Jesse Tree: Day Four - Abraham

Camel Ornament from The Craft Nest

Chapter 12

 ¹ Now 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. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.”

 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. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 

Chapter 13

 ² Now Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. ³ And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, ⁴ to the place where he had made an altar at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. ⁵ And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, ⁶ so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together; for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together, ⁷ and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelt in the land.

 ⁸ Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen; for we are kinsmen. ⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” ¹⁰ And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. ¹¹ So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley, and Lot journeyed east; thus they separated from each other. ¹² Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelt among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. ¹³ Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

 ¹⁴ The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; ¹⁵ for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants for ever. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted. ¹⁷ Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” ¹⁸ So Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord. 

Chapter 18

 ¹ And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.

Commentary

The call of Abram and God’s promise to him

12:1–6. God’s call to Abraham (the name he would give him instead of Abram: cf. 17:5) marks the start of a new stage in his dealings with mankind, because his covenant with Abraham will prove a blessing to all nations. It means that Abraham has to break earthly ties, ties with family and place, and put his trust entirely in God’s promise—an unknown country, many descendants (even though his wife is barren: cf. 11:30) and God’s constant protection. This divine calling also involves a break with the idolatrous cult followed by Abraham’s family in the city of Haran (apparently a moon cult) so as to worship the true God.

Abraham responds to God’s call; believing and trusting totally in the divine word, he leaves his country and heads for Canaan. Abraham’s attitude is in sharp contrast with the human pride described earlier in connexion with the tower of Babel (cf. 11:1–9), and even more so with the disobedience of Adam and Eve which was the cause of mankind’s break with God.

The divine plan of salvation begins to operate by requiring man to make an act of obedience: in Abraham’s case, he is asked to set out on a journey. The plan will reach its goal with the perfect obedience shown by Jesus “made obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8), whereby all mankind will obtain the mercy of God (cf. Rom 5:19). Everyone who listens and obeys the voice of the Lord, all believers, can therefore be regarded as children of Abraham. “Thus Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith” (Gal 3:6–9).

Jewish and Christian tradition sees the three things God requires Abram to give up as epitomizing the demands of faith: “Through these three departures—from country, kindred and father’s house,” according to Alcuin’s interpretation, “is meant that we have to leave behind the earthly man, the ties of our vices, and the world under the devil’s power” (Interrogationes in Genesim, 154).

Abraham’s response also involves an attitude of prayer, an intimate relationship with God. Although prayer makes its appearance at the very start of the Old Testament (cf. Gen 4:4, 26; 5:24; etc.), it really comes into its own with our father Abraham, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “When God calls him, Abraham goes forth ‘as the Lord had told him’ (Gen 12:4). Abraham’s heart is entirely submissive to the Word and so he obeys. Such attentiveness of the heart, whose decisions are made according to God’s will, is essential to prayer, while the words used count only in relation to it. Abraham’s prayer is expressed first by deeds: a man of silence, he constructs an altar to the Lord at each stage of his journey. Only later does Abraham’s first prayer in words appear: a veiled complaint reminding God of his promises which seem unfulfilled (cf. Gen 15:2–3). Thus one aspect of the drama of prayer appears from the beginning: the test of faith in the fidelity of God” (no. 2570).

Abraham gets as far as the central part of Palestine, from where he moves south, building as he goes altars to the Lord, to the true God, in places which will become important shrines in later periods. The biblical text shows that Yahweh accompanies Abraham and that the latter renders him acceptable worship, in contrast with the idolatrous cult practised by the inhabitants of the country (given the generic name of “Canaanites”). God, for his part, in all his appearances to the patriarch, promises to give this land to his descendants (cf. Gen 13:15; 15:18; 17:8; 26:4). In this way the text is showing the radical source of the legitimacy of Israel’s possession of the land of Canaan. However, this promise of a land to the descendants of Abraham goes beyond the empirical fact of acquiring territory, and becomes a symbol of the blessings and the divine gifts in which all mankind will share.

Speaking about Abraham’s faith in the word of God, St Paul interprets Abraham’s “descendants” in the singular, as referring to one descendant only, Jesus Christ, because only he, being the Son of God and making himself obedient unto death, possesses all the divine goods and communicates them to man: “Christ redeemed us […] that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit. […] Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many; but, referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ which is Christ” (Gal 3:13–16).

Abram in Bethel, Abram and Lot separate, A new promise to Abram

13:1–18. Abraham prospers in the land God has promised will be his; this is an early confirmation of God’s blessing. But he still has to undergo another test—family rows over pastures. The patriarch comes across as a peaceable person; he lets Lot have first choice. Abraham’s behaviour is a kind of new act of faith in the divine promise, accepting as he does that God gives the land to whomever he chooses. Once Lot has gone off, God emphatically reaffirms his promise of descendants and land, and Abraham will progress across the country, taking possession of it, as it were. He eventually settles at Hebron, in the south of Palestine, on the edge of the Negeb desert.

Lot has chosen the rich lands, the Jordan plains; but the sacred writer points out how near he is to Sodom, the city of sin. Lot will later regret his decision to settle there (cf. chap. 19). The account seems to imply a geography with no Dead Sea, at least not as we know it today.

Apropos of this passage, St John Chrysostom points out how family peace was being undermined by prosperity: “Their flocks grew bigger, great wealth accrued to them, and immediately harmony between them was disrupted—where there had been peace and the bonds of affection, now there was trouble and hostility. You see, whenever it is a question of mine and yours, there are grounds for the utmost trouble and a basis for hostility: by contrast, where this isn’t the case, habits of peace and harmony exist together without any confusion” (Homiliae in Genesim, 33, 3).