What Abraham fashionable in Canaan, he could not situation fast residence of the land to the same extent at that time, the Canaanites were reserve living in the land (Birth 12:6). This pronounce implies that Abraham could not situation residence of the land worsening a challenge. The virtuously thing Abraham was able to do was to travel timetabled the land which the Noble had promised to reimburse to him.
Time was his outward show in Canaan, Abraham traveled timetabled the land as far as Shechem and came to the site of the intense tree of Moreh. In the history of Israel's spiritual traditions, Shechem became an following spiritual site; it was the place wherever the Noble opening appeared to Abraham last his outward show in the land of warranty.
Acquaint with, at Shechem, the Noble appeared to Abraham. This theophany was the opening of numerous appearances of God to Abraham. Stephen mentioned that God had appeared to him ever since he was in Ur (Acts 7:2), but portray is no refer to of altars built by Abraham in Ur or Haran.
In Shechem, God transformed the warranty he had ended to Abraham: "I am departure to reimburse this land to your pedigree." On the contrary the land was built-up by the Canaanites, Abraham understood God's warranty even even if he was an old man, seventy-five go old, and a man worsening a son.
In Shechem Abraham built an altar to the God who appeared to him in order to own up, with a indebted phantom, God's sympathy to him and his traditional and by this act, he reaffirmed his stock in the warranty which God had ended to him (Birth 12:7).
From Shechem, Abraham traveled south and set up his pergola in the riot pastoral, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. In view of the fact that at Bethel, Abraham built another altar and unswerving it to the Noble, and portray Abraham "called upon the name of the Noble" (Birth 12:8).
The stretch to cellular phone upon the name of the Noble is a christen for the look up to of God. The stretch appears in Birth 13:4 and 26:5 in connection with the manor of altars.
Even now, Abraham did not be placed in Bethel very have a yen. He had not yet found a armored place in which to harmonize in the new land. He was virtuously a stranger and sojourner in the land, drifting from place to place, stopping voguish and portray to find loads pasture to strait his multitude. In so doing, Abraham continued his cruise south, until he reached the Negev.
The act of manor altars conveyed a illuminating spiritual hint to the inhabit of the land. What Abraham fashionable in the land of Canaan, he was a sojourner portray, living and the Canaanites and their spiritual practices, and yet he was able to position the look up to of God in the land. An following occurrence in Abraham's pilgrimage was that anywhere he at an angle his pergola he equally built an altar to God.
On the contrary Shechem was a Canaanite city and except the site of Moreh was a holy place for the inhabit of the land, Abraham's altar was an unspoken hint that his God was alike from the gods of the land. Abraham could not look up to with the Canaanites to the same extent the look up to of YHWH was contradictory with the cultic practices of the Canaanites. As Walter Brueggemann (Birth [Atlanta: John Knox Power, 1982], p. 123) wrote: "Abraham is called forever to be a minority check and fill who take place and pressurize somebody into similarity on top of the warranty."
In addition, the manor of an altar in the land was, in fact, a form of loot residence of it. The look up to of God in the new land uttered Abraham's assign in the fulfilment of the divine warranty. Abraham was earlier in the land of warranty, and could refuse the chance implement of the warranty to God. In so doing, Abraham was, by manor fill altars, loot residence of the land.
In the story of Abraham coming to Canaan, three seats are mentioned: Shechem (Birth 12:6), the province concerning Bethel and Ai (Birth 12:8), and the province of the Negev (Birth 12:9). These are three of the sites engaged by the Israelites in the invasion of the land of Canaan by Joshua and the military of Israel.
What Abraham fashionable in Canaan, he went to Shechem and built an altar, thus claiming the land for his God. After that he went to Bethel, with Bethel in the west and Ai in the east and portray he built an altar to God. From portray he journeyed to the Negev and in Hebron he bought the sphere of Machpelah.
The seats Abraham visited were the exceedingly seats the armies of Israel busy being they entered the land of Canaan. Time was the fall of Jericho, the opening city the Israelites busy was Ai, the situate of which is uttered with the exceedingly words cast-off in Birth 12:8: "Later than Bethel on the west and Ai on the east" (see Joshua 7:2; 8:9, 8:12). Time was the invasion of Ai, the Israelites built an altar to the Noble on Proper Ebal, an province adjoining Shechem (Joshua 8:30).
The manor of altars by Abraham and his secure of the sphere of Machpelah was an indirect way of claiming the land for God. In so doing, in the theology of the patriarchal narratives, the invasion of the land of Canaan had earlier begun being Abraham built fill altars and being he bought the land of Machpelah.
Claude Mariottini
Trainer of Old Shrine
Northern Baptist University
Bring up Reading:
For another perspective of this countryside, read Abraham and the Promises of God.
