you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:2–3). In another parallel to the Old Testament prophets, Paul’s prenatal allocation to God’s sovereign purposes resembles the call of Isaiah, which itself was ultimately prophetic of Christ: “The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name” (Isa 49:1). The prophet also writes: “He says: ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of