Ahead of Me

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you;  Genesis 12:1 NASB

Go – lĕk-l^ekā’.  As you can clearly see in the highlighted text below, this imperative is made up of several combined words.  It’s not simply “Go.”  The grammar is particularly important.

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵֽאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ

lĕk is from the root hālak, meaning “to go, to walk.”  This is the command “Go!”  But here lĕk is connected to two other words, the particle lĕ and the contracted form of ʾattâ, meaning “thou,” the second person singular pronoun.  This entire phrase is completely ignored in the NASB since “from” is part of the next word.  Notice Chabad’s rendering: “And the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.”  Chabad’s translation recognizes that “Go forth” and “from” are separate, but even Chabad’s version does not capture the added l^ekā’.  The real meaning of lĕk-l^ekā’ is “Go out from yourself.”  God doesn’t call Abraham to just leave Ur.  He calls Abraham to leave himself, to become someone else.  Sacks comments:

Lekh lekha means: Leave behind you all that makes human beings predictable, unfree, delimited.  Leave behind the social forces, the familial pressures, the circumstances of your birth.  Abraham’s children were summoned to be the people that defied the laws of nature because they refused to define themselves as the products of nature.[1]

All those who would follow Abram understand this call, this command.  It is not an invitation to another place.  It is an invitation, a command, to another life.  But that’s not all.  God also instructs Abram how he is to follow this path.

“And Abram was ninety-nine years old, and God appeared to Abram, and He said to him, “I am the Almighty God; walk before Me and be perfect” (Genesis 17:1  Chabad).

הִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ לְפָנַ֖י וֶֽהְיֵ֥ה תָמִֽים

Once again we must pay close attention to the grammar.  Notice Sacks’ comment: “The ultimate challenge, in God’s words to Abraham, is to ‘Walk ahead of Me and be perfect’ (17:1)”[2]  But this is not what God says, at least not in the sense that we ordinarily understand the challenge to “be perfect.”  The Hebrew is tāmîm.  It does not mean perfect, that is, without mistakes, always correct.  Rather, it means “complete, sound, blameless, whole,” and “blameless,” with regard to God’s instructions, not without error.  Payne provides some much needed clarification:

tāmîm delimits Israel’s sacrifices, which were to be without blemish, perfect in that respect, so as to be accepted (Lev 22:21–22) as types of Christ, the spotless Lamb of God (I Pet 1:19). Speech which is tāmîm (Amos 5:10) corresponds to “what is complete, entirely in accord with truth and fact” ^[3]

Abraham was instructed to be tāmîm (Gen 17:1), as was all Israel (Deut 18:13; cf. II Sam 22:33; Ps 101:2a, 6). They were to be “wholly” God’s; for, even here, “the words which are rendered in English by ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ denoted originally something other and less than ideal perfection” (IDB, III, p. 730).^[4]

. . . the ot resists claims to ultimate perfection. Noah was said to be tāmîm “perfect” (Gen 6:9; NASB, “blameless in his time”). But compare Genesis 9:21–23 and even the creature “in Eden” (Ezk 28:13, whether Adam or Satan, see sāṭan) who was tāmîm from his creation until unrighteousness was found in him (v. 15), was by no means incapable of sin. Scripture’s preeminent example of the tām “perfect” man is Job (Job 1:1). He claimed to be tām(9:21–22) and tāmîm (12:4) and held fast to his tmmâ “integrity” (27:5; 31:6), as recognized not only by his wife (2:9) but also by Yahweh in heaven (1:8; 2:3). In reference to the root meaning of tāmam, he was a “finished product,” well rounded and balanced (IB, III, p. 909).  Job, however, prefaced his own assertions by granting, “Though I be perfect, it (marg., he) shall prove me perverse” (9:20 ASV). He admitted his sins (7:20–21; 9:2, 15; 10:6; 14:16–17), even from his youth (13:26), confessed that he could not be held innocent (9:28), and ended by retracting his rash charges against God and by repenting in dust and ashes (42:6). As he explained, “If I have truly erred, my error lodges with me”; i.e., he was not guilty of the accusations made by his “friends” (22:6–9) and was tāmîm, wholehearted in his commitment to the person and requirements of God.^[5]

What are we to conclude?  Perfection isn’t a biblical idea if by that word we mean “without error, inherently correct, never at fault.”  God doesn’t ask for that kind of perfection.  That idea flows from Greek philosophy and mathematics.  What God asks for is tāmîm, that is, wholehearted commitment, not without mistakes, not without sins, but with unreserved devotion to Him.  That’s “perfect.”  To go out from yourself is to unconditionally follow the Lord, and leave the rest behind.

Topical Index: perfect, tāmîm, devotion, wholehearted, complete, lĕk-l^ekā’, go, Genesis 12:1

[1] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Genesis: The Book of Beginnings (Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2009), p. 79.

[2] Ibid., p. 84.

^[3] Payne, J. B. (1999). 2522 תָּמַם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 973–974). Moody Press.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Ibid.