Verse-by-Verse Commentary
The Book of Genesis
Genesis is the book of beginnings: the beginning of the heavens and the earth, of mankind, of marriage, of sin and death, and of the promise of a Redeemer. Everything the rest of the Bible builds on is planted here. This commentary walks through it verse by verse.
About This Commentary
Genesis lays the foundation of all Scripture. Here we meet the one true God who exists before all things and speaks the universe into being. Here man is made in God's image, falls into sin, and receives the first promise of a Deliverer. Here God calls Abraham and begins the family line through which, in the fullness of time, He Himself would come in flesh. Get Genesis right and the whole Bible opens up; get it wrong and everything downstream is distorted.
This commentary covers Genesis verse by verse, with the Hebrew words that sharpen the meaning, verified historical and cultural background, and an Apostolic reading that keeps the one God, revealed in Jesus Christ, in view. Where a point is debated or uncertain, we say so honestly, and references are given at the foot of each chapter.
All fifty chapters of Genesis are now complete, verse by verse, from creation to the death of Joseph.
Author
Moses, by the historic testimony of Scripture. Jesus Himself referred to the writings of Moses.
Written
In the time of Moses, traditionally the 15th to 13th century BC.
Covers
From creation to the death of Joseph in Egypt.
Theme
The one God who creates, judges, and redeems, and who begins His plan to save the world.
Translation
King James Version (KJV) throughout.
The Chapters
Genesis Commentary
All fifty chapters are available now, each verse by verse with the KJV text, verified and complete.
Genesis 1:1-31
The Creation: God Speaks the World Into Being
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The one God, by His word and His Spirit, forms and fills the world in six days and makes man in His own image.
Read Chapter 1 →Genesis 2:1-25
The Rest, the Man, and the Garden
God rests on the seventh day and makes it holy, forms man from the dust and breathes life into him, plants the garden of Eden, gives the command, and makes the first marriage.
Read Chapter 2 →Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall and the First Promise
The serpent tempts, man falls into sin, and God's reckoning brings the curse and death. Yet in the midst of judgment God promises the Seed of the woman who will crush the serpent's head, and clothes the guilty.
Read Chapter 3 →Genesis 4:1-26
Cain and Abel
God receives Abel's offering of faith but not Cain's, warns that sin lies at the door, and hears Abel's blood cry from the ground after the first murder. Cain's line ends in Lamech's boast, but Seth is born, and men begin to call on the name of the LORD.
Read Chapter 4 →Genesis 5:1-32
From Adam to Noah
Ten generations walk from Adam to Noah, each ending 'and he died,' proving Eden's warning true. But Enoch walks with God and is taken without death, and Noah is born with a father's hope of comfort from the curse.
Read Chapter 5 →Genesis 6:1-22
Noah Found Grace
Wickedness fills the earth until every intent of man's heart is only evil continually, and God is grieved. But Noah finds grace in the eyes of the LORD, receives the design of the ark and God's covenant, and does all that God commanded him.
Read Chapter 6 →Genesis 7:1-24
The Flood Comes
God says 'Come into the ark,' the fountains of the great deep break up, and the LORD shuts Noah in. The waters prevail above the mountains and all flesh outside dies, but the same flood lifts the ark, and only Noah and those with him remain alive.
Read Chapter 7 →Genesis 8:1-22
God Remembered Noah
God remembers Noah, the waters recede, and the ark rests on Ararat. The dove returns with an olive leaf, Noah waits for God's word to leave the ark, and his first act in the new world is an altar, answered by God's promise: while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest shall not cease.
Read Chapter 8 →Genesis 9:1-29
The Rainbow Covenant
God blesses Noah's family, founds the sanctity of life on His image, and covenants with all flesh never again to flood the earth, setting His rainbow in the cloud as the sign. Then Noah falls in his vineyard, Ham dishonors him while Shem and Japheth cover him, and Noah's oracle looks centuries ahead.
Read Chapter 9 →Genesis 10:1-32
The Table of Nations
All humanity is mapped as one family tree: Japheth's coastland peoples, Ham's line with Nimrod founding Babel and Nineveh, Canaan's tribes and borders, and Shem's line carrying the promise through Eber and Peleg toward Abraham, roughly seventy nations from one blood.
Read Chapter 10 →Genesis 11:1-32
The Tower of Babel
One-language humanity builds a tower to make itself a name, and the LORD confuses the language and scatters the builders. Then the line of Shem narrows through ten generations of falling lifespans to Terah's house in Ur of the Chaldeans: Abram, Lot, and barren Sarai, poised on the edge of the promise.
Read Chapter 11 →Genesis 12:1-20
The Call of Abram
God calls Abram out of everything familiar with the sevenfold promise that in him all the families of the earth shall be blessed, the gospel preached beforehand. Abram obeys, building altars at Shechem and Bethel, then stumbles into fear and deception in Egypt, where God guards the promise with plagues.
Read Chapter 12 →Genesis 13:1-18
Abram and Lot Separate
Abram returns from Egypt to the altar at Bethel, then gives Lot first choice to end the strife of their herdsmen. Lot chooses the well-watered plain by sight and pitches his tent toward Sodom, while God renews the promise to Abram: land in every direction, and descendants as the dust of the earth.
Read Chapter 13 →Genesis 14:1-24
Melchizedek Meets Abram
The war of the kings sweeps Lot into captivity, and Abram rescues him with three hundred and eighteen trained servants. Melchizedek king of Salem, priest of God Most High, meets the victor with bread and wine and receives the first tithe, while Abram refuses Sodom's spoils down to a sandal strap.
Read Chapter 14 →Genesis 15:1-21
The Covenant Between the Pieces
God declares Himself Abram's shield and exceedingly great reward, shows him the stars, and Abram believes: righteousness is accounted to him by faith. Then, while Abram sleeps, God foretells the four hundred years of Egypt and passes alone between the pieces, swearing the covenant by Himself.
Read Chapter 15 →Genesis 16:1-16
The God Who Sees
Sarai's shortcut gives Abram a son by Hagar, and the scheme breeds contempt, harshness, and flight. At a desert spring the Angel of the LORD finds the runaway, names her son Ishmael, 'God hears,' and Hagar names the LORD who spoke to her: You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees.
Read Chapter 16 →Genesis 17:1-27
The Covenant of Circumcision
God appears as Almighty God, calls Abram to walk blameless, and makes the covenant everlasting. Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah, circumcision is given as the sign, and God names Isaac as the son of promise, born to Sarah at the set time next year.
Read Chapter 17 →Genesis 18:1-33
The Judge of All the Earth
The LORD visits Abraham at Mamre with two angels, dates the birth of Isaac, and answers Sarah's laughter, 'Is anything too hard for the LORD?' Then He confides His plan for Sodom to His friend, and Abraham intercedes, pleading the city down from fifty righteous to ten.
Read Chapter 18 →Genesis 19:1-38
The Fall of Sodom
The angels reach Sodom, the city proves its guilt, and grace pulls lingering Lot out by the hand before fire and brimstone fall. Lot's wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt, God remembers Abraham, and a lifetime of compromise bears bitter fruit in the origin of Moab and Ammon.
Read Chapter 19 →Genesis 20:1-18
Abraham and Abimelech
Abraham journeys south and chooses fear over faith, telling Abimelech that Sarah is his sister. God appears to the king in a dream, warns him, and protects what He has promised. Abimelech obeys in terror, and Abraham's intercession as a prophet saves the king's house.
Read Chapter 20 →Genesis 21:1-34
The Son of Promise Is Born
The LORD visits Sarah at the set time and Isaac is born to laughter. Ishmael scoffs, Hagar and her son are sent away, and God hears the lad in the wilderness and opens Hagar's eyes to a well. Abimelech seeks a covenant at Beersheba, and Abraham calls on the LORD, the Everlasting God.
Read Chapter 21 →Genesis 22:1-24
The Offering of Isaac
God tests Abraham, asking for Isaac, his only son, on a mountain in Moriah. Abraham obeys, believing God can raise the dead, and at the last moment God provides a ram in Isaac's place. Abraham names the mountain Jehovah-Jireh, and God swears to bless all nations through his seed.
Read Chapter 22 →Genesis 23:1-20
The Death and Burial of Sarah
Sarah dies at Hebron and Abraham mourns and weeps for her. Calling himself a stranger and a sojourner, he buys the cave of Machpelah for four hundred shekels of silver and buries her there, the first piece of the promised land his family would ever own, held in hope.
Read Chapter 23 →Genesis 24:1-67
A Bride for Isaac
Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac among his own kindred. At a well the servant prays, and God answers before he finishes: Rebekah waters his camels. Her family confesses the hand of God, and Rebekah says, 'I will go,' and becomes Isaac's wife.
Read Chapter 24 →Genesis 25:1-34
Abraham's Death and Two Brothers
Abraham dies full of years and is buried by Isaac and Ishmael at Machpelah. God makes Ishmael twelve princes. Rebekah bears struggling twins, and God says the elder shall serve the younger. Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew.
Read Chapter 25 →Genesis 26:1-35
Isaac and the Wells
God renews the covenant to Isaac in a famine and tells him not to go down to Egypt. Isaac calls Rebekah his sister out of fear, yet God prospers him a hundredfold. The Philistines stop his wells, but he digs again, naming them Esek, Sitnah, and Rehoboth, and God says, 'Fear not, for I am with thee.'
Read Chapter 26 →Genesis 27:1-46
The Stolen Blessing
Old and blind, Isaac sets out to bless Esau, but Rebekah and Jacob deceive him with goatskins and stolen clothes, and Jacob takes the blessing by lying, 'I am Esau thy firstborn.' Esau returns to a great and bitter cry, his hatred turns murderous, and Jacob flees to Laban.
Read Chapter 27 →Genesis 28:1-22
Jacob's Ladder
Isaac sends Jacob away with the blessing of Abraham. Alone with a stone for a pillow, Jacob dreams of a ladder joining earth and heaven with angels ascending and descending, and the LORD renews the covenant: 'I am with thee.' Jacob names the place Bethel and vows to make the LORD his God.
Read Chapter 28 →Genesis 29:1-35
Jacob, Rachel, and Leah
Jacob meets Rachel at the well and serves Laban seven years for her, years that 'seemed but a few days' for love. Laban deceives him with Leah, and the deceiver is deceived. God sees the unloved Leah and opens her womb; she bears Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, saying, 'Now will I praise the LORD.'
Read Chapter 29 →Genesis 30:1-43
The Sons and the Flocks
Rachel and Leah's rivalry fills the home with strife, waged through their handmaids and a bargain over mandrakes, as the rest of Jacob's sons are born. At last 'God remembered Rachel' and gave her Joseph. Then God overrules Laban's cheating and multiplies Jacob's flocks until he increases exceedingly.
Read Chapter 30 →Genesis 31:1-55
The Flight From Laban
God calls Jacob home as 'the God of Bethel,' and Jacob flees Haran while Rachel steals her father's idols. Laban pursues but is warned by God in a dream to touch nothing. Jacob recounts his twenty hard years and credits God who 'hath seen mine affliction,' and they raise a covenant heap at Mizpah.
Read Chapter 31 →Genesis 32:1-32
Wrestling at Peniel
The angels of God meet Jacob at Mahanaim, but news that Esau is coming with four hundred men fills him with fear. Jacob prays, pleading God's promise, and sends gifts ahead. Then alone at the Jabbok he wrestles with God all night, is renamed Israel, and says, 'I have seen God face to face.'
Read Chapter 32 →Genesis 33:1-20
Jacob and Esau Reconciled
The brother who once swore to kill Jacob runs to embrace him, and the two weep. Jacob presses his gift on Esau, seeing his forgiving face 'as though I had seen the face of God.' They part in peace, and Jacob settles in Canaan and builds an altar, El-elohe-Israel.
Read Chapter 33 →Genesis 34:1-31
The Tragedy at Shechem
Dinah is defiled at Shechem, and her brothers answer with a deceitful covenant that abuses the sign of circumcision. While the men lie helpless, Simeon and Levi slay the whole city, and Jacob laments only the danger to himself. A sober warning about compromise, holy things misused, and vengeance.
Read Chapter 34 →Genesis 35:1-29
Back to Bethel
God calls Jacob back to Bethel, and he leads his household to put away the strange gods and be clean. God renews the name Israel and the covenant, promising kings from his line. Rachel dies bearing Benjamin near Bethlehem, and old Isaac is buried by Esau and Jacob together.
Read Chapter 35 →Genesis 36:1-43
The Generations of Esau
The account of Esau, who is Edom. Grown rich, Esau parts from Jacob and settles in Mount Seir, his descendants become dukes and kings, and Amalek is born of his line. God keeps His word to give Esau his own possession, while the man of promise waits for a better country.
Read Chapter 36 →Genesis 37:1-36
Joseph and His Dreams
Jacob loves Joseph and gives him a coat of many colours, and Joseph's dreams stir his brothers' hatred. They conspire against him, throw him in a pit, and sell him into Egypt for twenty pieces of silver, then deceive their father with the bloody coat. Joseph, the beloved son betrayed, foreshadows Christ.
Read Chapter 37 →Genesis 38:1-30
Judah and Tamar
Judah leaves his brethren, marries a Canaanite, and wrongs his widowed daughter-in-law Tamar. Quick to condemn her, he is exposed by his own pledge and confesses, 'She hath been more righteous than I.' Twins are born, and through Pharez the line of David and the Messiah runs on by grace.
Read Chapter 38 →Genesis 39:1-23
The LORD Was With Joseph
The LORD is with Joseph in Potiphar's house and prospers him. He resists his master's wife day after day, asking 'how can I sin against God,' flees her advances, and is falsely accused and imprisoned. Yet even in prison the LORD is with him, showing him mercy and favor.
Read Chapter 39 →Genesis 40:1-23
Dreams in the Prison
In prison Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh's butler and baker, declaring that interpretations belong to God. The butler is restored and the baker hanged in three days, exactly as Joseph foretold, yet the butler forgets him, and Joseph waits on the God who never forgets.
Read Chapter 40 →Genesis 41:1-57
From the Dungeon to the Throne
Pharaoh's dreams baffle Egypt until Joseph is brought from the dungeon, giving God the glory: 'It is not in me.' He reveals seven years of plenty and seven of famine, and Pharaoh, seeing the Spirit of God in him, raises him to rule all Egypt. When famine spreads, all the world comes to Joseph for bread.
Read Chapter 41 →Genesis 42:1-38
The Brothers Bow Down
Famine drives Joseph's brothers to Egypt, where they bow before him without knowing him, fulfilling his dreams. Joseph tests them, holds Simeon, and demands they bring Benjamin. Their guilt over Joseph awakens, Joseph weeps, and Jacob grieves 'all these things are against me' when God is working for him.
Read Chapter 42 →Genesis 43:1-34
The Return With Benjamin
Judah pledges himself as surety for Benjamin, and Jacob surrenders him with 'If I be bereaved, I am bereaved.' In Egypt the brothers are met with grace, 'Peace be to you, fear not,' Simeon is restored, and Joseph weeps over Benjamin before feasting with them all.
Read Chapter 43 →Genesis 44:1-34
The Silver Cup and Judah's Plea
Joseph's silver cup is planted in Benjamin's sack to test the brothers. Rather than abandon him, they return together, and Judah confesses 'God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants.' Then Judah offers himself as a bondman in Benjamin's place, a shining picture of Christ who took our place.
Read Chapter 44 →Genesis 45:1-28
I Am Joseph
Joseph reveals himself to his brothers with weeping and forgives them, declaring 'it was not you that sent me hither, but God.' He sends for his father to dwell in Goshen, and Jacob's fainting heart revives at the news: 'It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive.'
Read Chapter 45 →Genesis 46:1-34
Jacob Goes Down to Egypt
At Beersheba God tells Jacob, 'Fear not to go down into Egypt ... I will go down with thee, and I will also surely bring thee up again.' The seventy souls of Israel journey to Egypt, Joseph and Jacob are reunited in tears, and the family settles set apart in Goshen.
Read Chapter 46 →Genesis 47:1-31
Jacob Before Pharaoh
Jacob blesses Pharaoh and calls his life a pilgrimage, few and evil. Joseph governs the famine with wisdom, and the people bless him, 'Thou hast saved our lives.' Israel multiplies in Goshen, and as Jacob nears death he makes Joseph swear to bury him in Canaan, his heart set on the promise.
Read Chapter 47 →Genesis 48:1-22
Jacob Blesses Ephraim and Manasseh
The dying Jacob adopts Joseph's sons as his own and blesses them, calling on 'the God which fed me' and 'the Angel which redeemed me,' one and the same, to bless the lads. He crosses his hands to set the younger Ephraim before Manasseh, and promises God will bring Israel back to the land.
Read Chapter 48 →Genesis 49:1-33
The Blessing of the Twelve Tribes
Jacob's prophetic blessing on the twelve tribes. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi forfeit their place through sin, but over Judah comes the great prophecy of the Lion and Shiloh, the Messiah to whom the nations will gather. Jacob blesses Joseph, cries 'I have waited for thy salvation,' and dies.
Read Chapter 49 →Genesis 50:1-26
God Meant It Unto Good
Joseph buries Jacob in Canaan and forgives his fearful brothers with the crowning words, 'ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to save much people alive.' He dies in faith, promising 'God will surely visit you,' and asks that his bones be carried to the promised land.
Read Chapter 50 →