We have no way of knowing for sure, but it seems unlikely that Abram would have begun his part in the story as a firm believer, solely dedicated to Jehovah. Indeed, that name for God was first revealed to Moses, 700 years after Abram's time. Abram doubtless used the name El, or variations of that title, to refer to Him. At best, Abram probably knew Him as one of many gods. At any rate, Jehovah was able to make it clear to Abram what He required. At age 75, Abram was told to leave the culture he knew and adopt the life-style ridiculed by the highly civilized Akkadians: to become an "Amorite." The name was not so much a race of people, as a type. To the Mesopotamian urbanites, tent-dwelling Amorites were filthy nomads who talked and dressed oddly. They produced nothing of value, and probably stole the few trade goods the brought to sell at exorbitant prices. They had strange, barbaric customs.
Further, Abram was to leave behind his material inheritance. The vast estates of his father would pass to the younger brother. Nahor would later become rich enough to build a city of his own near Charan, bearing his name. Indeed, some travelers referred to Charan itself as the "City of Nahor." In return for leaving this all behind, Abram would inherit directly from Jehovah ownership of the whole land of Canaan for his descendants. As mentioned before, we have the first recorded incidence of Jehovah offering a personal relationship with an individual human.
Abram accepted this tremendous sacrifice, taking only his movable property, and his nephew, Lot. In 2091 BC, Palestine was thinly populated by a mix of tribes known as Canaanites. These would have dwelt mostly along the sea coasts, the Jordan Valley, and any year-round spring. The central highlands were heavily forested and unpopulated. After the long journey of some 220 miles, easily taking more than a year, Abram pitched his tents at the future site of the Jewish city of Shechem ("Ridgeline"), in the saddle between the twin peaks of Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim. The site is referred to as the Oak of Moreh ("Oak of Teaching"), indicating that it was a well-known religious shrine. Abram built an altar to Jehovah there.
It appears that the bulk of Abram's worship practices were adapted from common Semitic rituals, but he may have been one of those religion scholars who knew something about the worship of "God Most High" (El Elyon). Seven centuries down the road, the Law of Moses would codify a great deal of the common practices already in place. It was the peculiar ethic of life, the values, that were new and took Abram some 50 years to grasp.
Genesis 12:10-20 -- As befitting the life of a shepherd-sheik, Abram migrated from place to place around the Land of Canaan. He would naturally want to see the land Yahweh had said was his. Abram was quite wealthy by local standards. The region was given to recurrent droughts, and nearby Egypt had long established their power largely because of the wealth arising from the Nile Valley agriculture. The Nile seldom suffered real drought. The Egyptians had long since developed extensive irrigation, as well as flood control. Abram would have been one of many petty lords visiting Egypt looking to pasture herd animals.
This first recorded challenge to Abram's faith in his new life was a failure. Abram relied on deception when it was quite unnecessary. Had he trusted his God, he would have found himself quite safe in this very strange land, with a very strange and ancient culture.
It was common practice for local rulers to confiscate single women from less powerful lords' families. It was taken as quite a compliment, since it signaled a desire for political alliance, as well as obligating the ruler to give large and expensive gifts. The Egyptians were famous for their wealth and high culture, including a great lore of scholarship in magical arts and divination. Whatever it was the struck pharaoh's household, he was able to divine the reason for the plague. He publicly censured Abram for his deception. Pharaoh's troops then escorted Abram's household to the border.
During Abram's lifetime, that border would have been a string of forts across the northern end of the Sinai Peninsula. They gave their name to the area, and the road that strung them together: Shur, "The (Fortress) Wall." The last of these forts would have been very near the Negev, virtually a desert in the summer. The shepherd-sheik would never have been in a hurry. At the end of some months, Abram was back at his first campsite, Shechem.
Aside from a very public embarrasment in Egypt, Abram fared rather well during his early period of adjustment to nomadic living. It would be many more tests and failures, and more painful lessons, before he became the man God had intended. In the end, he would become a symbol of faith to thousands of generations to follow.
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Ed Hurst
revised 12 January 2004
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