Abraham first appears under the name Abram. The Bible identifies him as a son of Terah and a brother of Nahor and Haran. Haran, the father of Abram’s nephew Lot, died before Terah. Terah set out from Ur of the Chaldeans toward Canaan with Abram, Sarai, and Lot, but the family stopped and settled in Haran. Scripture does not describe Abram’s childhood or explain why Terah left Ur. It tells us only that, after Terah died in Haran, Abram’s life began to move again from the place where his family had settled.
While Abram was in Haran, God told him to leave his country, relatives, and father’s household for a land God would show him. The call came with a promise: Abram would become a great nation and would be a blessing. At seventy-five, Abram left with Sarai, Lot, their possessions, and the people they had acquired in Haran. He entered Canaan, passed through Shechem to the oak of Moreh, and built an altar where God appeared to him. He later built another altar between Bethel and Ai and called on the name of the Lord. When famine came, however, the household went down to Egypt for food.
Before entering Egypt, Abram feared that people would kill him in order to take Sarai, so he asked her to say that she was his sister. Sarai was taken into Pharaoh’s house, and Abram received livestock and servants because of her. Then severe plagues came upon Pharaoh’s household, and Pharaoh learned that Sarai was Abram’s wife. He rebuked Abram and sent them away together. Abram returned through the Negev to the place between Bethel and Ai where he had first built an altar. His life was not the story of a person who became unafraid as soon as he was called. He acted out of fear and placed Sarai in danger, yet he continued on the road before him.
Abram and Lot had too many animals and servants for their households to remain together easily. When conflict arose between their herders, Abram let Lot choose the land first. Lot chose the well-watered Jordan plain and moved near Sodom, while Abram stayed in Canaan. After Lot left, God told Abram to look in every direction and promised him the land and descendants too numerous to count. Abram moved to the oaks of Mamre near Hebron and built another altar. Later Lot was captured in a war between kings. Abram led the trained men of his household, pursued the captors by night, and brought back Lot, his family, and the goods that had been taken. Afterward he received a blessing from Melchizedek, priest of God Most High, and refused the share of spoils offered by the king of Sodom.
After the war, Abram heard God’s word in a vision. He asked what could be given to him while he remained childless, believing that Eliezer, a servant born in his household, would inherit everything. God said that Eliezer would not be his heir; a son from Abram himself would be. God brought him outside, told him to count the stars if he could, and said his descendants would be just as numerous. Abram believed that promise. When he asked how he would know that he would possess Canaan, God told him to prepare animals for a covenant ceremony. After sunset, a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch passed between the divided pieces. There Abram heard that his descendants would live and suffer as foreigners for four hundred years before coming out with many possessions and receiving the land of Canaan.
Still Abram had no child. He spoke of Eliezer, a man of his household, as his heir, but God said that Abram’s own son would be his heir. Under the night sky, Abram heard the promise of descendants as countless as the stars. He was also told that his descendants would live as foreigners in another land and suffer there before receiving the land of Canaan. While the promise remained unfulfilled, Sarai and Abram took another course. Sarai gave her servant Hagar to Abram, and Hagar became pregnant. Conflict grew between Hagar and Sarai; Hagar ran away, then encountered God’s messenger by a spring in the wilderness and returned. Her son was Ishmael, born when Abram was eighty-six.
When Abram was ninety-nine, God appeared to him again, changed his name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah, and renewed the promise that he would become the father of many nations. Every male in Abraham’s household was to be circumcised as the sign of the covenant. Abraham circumcised the men of his household and Ishmael that very day. God said Sarah would bear a son named Isaac. Abraham also pleaded for Ishmael, and God said Ishmael too would be blessed and become a great nation. Near the oaks of Mamre, Abraham welcomed visitors and heard again that Sarah would bear a son. When the coming judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah was disclosed, Abraham repeatedly asked whether the city might be spared for the sake of the righteous within it.
After Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Abraham moved into the Negev and stayed at Gerar. There again he said that Sarah was his sister. Abimelech, king of Gerar, took Sarah, but God told him in a dream that she was another man’s wife. Abimelech had not approached Sarah. He called Abraham and asked why he had brought this danger on him. Abraham said that he had feared there was no fear of God in that place and that he might be killed because of Sarah. Abimelech returned Sarah, gave Abraham sheep, cattle, and servants, and Abraham prayed for his household. The women of Abimelech’s house were then able to bear children again. The narrative shows Abraham repeating in Gerar the fearful action he had taken in Egypt.
Sarah bore a son in her old age, and Abraham named him Isaac as God had said. Abraham was one hundred years old. Sarah spoke of the birth with laughter. As Isaac grew, the conflict between Sarah and Hagar broke open again. Sarah asked that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away, and the request grieved Abraham deeply. God told him that Isaac’s line would bear Abraham’s name, while Ishmael too would become a great nation because he was Abraham’s son. Abraham rose early, gave bread and water to Hagar, and sent her and Ishmael away. Later he made an agreement with Abimelech at Beersheba and planted a tamarisk tree there.
Abraham’s last great test began when he was told to go to the land of Moriah with Isaac and offer him as a burnt offering. He rose early, traveled for three days, and saw the place from a distance. Leaving his servants behind, he went up the mountain with Isaac carrying the wood. When Isaac asked where the lamb for the offering was, Abraham said that God would provide. Abraham bound Isaac and placed him on the altar, but as he lifted the knife, God’s messenger stopped him. A ram caught by its horns in a thicket stood nearby, and Abraham offered it in Isaac’s place. Afterward he heard again that blessing and a great people would come through his descendants.
Sarah died in Hebron at the age of one hundred twenty-seven. Abraham sought a place to bury her among the Hittites and bought the cave of Machpelah and its field from Ephron for four hundred shekels of silver. He buried Sarah there. It became the burial place owned by Abraham’s family in Canaan. In old age, Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac among his relatives, and Rebekah became Isaac’s wife. After Sarah’s death Abraham married Keturah and had other sons, but he gave all he had to Isaac. He gave gifts to his other sons and sent them east, away from Isaac. Abraham died at one hundred seventy-five, old and full of years. Isaac and Ishmael buried him beside Sarah in the cave of Machpelah. That burial is the final scene of his life that Genesis tells.
When Abraham was old, he made the oldest servant of his household swear not to find Isaac a wife among Canaanite women but among Abraham’s relatives. The servant took ten camels to the city of Nahor in Mesopotamia. At a well he asked God to identify the right woman through one who would offer water to him and to his camels. Rebekah came with her jar, gave him water, and drew water for the camels. The servant learned that she belonged to the household of Bethuel, son of Nahor, and explained why Abraham had sent him. Rebekah traveled back with the servant. Isaac saw the returning camels while he was in the field, and Rebekah became his wife. Abraham saw Isaac establish this new household before the final years the text records.