Knowing The Word in Genesis 12:4-9, Abram Goes

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. [Abram puts the call of God above loyalty to his family, leaving Haran 60 years before his father died.] 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions [movable herds] that they had gathered, and the people [slaves] that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan [Abram makes it whereas Terah failed], 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem [a major Canaanite city north of Jerusalem, near where Jesus spoke to the woman at the well], to the oak of Moreh [which means “teacher” so probably a place divine oracles could be obtained and a place of worship]. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. [This explains why Abram could not take immediate possession of the land.] 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram [the first recorded appearance to a patriarch] and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” [This is the first explicit promise of land and descendants.] So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. [Like Noah coming out of the ark, Abram responds to God’s work with sacrificial worship.] 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. [He is about 10 miles north of Jerusalem.] And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord [worshipping in a regular way]. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb [literally “the dry land” about 100 miles south of Jerusalem in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula]. [At this point Abram has walked through the promised land and worshipped there, having built altars to the Lord. He has taken symbolic possession of it. Within Genesis, there is no more important section than 11:27-12:9. It introduces Abraham and his family, connects them from Noah to the people Israel, announces the divine intervention that will bring blessing to the world, and demonstrates what human faithfulness can look like. Yet Abraham is not only the father of the faithful, but also a son of Shem who is the son of Adam. The later patriarchs will follow in Abraham’s footsteps.]