The link between being known by God and divine election is introduced in the first explicit reference to God’s relational knowledge in the Bible. In Genesis 18:19, in connection with the fulfilment of the Abrahamic promise, God explains his grand plans for the patriarch (‘Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations of the earth will be blessed through him;’ 18:18) with the words, ‘for I have known him’. That God’s choice of Abraham is on view is clear from