As we’ve noted, the first stage of Abraham’s life as recorded in Genesis is the Call from God to leave his homeland and travel to a new land: Canaan (Ge 12-14). The first chapter of this account consists of that initial call and Abram’s immediate journey.
This account comes immediately on the heels of the Tower of Babel, a deliberate defiance of God’s command to scatter and populate the earth. Abram’s immediate obedience is in stark contrast.
God’s call to Abram is clear: he is to leave his relatives and his homeland and go to an unspecified place “that I will show you” (Ge 12.1). His next words are prophecy, not command; they describe the fruits of obedience: Abram will have many descendants, who will be blessed, and who will bless the whole world (Ge 12.2-3). This promise will be repeated and expanded in upcoming chapters; we call it the Abrahamic Covenant, which promises a homeland, a posterity, and a universal blessing. Commentator Harold Willmington has characterized this as “soil, a seed, and a Saviour.” This is literally a global promise, the extent of which Abram could not possibly have fathomed.
This promise sets up the theme of the rest of Scripture. In contrast to the builders of Babel, Abram obeys, and God will set in place a plan to rescue mankind from its own rebellion, destroy Babylon (Re 14.8; 18.2), and restore Eden (Re 21.1-22.5).
Global, indeed.
I should note that Abram’s family has been introduced a paragraph earlier, at the end of chapter 11. There we learn two important things: that Sarai is barren, and that Abram’s father had already moved them from Ur, their home, to Haran, enroute to Canaan. This confusion is cleared up by the fact that the next paragraph is a flashback; the KJV and NKJV, as well as a footnote in the ESV, read the verb in verse 1 as perfect: “God had [earlier] said.” Thus the call comes in Ur, and the family members start toward Canaan. Their journey is punctuated by a stop partway, in Haran, on the Fertile Crescent.
The New Testament says that when he left Ur, he went “not knowing whither he went” (He 11.8). The Lord led them along, first to Haran for a time, and then eventually to Canaan. This was a journey of faith.
If we look closely at the numbers, we note that Abram’s father, Terah, was 70 when Abram was born (Ge 11.26) and that he died when he was 205–when Abram would have been 135. But the account says that Abram left Haran for Canaan when he was 75 (Ge 12.4)–so he must have left 60 years before his father died. Did Terah refuse to go along? Why? We don’t know. But Abram is following the Lord’s leadership, not his father’s. He needs to go.
So he gathers his closest family–his wife, and his nephew Lot (Ge 12.5)–as well as his servants and his growing possessions. (The blessing has apparently already started.) And he heads for Canaan. When he arrives, he surveys the land, arriving at Shechem (Ge 12.6), where the Lord again promises him both the land and a progeny to dwell in it (Ge 12.7). He proceeds southward to the area of Bethel (actually given that name by his grandson Jacob years later; the author of this account, Moses, is writing from a later perspective, when his readers would be used to calling the place by its later name) (Ge 12.8). In both of these places he builds altars, worshiping the Lord who is guiding him, and likely indicating his faith in the promises by “planting his flag,” so to speak.
Famine arrives (Ge 12.10). In such times, looking to Egypt, with its reliable water source in the Nile, was common. God later told Isaac not to go to Egypt (Ge 26.2); yet Jacob took his family to Egypt at Joseph’s insistence and with God’s apparent blessing (Ge 45.16ff).
Should Abram have left the land where he had built the altars, or not?
In any case, we all know the story of Abram’s fear of Pharaoh and his nonsensical lie about his beautiful wife, thereby putting her at risk of joining Pharaoh’s harem. He does not appear to be acting in faith any longer.
But God protects him–blesses him–keeping his promises despite Abram’s apparent lack of faith.
God is like that.
Next time: back to Canaan, and settlement.
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
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