That Abraham and Sarah ever became parents at all is a remarkable story that begins with the poignant verse in Genesis: “But Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Gen. 11:30). This statement is absent at the corresponding point in the Book of Abraham narrative (see Abr. 2:2), [1] indicating a later insertion by Moses (or a subsequent editor) remarking on what Abraham himself kindly refused to say, that his beloved wife bore him no child.
Moreover, the Genesis statement pointing to Sarah as the cause of the problem presupposes the writer’s knowledge about later events in Abraham’s life, which will demonstrate that it was in fact Sarah who was infertile. But the statement is important for the reader, as it introduces a key dimension of the story, whose unfolding will include repeated divine promises of a vast and illustrious posterity.
Even before the receipt of those promises, however, the inability of Abraham and Sarah to conceive a child would have proven a sore trial. As a modern Jewish commentator notes, the Genesis report of Sarai’s barrenness is “freighted with irony,” for while all the world effortlessly reproduce, the life of this righteous couple was “marked by an emptiness.” [2]
To this day, infertility is a unique trial whose depth seems to be fathomed only by those who experience it. Modern women who experience it speak of “an emotional roller coaster, the worst thing I’ve ever gone through in my life,” [3] an agony whose “frustrations … can indeed seem endless.” [4]
With each passing month and year comes an ever heightened awareness of, and increased hope for, the great blessing that is yet withheld, eclipsing all other concerns and bringing what can turn into a deep anxiety and longing. With the birth of each new infant around them, the sense of loss becomes ever more acute.
It was in this context of trial, without visible prospects for the future continuation of his line, that Abraham was given yet another trial, as he was divinely commanded to cut himself off from his past: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee” (Abr. 2:3; and see Gen. 12:1). It was one of Abraham’s great tests, notes the Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer; for “being compelled to pick oneself up and move is one of the most difficult things for a human being to do.” [5]
This watershed command – portrayed as clearly unprecedented [6] – is reported in both Genesis (12:1-3) and the Book of Abraham (2:3), the latter indicating that it followed deep reflection on Abraham’s part (1:1-2). According to the Zohar, the command came only after the Holy One saw how Abraham “bestirred himself, and … yearned for divine communion.” [7]
As to how the revelation came, there is no indication of any vision or appearance by the Lord, indicating that the command was probably delivered by the Lord’s voice alone, the same voice described by Nephi as “a still small voice” that is heard through “feeling” (1 Ne. 17:45).
Modern rabbi Levi Meier observes that “what Abram most certainly heard was an inner voice, something inside him. And the inner voice is a silent voice,” one that Abraham would hear “on many occasions during his lifetime … For most of us [this voice] is drowned out by so many competing voices … This why Abram is such an exemplary role model. Because he hears the call and goes.” [8]
In fact, an ancient midrash recounts that upon hearing the command, “without hesitation Abraham made answer: Lo, I stand before Thee; whithersoever Thou desirest, I go.'” [9]
To where? A destination unknown. “Is there a man who travels without knowing to what destination he travels?” asks a midrash. [10] Abraham was asked to leave the known for the unknown, relying, to borrow Nephi’s phrase, “wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save” (2 Ne. 31:19). Commenting on Abraham’s experience, John Taylor stated:
I fancy I see some of his neighbors coming to him and saying, “Abraham, where are you going?”
“Oh,” says he, “I do not know.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.”
“Well, who told you to go?”
“The Lord.”
“And you do not know where you are going?”
“Oh, no,” says he, “I am going to a land that he will show me … I believe in God, and therefore I am starting.” [11]
Even so, as a modern Jewish writer observes, “there must have been considerable apprehensiveness among his followers, for their leader could not tell them precisely where he was headed.” [12]
But Abraham’s obedience did not depend on public opinion. Constant obedience would be a hallmark of his life. He always, Philo noted, “made a special practice of obedience to God.” [13] Or, in the words of modern writers, “Abram’s characteristic was that in simple unhesitating faith he acted at once on every intimation of the divine will,” [14] demonstrating that his “one supreme motive [was] to honor and obey God.” [15]
It was Abraham’s first principle, the foundation of everything else he would accomplish, recalling the teaching of latter-day leaders that “obedience is the first law of heaven, the cornerstone upon which all righteousness and progression rest.” [16] Abraham stands out in Judaism as “the illuminating example of perfect obedience to the commands of God rendered out of love.”17]
And not just Abraham, but Sarah also. A midrash declares that both “perfectly obeyed the will of God.” [18] In Nibley’s words, “they kept the law fully, and they kept it together.”[19] Their perfect obedience is like that of their descendant Joseph Smith, who stated: “I made this my rule: When the Lord commands, do it.” [20]
Abraham’s call to leave his homeland prefigured what would happen with many of his descendants, as noted by a number of latter-day leaders. “When the Latter-day Saints received the gospel in the nations afar,” noted Lorenzo Snow, “the voice of the Almighty to them was to leave the lands of their fathers, to leave their kindred as Abraham did.” [21] Franklin D. Richards further noted that as Abraham had to leave his native land for a place he had never seen, “this is just the same feeling and spirit that took hold of many of us Latter-day Saints in the various nations where we heard this Gospel.
We became all at once strangers. Our relations and best friends became our enemies, many of us were turned out and found a gathering place with the saints.” [22] Thus did the latter-day fulfillment of Abraham’s covenant echo the pattern of his own life.
But God’s command to Abraham required more than just a physical journey. The phrase “Get thee out” – or “Go-you-forth” [23] or “Go forth” [24] – translates the Hebrew lek leka, an emphatic double imperative rendered by some translations as “Leave … and go” [25] or “Get up and get going!” [26] Implicit in the Hebrew phrase is the idea of “separating,” [27] so that the Lord was requiring of Abraham a “clean break with his traditions and previous way of life … his environment, associations, experiences”; >[28] in other words, a “separation from the world.” [29] By this command to Abraham, said a nineteenth-century Torah scholar, “God told him that the purpose of his leaving was to become severed from ideas and a way of life that were corrupt.” [30]
Hence God’s call to Abraham is a call also to his posterity, a fact that Judaism sought to perpetually remember by titling Abraham’s biography, both in the Torah and its commentaries, by that very call: “Lek leka.”[31] Early Christianity similarly understood Abraham’s call as a call still in force in their day, a call for all to leave their sins and follow Jesus.[32]
And as Abraham was commanded to leave the land of idols, so his latter-day posterity are warned of the spiritual idolatry of modern-day Babylon, which, the Lord declares, will soon fall (D&C 1:16). Therefore, the Lord declares, “Go ye out from … Babylon, from the midst of wickedness, which is spiritual Babylon” (D&C 133:14). [33]
To where are we to go? This same passage specifies the destination: “Flee unto Zion” (D&C 133:12). [34] Zion is not made by reforming corrupt and apostate institutions; it is a plant of pure, new growth, beginning with a pure, prayerful lad like the young Abraham, or later like his descendant young Joseph Smith. Abraham, one man, was called to separate himself physically and spiritually from the Babylon of his day in order to go and establish a new community, even Zion. His call was the turning point in human history, a watershed event “setting in motion the greatest chain of events the world has known.” [35] It is an event never to be forgotten, as the Lord commanded the righteous through Isaiah: “Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I called him and made him many. For the Lord will comfort Zion” (NRSV Isa. 51:2-3).
Thus did the Lord call Abraham and send him forth, as implied in the word lek, an important term used in Israelite and other ancient Near Eastern enthronement rituals to send forth one whom the Lord has divinely commissioned, following the pattern of Enoch. [36] Zion would begin again with Abraham, whom the Lord had sent.
Indeed, one Jewish writer sees a parallel between Enoch being taken to heaven, and Abraham being commanded to leave his native land: in both cases God takes “His chosen, His loved ones, those who walk with Him,” to a place of closer fellowship with God. [37]
Genesis misleadingly reports this command to leave as having been accompanied by promises of blessing, which, as the Book of Abraham makes clear, were actually not given until years later. [38] But even the command itself in its original Hebrew, lek leka, carries the meaning of “Go for yourself,” [39] or, as in the Zohar, “for thine own advantage, to prepare thyself, to perfect thy[self],” and “to know thyself,” [40] or, as Rashi says, “for your own benefit,” [41] for your “own good and … happiness” [42] – or, according to a Hasidic source, “to yourself,” implying that only by means of this journey would Abraham reach his full potential. [43]
The redundancy in Hebrew, lek leka, may thus refer to a journey that has both physical and spiritual dimensions. It is a perfect illustration of the principle expressed by Joseph Smith that the Lord “never will … give a commandment … that is not calculated … to promote … happiness,” for “happiness is the object and design of our existence.” [44] How well Abraham understood this is seen in his statement in the Book of Abraham that even though he left Ur pursuant to the divine command – “the Lord had said unto me … Get thee out” (Abr. 2:3) – yet he knew it was for his own happiness and would facilitate his quest for further blessing:
I, Abraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence; and, finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God. (Abr. 1:1-2)
No text is more important than this one for understanding Abraham. He was seeking neither fortune nor fame, the great objects so feverishly pursued by the world. What he was seeking was righteousness and its rewards: happiness, which never follows wickedness (Alma 41:10); peace, which is a sure reward of righteousness (D&C 59:23); rest, a spiritual condition which comes to the meek and lowly of heart (Alma 37:34); and blessings, which are always predicated on obedience (D&C 130:20-21).
He sought, in other words, the kingdom of God, even Zion, with its gospel and its ordinances, and the authority to administer those to others – the very things the Lord had already promised when he said he would lead him by the hand and give him the priesthood and make him a minister (Abr. 1:18-19).
“Abraham sought for his appointment to the priesthood,” emphasized President Spencer W. Kimball; “he did not wait for God to come to him; he sought diligently through prayer and obedient living to learn the will of God.
“ [45] And Abraham’s search, adds President Ezra Taft Benson, is a pattern for modern men to “seek their priesthood blessings just as Abraham sought his.” [46]
For Abraham it was a difficult search; as the Lord would later tell him, his contemporaries “have gone astray from my precepts, and have not kept mine ordinances, which I gave unto their fathers” (JST Gen. 17:4). The book of Jubilees likewise laments that in Abraham’s day “everyone was going astray.” [47] Particularly hard for Abraham was the straying of his own father, who had sought to have Abraham killed. Abraham might easily have refused any further association with this murderous man, but such was not Abraham’s nature. In fact, he invited Terah to come with them to a new land, hoping it would open the door to repentance for his father and give him a fresh start.
Abraham’s forgiving nature is rare in the best of men, but would be replicated again in his latter-day descendant Joseph Smith, who once explained that “nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness.” [48] Terah, humbled also because of famine, accepted his son’s hand of forgiving friendship, and, as recounted in the Zohar [49] and the Book of Abraham (1:30; 2:4), repented. By the kindness of the very son he had tried to kill, Terah would be led out of the land in which death now threatened him.
So Abraham bid good-bye to Ur of the Chaldees to begin “the life of a pilgrim,” [50] for lek leka can also mean “keep moving!” “Perpetual migration was one of the Ten Trials of Abraham,” notes Hugh Nibley.[51] In that age of great migrations, one more family on the move would have seemed nothing unusual. But this journey was truly unique, undertaken at God’s command and in further search of Him. It was a journey of faith – “simple, earnest, obedient faith!” Abraham “was willing to give up a certainty for an uncertainty-to leave all that he saw around him, for an unseen possession – to resign what was actually his, for something that was only promised.” But “cheerfully and hopefully he set out.” [52] Faith would be one of his constants; it “directed him in the whole course of his life.” [53]
Thus, as related by British Rabbi J. H. Hertz, “in obedience to the heavenly voice, he leaves the land of his birth and all the glamor and worldly prosperity of his native place; he becomes a pilgrim for life, enduring trials [and] privations,” and “all for the sake of humanity, that it might share the blessing of his knowledge of God and righteousness.” [54]
And with him every step of the way was Sarah.
When Abraham made the great venture of faith, renouncing hearth and home for conscience’s sake; when he lived a nomad life among strangers, summering and wintering under canvas, enduring trials and afflictions, she was always by his side, lightening the way he travelled, doubling his joys and dividing his sorrows, ordering the peace and comfort of his house, cheering him to face all hardships with constancy of mind. [55]
Together they journeyed, “taking refuge in the Lord,” noted the Muslim historian al-Thalabi. [56] They came to a place they called [57] Haran, strategically located at a busy crossroads of three major trade routes that brought a constant flow of travelers and newcomers from Babylon in the south, Ninevah in the east, and Damascus in the west. [58] The land was fruitful and well watered, [59] the flocks abundant (Abr. 2:4), and the people open and receptive.
Would this be Abraham’s ultimate destination? Was this the land that God had promised to show Abraham? Abraham did not as yet know, according to the medieval Jewish scholar Nachmanides. [60] What Abraham did know was that God had promised to lead him by the hand (Abr. 1:18). Arriving at this goodly land, somehow Abraham sensed that here he was to stop and set down roots, and he was determined to make the most of the situation.
According to the Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, Abraham built a house in a location where all who entered or exited the city would pass by. [61] This would be no exclusive retreat, no hermitage, but an open house, a visitors’ center welcoming all comers. If the land was blessed with water, he would bring spiritual water to a thirsty people. “God brought him first to Haran,” wrote the fourth-century Christian scholar Ephrem the Syrian, “like a spring of water into the midst of those who are parched.” [62]
Meanwhile, Abraham himself would drink deeply from the living water provided in the scriptures God had given him, the patriarchal records that he had brought from Ur.
[1] . Comparing the Book of Abraham narrative with the Genesis narrative shows that the latter rearranged and reduced the former.
[4] . Becky Foster Still, “Married, No Children: Infertility: A Special Kind of Loss,” Focus on the Family, April 1989, 2.
[16] . McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 539. Similarly, Joseph F. Smith: “Obedience is the first law of heaven.” Journal of Discourses, 16:247-48.
[18] . Sawyer, Midrash Aleph Beth, 247. The words quoted are from Sawyer’s explanation of the Midrash Aleph Beth.
[29] .Martin Buber, cited in Hugh Nibley, “A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price, Part 9: Setting the Stage: The World of Abraham,” Improvement Era, November 1969, 120.
[39] . “Go for thyself,” Genesis 12:1, in Young, Young’s Literal Translation, 7 (Old Testament); and in Kasher, Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, 2:107. “Go away for yourself,” Genesis 12:1, in Munk, Call of the Torah, 1:253.
[46] . Ezra Taft Benson, “What I Hope You Will Teach Your Children about the Temple,” Ensign, August 1985, 8.
[54] . Hertz, Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 45-46 (standardizing to American English spelling and capitalization).