batra 16a:15 on the eleventh and Berakhot 56b:19 on the thirteenth. Avot DeRabbi Natan is cited at 12:8 and 1:4, and its second recension at 1:7.