Genesis 12:1-9
1Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,
6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. 9And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
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In ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), about 2,000 B.C., there were many tribes of people with different languages and polytheistic religions who took turns conquering each other.
Abram’s birthplace (which Ur?) and family work in Mesopotamia are uncertain. Ancient non-Biblical writings suggest that the family was prosperous in Haran (present-day southeast Turkey) but unpopular, primarily because of Abram’s religious beliefs. Abram adopted his nephew, Lot, after Abram’s brother died under suspicious circumstances. Getting out of town seems like a good idea for Abram, but why was he sent 500 miles south to Canaan?
The Canaanites were polytheistic, but they had a supreme god called El, so they may have been more accepting of Abram’s growing belief in one god. Bethel, where Abram lived several times, was Beth (“the house of”) – El (“god”). Also at Bethel, Abram’s grandson Jacob received his new name, Israel, which meant Isra (“struggles with”} and El (“God”), and Jacob’s tribe was called the “Israelites.”
El was used many times for the name of God in the earliest versions of the Old Testament. However, YHWH (Yahweh) was the name of the supreme God in the southern regions of Canaan, and beginning with Moses in the Old Testament, YHWH replaced El as the name of God.
Abram is revered as the originator of the monotheism that led to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, representing about half the Earth’s current population.
Prayer: Holy God, We are deeply grateful for Abram, who began the journey that led us to a better understanding of You and Your love in the world.
—Terry Rosborough