Abraham — The Man Who Went Without Knowing Where

The father of covenant — called to leave everything, tested to give his only son

The Call — Leave Without Knowing Where

The call God gave Abraham is one of the most demanding in scripture. Leave your country. Leave your family. Leave your father's house. Go to a land I will show you. Hebrews 11:8 notes the critical detail: “he went out, not knowing whither he went.” The destination was not disclosed in advance. The only information Abraham had was the voice of God and the command to go.

Genesis 12:1–2

“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.”

The Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price provides additional context: Abraham had already endured extraordinary trial before this call. His own father had become an idolater and had consented to Abraham's being offered as a sacrifice to false gods. Abraham was rescued by an angel. He had already chosen God at the cost of his family's approval and his own safety. The call to leave Ur was not his first test — it was a continuation of a life already consecrated.

He went. At 75 years old, with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot, he went. This is the act that Paul cites in Romans 4 as the defining demonstration of justifying faith: Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. The faith was not a feeling — it was a decision expressed in physical movement.

Lot’s Choice vs. Abraham’s Faith

When Abraham and Lot's households grew too large to occupy the same land, Abraham gave Lot the choice of where to go. Lot looked at the well-watered plains of Jordan — it says he “lifted up his eyes and beheld” the fertility — and chose it. He went toward Sodom.

Abraham did not lift his eyes and choose based on what he saw. He stayed where God put him and waited for God to show him what was next. After Lot departed, God told Abraham to lift his eyes and look in every direction — everything he could see in all four directions would be given to his seed. Not because he chose the better land. Because he let God do the choosing.

Lot's story ends in Sodom's destruction. Abraham's story ends with a covenant that encompasses all of human history. The contrast is not accidental. It is the text's own commentary on the two paths: choose by what you see, or trust by what God promises.

The Covenant Made

The Abrahamic covenant was given in stages, each expansion building on the previous. God promised: land for his descendants, descendants as numerous as the stars and the sand, and blessing to all nations through his seed. This covenant is confirmed in Genesis 12, expanded in Genesis 15 with the covenant ceremony between the pieces, and sealed with circumcision as the physical sign in Genesis 17.

The Abrahamic Covenant — Three Elements

• Posterity — Descendants as numerous as the stars; through them the covenant would extend to all nations
• Land — The promised land as an inheritance for his seed
• Gospel — The priesthood and the saving ordinances would be borne through his lineage

LDS understanding of the Abrahamic covenant goes deeper than most Protestant traditions. It is not simply a promise to a historical people. It is the mechanism by which the blessings of the gospel reach all of God's children. When Latter-day Saints receive a patriarchal blessing and are declared to be of the house of Israel — literal or adopted descendants of Abraham — they are being identified as inheritors of this covenant and participants in the responsibility to carry its blessings to the world.

The Binding of Isaac — The Greatest Type of Christ in Genesis

The test of Abraham is the most theologically dense passage in Genesis. God commanded Abraham to take his son — Isaac, the son of the promise, the only son through whom the covenant could continue — and offer him as a burnt offering on Mount Moriah.

Everything about this command defied reason. The covenant was supposed to flow through Isaac. Isaac was supposed to produce descendants as numerous as the stars. Killing him before he had children would end the covenant. God was asking Abraham to do the one thing that should have been impossible — trust the promise while destroying the means by which the promise could be kept.

Hebrews 11:17–19

“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”

Abraham's calculation was extraordinary: God had promised. God does not lie. Therefore, if God requires the sacrifice of Isaac and the promise still stands, God must be able to raise Isaac from the dead. He had never seen a resurrection. He had no precedent for it. He simply reasoned from the character of God to the conclusion that the promise must be sustained somehow.

The typology is unmistakable. An only son, beloved, taken by his father to a mountain to be offered as a sacrifice — wood on his back, obedient to his father's hand, submitted without resistance. The ram caught in the thicket was provided as a substitute. Two thousand years later, on the same mountain range, God himself would not withhold his Son, and no substitute would be provided. Abraham's experience was a rehearsal for what the Father would actually do — what Abraham could not do at the last moment, God would do fully.

“In Thy Seed Shall All Nations Be Blessed”

After Abraham passed the test of Isaac, God reiterated the covenant with a new intensity:

Genesis 22:18

“And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”

Paul identifies this “seed” as Christ (Galatians 3:16). The Abrahamic covenant found its ultimate fulfillment in the Atonement of Jesus Christ — the single act through which all nations of the earth have access to the blessings God promised to Abraham. Every person who comes to Christ, from any nation, receives through him the blessing of Abraham's covenant.

Abraham’s Covenant and Us

The Abrahamic covenant is not ancient history. It is the covenantal framework within which every Latter-day Saint lives. When you are baptized, you enter covenant with God. When you receive your endowment, you receive covenant obligations and blessings that trace directly to the promises made to Abraham. When you receive a patriarchal blessing, you are identified as an heir of those promises.

Abraham's faith — going without knowing where, trusting without evidence, holding the promise while surrendering its apparent means — is the template for what God asks of every covenant-keeper. He went. He waited. He obeyed. And in his obedience, the entire plan of salvation for the human family was set in motion.

D&C 132:29–32 makes this connection explicit for Latter-day Saints: the blessings of Abraham are available through the same obedience Abraham rendered. The promise is still in force. The invitation is still open. The only requirement is the same one Abraham met — believe, and go.