Genesis Chapter 12 verse 10 Holy Bible

ASV Genesis 12:10

And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was sore in the land.
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BBE Genesis 12:10

And because there was little food to be had in that land, he went down into Egypt.
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DARBY Genesis 12:10

And there was a famine in the land. And Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land.
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KJV Genesis 12:10

And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.
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WBT Genesis 12:10

And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to dwell there; for the famine was grievous in the land.
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WEB Genesis 12:10

There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was sore in the land.
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YLT Genesis 12:10

And there is a famine in the land, and Abram goeth down towards Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine `is' grievous in the land;
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 10. - And there was a famine. רָעָב, from a root signifying to hunger, the primary. idea appearing to lie in that of an ample, i.e. empty, stomach (Gesenius, Furst). The term is used of individuals, men or animal (Psalm 34:11; Psalm 50:12); or of regions (Psalm 41:55). In the land. Of Canaan, which, though naturally fertile, was, on account of its imperfect cultivation, subject to visitations of dearth (cf. Genesis 26:1; Genesis 41:56), especially in dry seasons, when the November and December rains, on which Palestine depended, either failed or were scanty. The occurrence of this famine just at the time of Abram's entering the land was an additional trial to his faith. And Abram went down to Egypt. Mizraim (vide Genesis 10:6) was lower than Palestine, and celebrated then, as later, as a rich and fruitful country, though sometimes even Egypt suffered from a scarcity of corn, owing to a failure in the annual inundation of the Nile. Eichhorn notes it as an authentication of this portion of the Abrahamic history that the patriarch proposed to take himself and his household to Egypt, since at that time no corn trade existed between the two countries such as prevailed in the days of Jacob (vide Havernick's Introduction, § 18). The writer to the Hebrews remarks it as an instance of the patriarch's faith that he did not return to either Haran or Ur (Hebrews 11:15, 16). To sojourn there. To tarry as a stranger, but not to dwell. Whether this journey was undertaken with the Divine sanction and ought to be regarded as an act of faith, or in obedience to his own fears and should be reckoned as a sign of unbelief, does not appear. Whichever way the patriarch elected to act in his perplexity, to leave Canaan or reside in it, there was clearly a strain intended to be put upon his faith. For the famine was grievous (literally, heavy) in the land.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersABRAM'S VISIT TO EGYPT.(10) There was a famine in the land.--This famine must have happened within a few years after Abram reached Canaan; for he was seventy-five years of age on leaving Haran, and as Ishmael, his son by an Egyptian slave-woman, was thirteen years old when Abram was ninety-nine, only about eight years are left for the events recorded in Genesis 12-16. As rain falls in Palestine only at two periods of the year, the failure of either of these seasons would be immediately felt, especially in a dry region like the Negeb, and at a time when, with no means of bringing food from a distance, men had to depend upon the annual products of the land. As Egypt is watered by the flooding of the Nile, caused by the heavy rains which fall in Abyssinia, it probably had not suffered from what was a mere local failure in South Palestine; and Abram, already far on his way to Egypt, was forced by the necessity of providing fodder for his cattle to run the risk of proceeding thither. In Canaan he had found a thinly scattered Canaanite population, for whom probably he would have been a match in war; in Egypt he would find a powerful empire, and would be at the mercy of its rulers. It is a proof of Abram's faith that in this necessity he neither retraced his steps (Hebrews 11:15), nor sought a new home. For he went to Egypt with no intention of settling, but only "to sojourn there," to remain there for a brief period, after which with returning rains he would go back to Canaan.