Genesis 12:1

Summary

The verse opens the divine call narrative: Yehovah speaks to Abram, commanding him to leave his land, his kindred, and his father's household, and to go toward a land that Yehovah will show him. The sentence is built as a single command followed by a three-part list of what is being left behind, and a purpose clause naming the destination.

Key words

• va-yo'mer ("and he said", H0559) — qal narrative form; the vav consecutive links this speech act as the next event in the story sequence, not a general or past-perfect statement.
• lekh-lekha ("go", H1980G + H9031) — qal imperative "go" followed by the preposition "for" plus the pronominal suffix "you," literally "go for yourself." The suffix marks the second-person addressee explicitly, adding a reflexive/personal-involvement nuance to the bare imperative.
• mo.ladtekha ("your kindred", H4138) — feminine singular noun in construct, the second of three items (land, kindred, father's house) that the addressee is told to leave.
• beit 'avikha ("household of your father", H1004M + H0001G) — construct chain, "house of your father," the third and most specific circle of origin named.
• ar'ekha ("I will show you", H7200G) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, first person: "I will cause [you] to see." The imperfect aspect marks an action not yet completed, pointing to the future revealing of the land's identity, which remains unnamed here.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure moves from a general command (lekh-lekha, "go") to three narrowing points of origin — me'artzekha ("from your land", H0776G), u-mimmoladtekha ("and from your kindred", H4138), and u-mibbeit 'avikha ("and from the house of your father", H1004M + H0001G) — each introduced by the preposition min ("from"), each in construct form binding it to the pronominal suffix "your." This produces a rhetorical narrowing: land, then clan, then immediate paternal household, each smaller in scope than the last.

The destination clause, 'el-ha'aretz 'asher ar'ekha ("to the land which I will show you"), withholds the name of the land entirely; the relative clause 'asher ("which", H0834A) plus the hiphil imperfect verb keeps the location undisclosed, dependent on a future disclosure act by the subject Yehovah. The imperative lekh-lekha itself carries a suffixed pronoun not required by ordinary Hebrew imperative syntax, a feature the word list marks as producing the sense "go for yourself" rather than a plain "go."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders lekh-lekha as Ἔξελθε ("go out"), a single imperative verb without any equivalent to the "for yourself" suffix present in the Hebrew. The Vulgate similarly uses Egredere ("go out/depart"), also omitting a reflexive marker. Both the LXX and Vulgate express the destination clause with a future/subjunctive sense ("δείξω", "monstrabo" — "I will show"), matching the Hebrew hiphil imperfect ar'ekha. The RV1909 translation renders the opening verb as "había dicho" (pluperfect, "had said"), differing in tense from the BSB ("said") and SBLIBRE ("dijo"), which follow the narrative vav construction more directly as a simple past.