Genesis 12:5
"And Abram took Sara his wife, and Lot the son of his brother, and all their possessions, as many as they had got, and every soul which they had got in Charrhan, and they went forth to go into the land of Chanaan."
Hebrews 11:8—Did Abraham know where he was going when he left his homeland to follow God?
Contrasting Link: Hebrews 11:8 →
Problem: The writer of Hebrews informs us here that Abraham “went out, not knowing where he was going.” Yet Genesis 12:5 asserts that Abraham “departed to go to the land of Canaan.”
Solution: Abraham did not know at the time he was called by God where he would eventually go. He was simply told by God to go to “a land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1). Or, as Hebrews renders it, “to the place which he would afterward receive as an inheritance” (Heb. 11:8). The statement (in Gen. 12:5) that he “departed to go to the land of Canaan” is a comment by the author looking back, not the condition of Abraham’s mind at the time.