Bible History of the Old Testament
No. 10
The Calling of Abram - His Arrival in Canaan - Temporary Removal to Egypt
With the call of Abram a new period began. He was to be the ancestor of a new race in whom the Divine promises were to be preserved, and through whom they would finally be realized. It had to be necessary, therefore, that when he was called he should forsake his old home, his family, his country, and his people. He would have to be cut off from the land that he had always known because he could never be taught the things that God wanted him to know otherwise. Had he remained in Ur of the Chaldees, he would at best only have been a new link in the old chain. The special dealings of God with him were intended to qualify him for being the head of the new order of things as he would be called "the father of all who believe." Lastly, it was intended that the history of Abram should prepare the way for the great truths of the Gospel, and he would be thought of as the first person to obey God through faith and patience and inherit the promises that he had been told he would have.
This was the first time that God had personally and actively interacted with a mere man in the context of mercy and not judgment. The whole history of Abram may be arranged into four stages, with each commencing with a personal revelation from God. The first, when the patriarch was called to his work and mission; the second, when he received the promise of an heir, and the covenant was made with him; the third, when that covenant was established in the change of his name from Abram to Abraham; the fourth, when his faith was tried, proved, and perfected in the offering up of Isaac. These are the high points in his history, with each thing culminating in a huge act of faith on his part.
In the genealogy of Shem, Abram stands tenth among "the fathers" after the flood. He was the third and youngest son of Terah, with the others being Haran and Nahor. The family resided in Chaldaea, which is in the southern part of Babylonia. The city of Ur has been found to be one of the oldest cities in that region. It lies about six miles away from the Euphrates River, and is at present somewhere near 125 miles from the Persian Gulf. At one time it was actually feeding into the Persian Gulf, but the deposits of alluvium, or soil, collected over the years and separated the two of them.
Abraham in his youth must have stood by the seashore and seen the innumerable grains of sand that God told him his ancestors would number. It is well known that the brilliancy of a starlit sky in the East, and especially where Abram dwelt, far exceeds anything which we witness in our latitudes. Possibly this may have first led in those regions to the worship of the heavenly bodies. Abraham must have definitely been attracted to this even though he may not have fully understood it. The city in which he dwelt was "wholly given" to idolatry. This city was called the great "Moon-city" and was at the very center of the Chaldean moon-worship. The most remarkable ruins of that city are those of the old moon-temple of Ur, which from the name on the bricks are computed to date from the year 2000 before Christ. Thus bricks that are thirty-eight centuries old have now been brought forward to bear witness to the old city of Abraham, and to the tremendous change that must have passed over him when in faith he decided to obey the command of God.
Jewish tradition has one or two varying accounts to show how Abram was converted from the surrounding idolatry, but we do not know what persecutions he may have had to suffer because of the decision he made to follow God. It was out of one of the most idolatrous cities that God called Abram.
Previous to his calling, his oldest brother Haran had already died. After this happened Terah, the father, took his whole family to live in Haran, which was in the land of Canaan. It is thought that God had probably been dealing with him for some time before the death of his father Terah. It wouldn't have been just a one-time thing. Abraham had to know for sure that God had told him to do it before he would just pick up everybody and move them to some place that he didn't even know beforehand.
Haran has preserved its original name, and at the time of the Romans was one of the great battlefields on which that power sustained a defeat from the Parthians.
The journey from Ur, which was in the far south, had been long and tiring. It must have also been dangerous at times, but the fruitful plains around Haran must have spurred them on to reach there and settle in. It was here that the Divine Command came from God for Abram go to a land that he did not yet know about. Even though he may have known what he had to do for sometime, it was probably much easier to leave after his father died and 205. Also his other brother Nahor brought his family there with all their idols, so this could have made it easier for him to leave also. By this time Abram surely knew that what his brother was doing was very wrong.
The second call to Abram is given in Genesis 12: 1-3. It consisted of a fourfold command and a fourfold promise. "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
God spoke in no uncertain terms exactly what he was supposed to do. As we really start to digest these verses, we can start to see exactly how much faith it took to do what he did. He started out not having a clue as to where he would be going or what he would be doing. He just had God's promises to him alone, and that had to be enough. He not only had to have faith that God would take care of him, but at the time he had no child that could provide heirs to pass his name down in the future. The sole thing that he had to go on was God's Word alone - nothing that he could see.
Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran and was accompanied by his own family and Lot, his nephew. The land he left was a magnificent and beautiful one that was picturesque in every way. Many travelers have written about it. Here is one example: "All at once, the ground sinks down to a valley running towards the west, with a soil of rich, black vegetable mould. Here a scene of luxuriant and almost unparalleled verdure burst upon our view. The whole valley was filled with gardens of vegetables, and orchards of all kinds of fruit, watered by several fountains, which burst forth in various parts, and flow westward in refreshing streams. It came upon us suddenly, like a scene of fairy enchantment. We saw nothing to compare with it in all Palestine. Here there are no wild thickets; yet there is always shade - not of the oak, the terebinth, or the garoub-tree, but of the olive grove, so soft in colour, so picturesque in form, that for its sake we can willingly dispense with all other wood." As this land was the Promised Land that God told him that one day his descendants would have, one could see that it was magnificent even then and stayed that way over hundreds of years. It was occupied by a hostile race, though, and the only way that one would enter into its possession would be by faith in God's promises alone.
It was in this beautiful land that God first appeared to Abram in some way and told him what he would do. That meeting must have been significant, because Abram built an altar unto Jehovah there. The soil was consecrated to the Lord, but it took years for the actual "REAL" thing to come to pass.
Abram moved from Shechem, maybe because he ran out of pasture land for grazing, and settled between Bethel and Ai. This district still today is one of the finest tracts of pasture land in the whole area.
A fresh trial now awaited the faith of Abram. He was determined to follow the leading of God, but in his personal life he came up short again and again while he was learning to become our "father of faith".
A famine was desolating the land, and Abram and his family "went down into Egypt." This is still the case today with the Bedouin tribes when there is a famine. Egypt is the granary for the other lands around them because the Nile gives them such great farmland.
Abram was in a huge bind. It's easy for us to see how he failed and say we wouldn't have done that, but when you are in that situation you might not always choose the right thing either. He knew that Egypt was an idolatrous land, and they might kill him to get his wife. Therefore, since she was also his sister, they chose together to just tell everyone that. Since he was the head of the clan, and they were very rich, he knew that they would be received well in Egypt. He thought that if she were looked upon as the sister of a 'mighty chief' then everyone would leave her alone. As usual, when you lie the plan backfires on you. She was taken into the household of the pharaoh and was starting to be groomed to be his wife. By this time Abram must have been frantic and feeling much guilt, but he didn't know what to do about it. It took the divine intervention of God so that the seed of Abram would not be defiled through Sarai. A great plague came upon the pharaoh and his house. They searched for truth until they found what was causing the plagues. Everything started to lead to Sarai, and eventually Abram had to tell the truth.
I'm sure Abram was ladled with guilt but didn't know how to stop the proceedings, especially since the king had welcomed him to the land and was giving him many riches as the brother of the "future queen". Imagine how Abram must have felt at getting scolded from an idolatrous pharaoh, who didn't even believe in the true God. Because God had intervened, he didn't hurt either one of them, he just escorted them and their belongings out of the country. The Hebrew text implies that they were escorted honorably as dignitaries and were not shamed. Abram had fallen to temptation in this land, but God had miraculously delivered him. He went back to the pasture land between Bethel and Ai at the same place he had been before moving to Egypt in the first place. I'm sure he felt much more humble on coming back and had learned a great lesson.
There are many ancient Egyptian monuments and documents that prove that this was the way "foreign dignitaries" were treated in the land of Egypt. The way Abram was treated was not uncommon at all in this time. Even with all the mistakes he made, God still was there to lead and direct Abram and intervene for him when necessary. If our heart is to serve God, He will do whatever is necessary to intervene when we need him to so that we can stay on the right path.
This map will refresh you as to the journey that he took.
For more information from this book, go to the archives page at my site www.cathydeaton.com There are also other subjects of interest there.
This text is taken from the book Bible History Old Testament written by Alfred Edersheim. This is used by permission.