Egypt and Back

When we last left our friend Abram, he's had quite the trip. Starting in Ur in the far reaches of Sumer, his father led him on a journey hundreds of miles north and west to their familiar hometown of Harran, where Father Terah got bogged down and settled to spend his days. But Abram's call was renewed, a call by this mysterious god we call the LORD. The LORD God summoned Abram to strip himself of all that chained him to his earthly father and instead to come belong to a heavenly Father. The LORD God promised Abram a dazzling destiny, inviting him to a land he wouldn't know until it were shown him. And so, in faith, Abram turned south and west and south and kept going, down past Damascus, down into Canaan, to Shechem where he heard this was where his seed would live. But nothing was said about where Abram belonged. He went farther south, into the hills, and built a second altar, calling out to this God. But then he wandered on, southward still (Genesis 12:1-9).

Now, that last step south was a sensible seasonal thing. As the wet winters came, you know, his flocks would do better in the more moderate semi-arid north Negeb. Only, this was no ordinary year. “There was a famine in the land,” and in fact, “the famine was heavy in the land” (Genesis 12:10). Hard-pressed to recognize blessing, uncertain where he belonged, Abram began heading south and west again. If Terah had stopped short, Abram now overshot. Without building a third altar, without consulting his God, Abram put behind him – for now, or for good? – the land he'd heard his seed would receive for a land on the edge of all he knew: Egypt.

But not far from the Egyptian border, Abram paused. He felt unsettled. He turned to his wife with a worry. He had an evil suspicion what the Egyptians might be like. They were so unfamiliar, so dastardly; how could he be safe there? “Behold, please, I know you're a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians, they'll say, 'This is his wife!' And they'll kill me, but you... they'll keep alive” (Genesis 12:11-12). Abram lays bare to her all his fears, all his concerns; he pleads his case that this is life-or-death for him, and God-knows-what it'd mean for her, what they'd keep her alive for. Something's got to be done to block the Egyptians' desperate lust. So Abram offers a shocking solution: “Say, please, that you're my sister, that it may go good to me because of you, that my soul may live because of you” (Genesis 12:13).

Well, that's certainly a choice! What do we do with that? Abram isn't, so far as we know, urging Sarai to say anything untrue. Although Genesis keeps us in suspense longer than we can bear, eventually Abram will explain that “she is indeed my sister – the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my mother – and she became my wife” (Genesis 20:12). So in claiming her as his sister, St. Augustine points out that Abram “was silent about something true; he did not say something false.”¹ But, be that as it may, it's a technicality; Abram clearly feels no obligation here, given his fears, to be more forthcoming than he feels safe doing. And so he won't tell the whole truth, only “an equivocating half-truth,” truth with a fig leaf over the sensitive bits.²

But what good is this selective truth supposed to do? Why would Abram be afraid to affirm the spousal aspect of their relationship, but want to openly accentuate the sibling? Well, among the cultures Abram's moving in, people figured a woman could always get a new husband, but there was no replacing a brother; we know of more recent cases in Arab history of women claiming their husbands as brothers to keep them safe, as people were willing to kill her husband, but wouldn't dare take away her brother.³ Abram's move is 100% true-to-life.

What's more, if Egyptians see Sarai (as Abram expects) and desire her (as Abram again expects), what will they want? They'll want to get her, take her, marry her. But in their world, a marriage proposal is a negotiation with the man in whose custody the woman is. By having Sarai put Abram forth as her brother in the absence of a father, she'd be indicating that anybody who wants her will have to bargain with him. And to some readers, that is just what desperate Abram's planning: to bargain her away, “gaining wealth through dowry.”⁴ Some suggest that Abram's goal is better translated that 'it will go well for me for the price of you.'⁵ They charge Abram here with “treating his wife as a disposable commodity,”⁶ or even complain that “he uses her like he is her pimp.”⁷ If those aren't strong words, I don't know what are! Clearly it's unacceptable for Abram to force Sarai into harm's way to save his skin. As the Apostle says, “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:28). On this reading of Abram's actions, he'd flunk that test abysmally.

But there's another reading, one where Abram is craftier than we credited. Suppose the Egyptians believe Sarai is free to marry, that Abram is her brother, that they need to negotiate with him; well, who says he has to be a reasonable negotiator? In the role of Sarai's big brother, “protector and legal guardian,” Abram will be a more effective gatekeeper than if it were known he's her husband.⁸ He can drag out negotiations, waste the Egyptians' time while biding his.⁹ He can tire them out and wait them out, can “generate a bidding war between potential suitors and then delay choosing one until the famine ends.”¹⁰ He can play this game, not with any intention of ever giving Sarai up, but of dangling her just out of reach for as long as he can stall, with the option of retreat if needed. If that's what's on Abram's mind, he's definitely wise as a serpent, even if not quite innocent as a dove (Matthew 10:16). And it's important to note that Abram doesn't order her into this, but beseeches her politely. She voluntarily goes along with his proposed plan...¹¹ no less than Adam went along with Eve.¹²

And so “Abram entered Egypt,” and Sarai with him (Genesis 12:14). How must he have looked to them? The Egyptians generally looked down on the nomads of south Canaan. In their eyes, somebody like Abram was “wretched because of the place he's in: short of water, bare of wood...; he doesn't dwell in one place, food propels his legs.”¹³ To at least put a limit on immigration from Canaan, not to say invasion, King Amenemhat I, founder of Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty, built the 'Walls of the Ruler' at the border.¹⁴ But the same king founded a settlement in the northeast Nile Delta where Canaanites could come in, work, and slowly settle down; and it's maybe here where Abram means to stay, if he can do so in peace.¹⁵

“When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful” (Genesis 12:14) – or, maybe, they 'noticed her because she was very beautiful.'¹⁶ Notice that she's no longer called 'his wife,' 'his woman,' but just 'the woman,' on account of their ploy; neither has she kept her name, “robbed of her individual identity.”¹⁷ And then, not only common Egyptians saw her, but “the princes of Pharaoh saw her” (Genesis 12:15). These are likely border officials stationed in the Nile Delta, and we actually know of some officials of the period, like Khnumhotep, whom we can readily imagine crossing paths with Abram and Sarai here.¹⁸

“And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh” (Genesis 12:15). Now, technically, in Abram's time, Egypt's kings weren't called 'pharaohs' yet. They lived in the pharaoh, which is Egyptian for 'great house,' the royal palace. But Genesis, using the gift of hindsight, calls earlier kings 'pharaoh' much as we do, anticipating later customs. Abram's likely arrived while the Twelfth Dynasty is in power; it was a stable time, the height of the Middle Kingdom. Nearly every one of its kings was named either Amenemhat or Senusret, and even if we aren't sure which, one of those is the king Abram must meet at the Twelfth Dynasty capital Amenemhat-itjtway, another place where Canaanites were starting to live and work and assimilate.¹⁹

Now, to get a sense what these kings were like, Senusret I proclaimed, “My power has reached the heights of heaven.... I am [God's] son, his protector; he ordained me for conquest of what he conquered.”²⁰ And his great-grandson Senusret III, who famously invaded Canaan all the way to Shechem, was literally hailed as a god who gave life to Egypt and kept foreigners away,²¹ and he described himself as “aggressive to capture, swift to success.”²² Plus, one Egyptologist quips, “the pharaohs were commonly partial to attractive foreign ladies.”²³

Okay, so suppose Abram's plan was to step forward as Sarai's brother so that marriage negotiations would all go through him, letting him bluff and bargain to buy time for the famine in Canaan to resolve. Well, Abram can't exactly pull that trick with a pharaoh, whose resources are vaster than Abram can imagine.²⁴ If Abram expected to start a bidding war he could exploit, no Egyptian is going to bid against a pharaoh he sees as a god on earth!²⁵ And how could it not look suspicious for Abram to decline a marriage alliance with the king of Upper and Lower Egypt? He dare not refuse! A later Egyptian legend pictures a married woman so sought after by a pharaoh that he went to any lengths to make her his queen, ultimately at the cost of her husband's life.²⁶ Abram has painted himself totally into a corner; “Abram's plan has completely backfired.”²⁷ It never occurred to him, as far up in the Delta as he'd hoped to stay, that the distant king of Egypt might step in and spoil his scheme.

“And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house” (Genesis 12:15). The king of Egypt normally supported a rather large group of royal women with their attendants: queens, princesses, and others, all cared for by officials under the command of the Overseer of the Royal Harem.²⁸ Not all of them may have seen him so often, and some think any new wife would have had a waiting period there to ensure she hadn't already been pregnant with the child of another.²⁹ But that's where Sarai is: among this community of Egyptian royal women.

Back to Abram for a moment. On the one hand, “for her sake,” or in exchange for her, Pharaoh “did good to Abram,” in the sense of material prosperity. Suddenly, Abram had more than he could ever have dreamed: “he had sheep and oxen and male donkeys and male servants and female servants and female donkeys and camels” (Genesis 12:16). Given what Pharaoh knows and doesn't know, Abram – this nomad chief, this wanderer come to Egypt for asylum – is now brother-in-law to the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, son of the sun god! Or so Pharaoh thinks. Hence, Pharaoh can only understand marrying Sarai as an immense honor he's done to Abram, and his gifts to be an unparalleled blessing to Abram. Pharaoh pats himself on the back: “I did good to him.”

But at the same time Pharaoh means to do good to Abram in one way, he's sorely harming Abram. Pharaoh is detaining Abram's wife, asserting authority over Abram's wife, aiming to seduce and consort with Abram's wife. Abram is enriched materially by Pharaoh, but he's also deprived by Pharaoh in a way Abram might only now be realizing is so much more significant and insidious. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). And what does it profit Abram to gain all the servants and all the donkeys and camels and cows and sheep he could see, but to lose the love of his life? No wonder later Jews imagined, not at all implausibly, that “Abram wept bitterly... on the night when Sarai was taken from” him.³⁰ In his dear wife's absence, “this treasure is like dust in his mouth,” foul and flavorless and unfulfilling.³¹

Now, the Bible observes that “jealousy will make a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge; he will accept no compensation, he will refuse when you multiply gifts” (Proverbs 6:34-35). If Abram is a man of honor in Israelite eyes, then no gifts can cover the dark abyss of his pained heart, and no compensation can extinguish his fiery distemper in the face of an adulterous union between his wife and another man. In Greek myth, when the Trojan prince Paris seduced and stole the Spartan queen Helen, her husband Menelaus formed a coalition, raised a thousand-ship fleet, and waged a decade-long war to take Helen back. And if this were any other such literature, we'd here expect Abram to rise up and rage against Pharaoh.³² But there's no earthly hope.

Now we turn our attention back to the woman – who, all of a sudden, is once again more than 'the woman.' For the first time since they set foot in Egypt, she is – in the midst of Pharaoh's house – again reasserted as “Sarai, Abram's wife” (Genesis 12:17). If Sarai had wanted, she could've treated this as the opportunity of a lifetime, to live in luxury in an Egyptian palace. But in her heart, she is without a doubt “Abram's wife.” This happened “so that her love for her husband might be seen, for she did not exchange him for a king while she was a sojourner,” as one ancient monk remarked.³³ She remains fully Abram's wife, caught dramatically in captivity.

God “permits everything to happen, letting the woman fall almost into the jaws of the beast,” an old bishop said, “and only then makes his power felt by everyone.”³⁴ Only when it's obvious there is salvation in no one else does God look on Sarai's plight and swoop in to save where Abram can't. If Pharaoh counted on his gifts to Abram activating a blessing on the royal house, Pharaoh can think again. He's the captor from whom Sarai needs liberation. “And the LORD plagued Pharaoh with great plagues, and his house, for the matter of Sarai, wife of Abram” (Genesis 12:17). Just as it was on Sarai's account that Abram's life was spared, now it's on Sarai's account that Pharaoh meets with judgment – she's the silent catalyst for every turn.³⁵

Exactly how God plagued Pharaoh, we don't quite know. The most common use of the word 'plague' in the Old Testament is in discussing leprosy (Leviticus 13:3). Some later Jews regarded this as “an outbreak of disease and political disturbance.”³⁶ Other readers have seen here infertility or failed pregnancies among the royal women and his courtiers' wives, as in a parallel episode later on (Genesis 20:18).³⁷ Most likely, it was some condition that made sure “he was not able to approach her.”³⁸ And there's a pun here, because the Hebrew root of the word 'plague,' literally 'touch,' can also be used for touching inappropriately: as Pharaoh wished to 'touch' Abram's wife in a way unlawful to him (albeit in ignorance), the LORD touched Pharaoh before he could.³⁹

“And Pharaoh called Abram” (Genesis 12:18). It seems the king had deduced the logic of cause and effect in these newfound woes, and had worked out enough to question Sarai and uncover the truth. And so the plagued king summons his fake brother-in-law to appear before him in the royal palace. “Pharaoh called Abram and said: 'What is this you have done to me?'” (Genesis 12:18). The question echoes word-for-word what the LORD asked Eve in the garden: “What is this that you have done?” (Genesis 3:13). It's an accusing voice, a protest against actions of injustice, an outcry against unfair treatment or disobedience to the divine will (Judges 2:2; 8:1; Jonah 1:10). It's a question of the aggrieved and angry. It must cut Abram to the quick.

But Pharaoh keeps grilling Abram. “Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife?” (Genesis 12:18). Abram, he says, should have been fully honest with him. Abram had acted on the fearful assumption that Egyptians were utterly godless. But actually, for all the idolatry Abram saw there, they viewed humans as “God's cattle: he made sky and earth for their sake..., he made breath for their noses to live; they are his images... When they weep, he hears.”⁴⁰ Pharaoh's saying that Abram's mistrust was needless; had Pharaoh known the truth, he would have feared God enough to leave Abram and Sarai alone in peace. Abram's fearful deceit, Pharaoh implies, was unjustified and unjust, a wrong done by Abram to Pharaoh personally – with consequences for those around him. It's a rebuke, and it's hard to say it's totally undeserved – which might be why Abram stands in silence. Abram's presence brought no blessing to all the families of Egypt this time around (cf. Genesis 12:3).⁴¹ Perhaps honesty would have been the better policy after all.

But Pharaoh adds a third question to the mix. “Why did you tell me, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife?” (Genesis 12:19). Now, here's where Abram could argue, if he wanted. Rather infamously, “marriage between brother and sister was practiced in Egypt.” And it was a constant practice of Egyptian royalty, in imitation of the god Osiris marrying his sister Isis.⁴² In fact, almost every single king in the Twelfth Dynasty was either the product of a brother-sister marriage or a husband to at least one, if not two, of his own sisters. In other words, if there is literally anybody in human history who should've asked a follow-up question on hearing Abram call Sarai his sister, it's this guy! Pharaoh has no excuse for acting in haste, given his background.

“Now, then, here is your wife,” he curtly says (Genesis 12:19). Pharaoh had believed, had acted on the belief, that this woman was his wife. But now that he's uncovered the truth, knows she wasn't free to be his so long as Abram lives, Pharaoh chooses the path of life. Embarrassed and chastened by his culpably ignorant deed, Pharaoh openly renounces his false claim over Sarai and “restored her unharmed” to her lawful husband.⁴³

“Here is your wife – take and go!” (Genesis 12:19). You can almost hear Pharaoh's agitation as he spits these monosyllabic commands at Abram. He doesn't even tell Abram what or whom to take, technically; he can't bear to mention Sarai any more. He just wants Abram out of his sight, out of his land. And to make sure of that, “Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife” (Genesis 12:20). From one point of view, this was a shameful exit, a “profoundly embarrassing” experience.⁴⁴ Abram and Sarai are being deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They've been arrested and are being uprooted and removed from the country on account of the trouble their subterfuge brought into Pharaoh's very own household space. Their further residence in the land of Egypt is decreed illegal, and the whole point of these men having orders is to ensure by force that Abram and Sarai exit Egyptian space without delay. They sent this man away with his wife as surely as the LORD had sent the man and his wife away from the garden (Genesis 3:23).⁴⁵

But from another point of view, the point of view many have preferred, these men are an honor guard, sent to protect Abram and Sarai and escort them safely through the land to the border.⁴⁶ After all, if Pharaoh was plagued by Abram's God for unknowingly and negligently taking Abram's wife, might this king not be a bit concerned about consequences if he negligently exposes Abram and wife to Egypt's thieves, abductors, and killers before they're safely beyond Pharaoh's sphere of responsibility?⁴⁷ It's not for no reason that Pharaoh neither harmed Abram nor even reclaimed the bride-price he'd paid him for Sarai's – he was probably afraid to.⁴⁸

Look: “they sent him away with wife and all that he had” (Genesis 12:20). What's more, just as the famine that chased Abram to Egypt had been heavy, “now Abram was very heavy in livestock and in silver and in gold” (Genesis 13:2). Whatever the ethics of Abram's daring game, certainly he outwitted Pharaoh, surely he 'won'⁴⁹ – and yet Abram was a hopeless loser in it, if not for the sudden act of God turning all things for his benefit. And if the Egyptian soldiers muttered one of their proverbs as they watched Abram taking Egyptian wealth to go, maybe it was this one: “The god is the one who made his accomplishment, intervening on his behalf while he was asleep.”⁵⁰ Like a sleeping man, Abram couldn't do anything to help himself; but God had given the victory.

And so “Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb” (Genesis 13:1). Having previously descended into Egypt, now Abram rises again through the desert places to Canaan. Abram “descended into difficulty and then ascended into a form of redemption.”⁵¹ “And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the start” (Genesis 13:3). Where did the end of the misadventure take him? Back in the land of promise he'd given up. And he gets there by “retracing his steps... along the same path” he took when leaving, now knowing that “God had, in fact, showed him the place” he was meant to be.⁵² Through detour and deliverance, “Abram is granted a new beginning.”⁵³

Abram returned specifically “to the place where he had made an altar at the first; and there Abram called upon the name of the LORD” (Genesis 13:4). He hasn't just gained materially; he's gained spiritually, in a newfound appreciation for his wife, his land, and, above all, for God his Savior. At this altar in the land of promise, “he has returned home” spiritually as much as geographically.⁵⁴ This hour of worship, as he “blessed the LORD his God who brought him back in peace,”⁵⁵ “represents a new start and a new faith in God's promises”⁵⁶ – as can this hour, for me and for you. Abram's now learned for himself, as must we, that the LORD “can always bring things from desperate circumstances to sound hope.”⁵⁷ Now, only now, “the story is back on track.”⁵⁸

But this story detour isn't just an interruption we can paper over, and it isn't merely a teachable moment. This whole ordeal is a foreshadowing of things to come. “Numerous elements of [Abram's] sojourn in Egypt parallel Israel's later experience,”⁵⁹ and the stories are even told in deliberately similar language.⁶⁰ Sarai stands here as an image of Israel itself, in the clutches of mighty Egyptian power; for much as Sarai was seized by Pharaoh, so would Israel be seized by Pharaoh.⁶¹ But where God rescued Sarai by plaguing Pharaoh without telling Abram, he tells Moses beforehand: “I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt” (Exodus 3:20), “one plague more will I bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt” (Exodus 11:1). “Just as the entire house of Pharaoh was struck by Sarai's deliverance, so too would all Egypt be struck down by the deliverance of her descendants.”⁶²

And just as Abram went up enriched by Pharaoh's resentful generosity, so would Israel. “I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and when you go, you shall not go empty... You shall plunder the Egyptians... for silver and gold,” God told them (Exodus 3:21-22). But where Abram's Pharaoh feared God enough to let him go willingly, this later Pharaoh would so harden his heart as to need further inducement at the sea.⁶³ That difference aside, the parallels are clear: Israel's exodus story was foretold in Abram's exodus story.

Many, many centuries later, God spoke his Word anew into our world, writing in flesh and blood. Jesus came, an Israelite among Israelites, to sum up and perfect Israel's story, as when he went to and fro from Egypt as a child to evade Herod, so that God could again say, “Out of Egypt I have called my Son” (Matthew 2:13-21). So decades came and went, and the fate Herod schemed was belatedly coming to pass. The Son of God suffered on a tyrant's cross, but little did jeering crowds and inciting demons know why he did it. Abram pled with his wife to save his life. Jesus, Seed of Abraham, offered his life to redeem a bride.

Expiring on the Roman wood, Jesus descended, divinity and soul, into the underworld, where Death had been clinging ravenously to every soul since Adam's heart grew still. And though the New Testament only hints circumspectly at what the Lord of Life did to Death during that solemn sabbath, other early Christian writings say more plainly how Jesus entered the underworld, how there he plagued and “plundered the angel of death.”⁶⁴ And “when he tormented Death by spoiling his possessions,” surely Death, like Pharaoh, “lamented and shouted aloud, embittered, saying, 'Go away from my place!'”⁶⁵ Then, “when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men” (Ephesians 4:8), fulfilling the Jewish hope that the Messiah would “take from Beliar the captives, the souls of the saints.”⁶⁶ As the LORD God, Christ had invaded the 'Egypt' of the grave, plaguing Pharaoh Death with great plagues; but as a New Abram, Christ rose up from that 'Egypt,' having become enriched with holy souls at Pharaoh Death's expense. And he led that troupe up out of Egypt to the land of promised life, to where he'd already pitched the Tent not made by hands (Hebrews 9:11), to his “golden altar before God” (Revelation 9:13), there to worship before his Father's face.

But that's not where the pattern ends. For we know that “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Every sinner is, from one angle, oppressed by the sin that's ensnared his or her will, or, as the Apostle put it, is “captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:23). Thereby we've been in “the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will,” much as Pharaoh had lusted after and captured Sarai (2 Timothy 2:26). But “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). For in this world of sin, he saw the opportunity to win for himself a Bride, the Church, whose bridal qualities mark every Christian soul as lawfully espoused to the Lord of Love.

Oh, the devil had sought to bribe Christ Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world and their riches, if only this Bridegroom would forget his Bride (Luke 4:5-7). But where Abram had not then strength to stand athwart Pharaoh's might, nor the courage to risk himself for love, “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her... so that he might present the Church to himself in splendor” (Ephesians 5:25-27). “His eyes are like a flame of fire..., and in righteousness he judges and makes war” for her (Revelation 19:11-12), even as the kingdoms of the world vie for dominion over the Church, culpably ignorant of whose she truly and lawfully is.⁶⁷

All through this age, Christ is plaguing the devil so greatly – plaguing him with light he can't dim and truth he can't deny and hopes he can't break and joy he can't tarnish and love he can't quench. As the early Christians spoke of Christ, “this is the One who clad Death in shame... and made the devil grieve.”⁶⁸ He plagues the devil and all the devil's house, and he does so for the cause of the Church and of each Christian soul, saying to her, “You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride!” (Song 4:9). And so “he has delivered us from the domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13), from the Egypt of sin where the devil is tyrant, by the blood of the Lamb and by baptism's sea. Laden with all the treasures of goodness reclaimed, we've left that Egypt behind us; we're on our way, enriched, to the promised land, making our ascent to where we were made to be – with our Lord, our Bridegroom, our Savior, who won us back from captivity in Pharaoh's house. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Help in Troubled Times: A Short Scriptural Meditation

How are you? That's a question we Americans ask each other so casually – a fact which drives folks from some other countries up a wall. Because when we ask it the way we ask it, they aren't really sure if we're looking for an honest answer, or if we're simply acting out of reflex. Sometimes, maybe we're not really sure either. How are you? Have the times been easy? Have they been hard? Have they been stressful, painful, uncertain? It's a question we might ask in earnest, not only of ourselves and each other, but of the world. World, how are you?

The world can be troubled. St. Paul warns that “in the last days, there will come times of difficulty” (2 Timothy 3:1). But already, he says, “the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). Maybe he's pulled that from his Bible, where he read that “all the days of the afflicted are evil” (Proverbs 15:15). The prophets certainly recognized “the time of trouble and the time of distress” (Jeremiah 15:11). The psalmists admitted “times of trouble when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me” (Psalm 49:5). The sages sighed and said “there is a time and a way for everything, although man's trouble lies heavy on him” (Ecclesiastes 8:6).

How is the world? I wouldn't know how to even start to catalog the “war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms” (Jeremiah 28:8). As far as pestilence is concerned, although many of us are still processing the global pandemic of a few years ago, the spread of disease seems to have otherwise returned to normal. As far as famine, over a million people are living under famine conditions, while nearly a tenth of the human race goes hungry each day.¹ And as for war, a report last June suggested there were fifty-six ongoing military conflicts, the highest number since World War II.² Just yesterday, I heard about a drone strike against a hospital in Sudan – some say thirty died, some say seventy. That's one trouble plucked from a countless crowd.

Now, am I mentioning all these things to scare you or depress you? No, and I certainly hope you won't be. But our faith is deeply, radically honest about the world. The world is troubled. Jesus himself told his disciples that “in the world, you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). And the psalmist testifies to his experience: how “all day long, an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample me all day long, for many attack me proudly,” and so “all day long they injure my cause; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps, as they have waited for my life” (Psalm 56:1-2, 5-6). Christians have traditionally applied the enemy verses of the psalms to our spiritual enemies, the devil and his minions. Certainly it's true, and we dare never forget it, that demons are real and that they stir up strife, they lurk and watch us, and they devote their time and thoughts to our spiritual downfall. But before that deeper spiritual meaning, the psalmists were talking out of personal experience and being honest about the world. In troubled times, there are many attackers.

Where do we turn when we find the times to be troubled? What do we do when we have tribulation? And what will the next few years bring? Well, I don't know. We've certainly had an interesting couple of weeks for our nation. Maybe there are things you've heard in the news and thought, “Oh no!” Or maybe there are things you've heard in the news and thought, “Well, finally!” I happen to know that in our little church we have at least three different political parties represented. So people will fairly disagree, and can do so in love.

We're not going to get into the weeds on it. But we are going to remember the wisdom of the psalmist: “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation” (Psalm 146:3). For one reason, “when his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day, his plans perish” (Psalm 146:4). Whether we're looking to a preacher or a politician or a system or institution, there are expiration dates attached to every term and every plan. They don't guarantee long-term stability. Besides, as the sages say, “trusting in a treacherous man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips” (Proverbs 25:19). Human intentions are variable. Individuals and institutions, however much we have to rely on them to a certain extent to function, can have different aims than we expect or hope. To add to that, the prophet heard that “cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength” (Jeremiah 17:5). So that's a third reason: flesh, human effort, even while it lasts and when it's well-intentioned, can fall short of being enough.

It's no wonder, then, that the psalmist advises us “it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man; it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:8-9). His isn't the weakness of frail flesh. His is the kingdom and the power and the glory. God never falls short of being enough. The psalmist confesses God as “my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy” (Psalm 61:3). “The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble” (Psalm 9:9). “The salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble” (Psalm 37:39). “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” His breath doesn't depart; his plans don't perish. Oh, “many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand” (Proverbs 19:21).

And trusting in him isn't like suffering a growing toothache or standing on unsure footing. His intentions aren't treacherous; “the LORD keeps faith forever” (Psalm 146:6). What is he out for? What is God's agenda? It's to “execute justice for the oppressed,” it's to “give food to the hungry,” it's to “set the prisoners free” and “open the eyes of the blind” and “lift up those who are bowed down” (Psalm 146:7-8). “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD: plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever” (Psalm 138:8). And so “this is my comfort in my affliction: that your promise gives me life” (Psalm 119:50).

So should we fear? Well, let's ask the psalmists and their friends. They say: “Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil” (Psalm 37:8). “In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 56:11). “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? The LORD is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me” (Psalm 118:6-7). “The LORD is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh..., it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear” (Psalm 27:1-3). “The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe” (Proverbs 29:25).

For “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling” (Psalm 46:1-3). Jesus tells us that “in the world, you will have tribulation; but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). So “let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). So “blessed is he... whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Psalm 146:5-6). Yes, “blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD … He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8). Drought, war, stress, injustice – the Spirit's water keeps you green and fruitful through it all.

So, as the prophet cries: “O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble” (Isaiah 33:2). “Let me dwell in your tent forever; let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings” (Psalm 61:4). “Save us, O LORD our God..., that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise” (Psalm 106:47). “Praise the LORD, O my soul!” (Psalm 146:1). Amen.

Some Land!

When we left our friend Abram last week, he had finally, at last, said goodbye to Harran, goodbye to even Upper Mesopotamia, and set out on the great adventure with God. He'd brought his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, their retinues of servants and associates, and their flocks and herds down through Syria and into the region we'd know as Canaan. He did all this because he'd heard the voice of the LORD urging him to leave behind his father's house and go to a land that the LORD would reveal in time, where the LORD would bless and magnify and multiply Abram and make him a channel of blessing to all the families of the whole earth somehow (Genesis 12:1-5).

After Abram had penetrated the northern borders of Canaan, he meandered quite a way until, at Shechem in the land's heart, “the LORD appeared to him” – whatever exactly that was – and assured Abram that “to your seed I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7). In response, Abram built a commemorative altar to the LORD's manifestation there, making the soil over the roots of Moreh holy ground. Then, though, Abram moved a couple dozen miles south, pitching his tent in the mile-long stretch between Bethel to the west and a ruin-heap to the east. There, in that liminal space, once more Abram built an altar, stacking stone onto stone 'til it stood. And before it, with all his household gathered 'round, Abram called on the name of the LORD (Genesis 12:8).

It was worship, to be sure, an act of devotion. But maybe also a question. See, so far the LORD hasn't told our friend Abram very much. God has given him promises galore that'll make your head spin, no doubt. He hinted he'd reveal to Abram a land, and it seems like God has, since he's said that at least the Shechem area would be given to Abram's seed. But God hasn't defined where exactly that leaves Abram here and now. Does Abram have a place to be? Where is Abram supposed to stop? Is this home, or a mere waystation? What now, God?¹

Abram is standing before the altar, calling upon the name of this God he's trying to get to know, and all Abram hears is the wind. “Abram is not shown the land; he must figure out how to discern it.”² And so we read next that “Abram journeyed on” (Genesis 12:9). Abram's quest was, so far as he could tell, still unfulfilled. He had yet to find a home. He hadn't discovered what could be his, or where he belonged; or, if he had, he nevertheless still had more to explore. And so a weary Abram trudged further south, still searching for something. Despite being in the earthly land of promise, Abram hadn't found his rest.

“Abram journeyed on, still going towards the Negeb” (Genesis 12:9). The Negev is a massive chunk of south Canaan, and its name comes from the Hebrew word for 'dry.'³ While the southern Negev is pure desert, the northern Negev these days gets an average of twelve inches of rain per year – almost as much as Los Angeles gets in a typical year, which year sadly isn't – but you won't see even a drop of rain during a Negev summer. But though there was a “forest of the Negeb” (Ezekiel 20:46) and there were some settlements in the east, most of the Negev was known for being rocky and desolate, and Isaiah calls it “a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent” (Isaiah 30:6).

So Abram's come to the northern Negev, likely arriving in the winter months he'd expect to be rainy season and looking forward to when the north Negev gets “fertile and green in the spring.”⁴ But “now there was a famine in the land” (Genesis 12:10). Weak clouds blown in from the western sea hadn't let loose anything that winter. Seeds of grain and grasses stayed dormant in the rocky soil. The water table dropped below the reaches of the wells. As Abram's flocks and herds chewed dry grass devoid of nutrients, they cried out their complaints. He understood how they felt. His livestock dwindled away; he was forced to take them one by one for food. And before long, supplies were running low. Abram's family and their dependents weren't getting all their vitamins and nutrients themselves. Weakened, some were falling prey to disease.⁵

Abram was hanging on, confused but clinging to hope, trying to “be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7). But then, maybe, one of Abram's servants breathed his last, leaving behind barely skin and bones in Abram's hands. These people came with him on the journey, having no say in the matter, depending on Abram to feed them – and he'd let this one die of starvation, with others looking like they'd soon follow. And so “eventually the situation becomes impossible.”⁶ Can Abram afford to keep waiting patiently?

As Luther put it, “the Lord is putting his faith to the test by this very trial, which surely was not a small one.”⁷ “Abram is tested by famine..., by so great a famine,”⁸ because – as the Bible now underlines – “the famine was severe in the land” (Genesis 12:10). If this were a run-of-the-mill famine, that would surely be a trial, but there might be hope. But this was a heavy famine, more extreme than most; it maybe was building for years, each one compounding the destitution. And in this long hour of trial and tribulation, this enforced fast Abram hadn't chosen and worried to undergo, Abram sure wished he could turn these desert stones to bread (cf. Matthew 4:3).

At this desperate point, Abram surely looked around and said to himself, “I am really not living my 'best life now,' am I?” This situation had gotten dire. And maybe that had taken Abram by surprise. I mean, what had the LORD said so emphatically back in Harran? “I will bless you” (Genesis 12:2). This God had repeated the enticing word 'bless' over and over again, making it the linchpin of the whole message, the lure to break Abram away from safety and security up north. And so Abram undertook that pilgrimage of obedience, hundreds of miles, in the natural expectation that, when he reached the land meant for him, the blessing would go into effect.

And what could blessing possibly mean, if it doesn't include, at a bare minimum, the necessities to stay alive and keep alive those you love? Later on, when Moses sketches Israel's potential blessings in Canaan, he does so by saying that “blessed shall be the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle..., blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl..., and the LORD will make you abound in prosperity” (Deuteronomy 28:4-5, 11). That, Abram would say, is the logical inference to draw from what God had told him. But it isn't what he's found. What Abram is experiencing – no rains, so no grains and grasses, frustrating his efforts to survive – is some of what Moses lists as God's curse (Deuteronomy 28:20-24); and for the prophets, famine in Canaan can be an act of judgment, that “when a land sins against me,” says God, “I break its supply of bread and send famine upon it” (Ezekiel 14:13). This is exactly what Abram doesn't deserve, exactly what doesn't make sense.

Doesn't one psalmist claim that “the LORD is gracious and merciful; he provides food for those who fear him” (Psalm 111:4-5)? And doesn't another psalmist announce that even when the Negev's wildlife “suffer want and hunger,” yet “those who seek the LORD lack no good thing” (Psalm 34:10)? Abram feared the LORD, Abram sought the LORD – so where's his daily bread, where are his good things? How, Abram must wonder, is he being blessed when he's going to bed hungry, and when he's losing all he's got, and when the people who trusted in him are dropping like flies? What kind of blessing is this even supposed to be, then? The promises God had given are crashing head-first into what one commentator calls “the contrasting reality of the present.”⁹ There's a problem here, and it's that “famine is incompatible with the promise that Abram would be blessed in the land.”¹⁰

God called him to this far country – so Abram had believed, and Abram had acted on that faith. And when God then promised this land to at least Abram's descendants (whatever was in store for Abram personally), Abram had rejoiced and given thanks, as is right and just. But now that he's started to test-drive this land, it's handling like a real lemon. Abram is certainly not “walking in sunlight all of his journey.”¹¹ What does it mean when “the promised land proves even more unpromising”?¹² What do you do after you've closed the deal and moved in and you realize it's a fixer-upper at best, and might be a hopeless dump? “Some land!” Abram might be tempted to scoff.

I mean, doesn't another psalmist promise the LORD's people that “in the days of famine they have abundance” (Psalm 37:19)? These were days of famine, all right, but Abram sure has no abundance. That same psalmist adds that in all the days of his life, “I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread” (Psalm 37:25). Abram puzzles in practice to see how he's not forsaken, and he'd be begging for bread if anyone around him had any left. So if those verses don't quite fit Abram, maybe – he has to wonder – maybe the same goes for the psalm's advice to “trust in the LORD and do good, dwell in the land and feed on faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3). Can he trust in the LORD? Can he feed on faithfulness? Should he even dwell in this land at all?

This “famine was severe in the land,” weighing heavily on Abram and Sarai and Lot and all their people and the animals (Genesis 12:10). Abram couldn't know the parable yet, but, like the Prodigal Son, Abram's gone on “a journey into a far country, and... a severe famine arose in that country..., and no one gave him anything” (Luke 15:13-16). And in the story, the Prodigal Son “came to himself” and realized that he had to leave that far country, had to go somewhere there was “more than enough bread” (Luke 15:17). Abram faced a choice like that, only home to dad wasn't an option. Abram could either stay put in the Promised Land, could be still and know that the Lord is God, could trust passively on the Lord to provide (Psalm 37:5-7); or Abram could take action for himself and his dependents, even if that course of action might be hard to reconcile with Abram's calling – even if it might be a leave-taking without a homecoming.

Some readers, then and now, feel that Abram really didn't have much choice in the matter – that Genesis repeats the mention of the famine and draws attention to its heaviness as if to justify Abram. As St. Augustine read it, Abram “was compelled by the stress of famine” to take his leave,¹³ and some modern scholars agree that the severity of the famine “effectively clears Abram of any blame in his decision to leave the promised land.”¹⁴ Others reason that “Abram sees the famine as a sign from God that he is in the wrong place and needs to move on.”¹⁵ But to where? There's one obvious direction, which Abram's watched others already take.

And that direction is down through the desert to Egypt. See, Egypt was a river civilization based on the Nile, and the Nile brought north fresh rich topsoil and flowing water from the blessed rains down in Africa. It was mighty rare that a famine in Canaan, often caused by local issues in the Mediterranean weather, coincided with a famine in Egypt based on issues in central African weather.¹⁶ That's why it wasn't an uncommon thing, when famines got bad enough, for residents of Canaan to flee across the border – with or without permission – in a desperate bid for refuge and sustenance in Egypt.¹⁷ Abram no doubt watched many go; now he followed.

And so “Abram went down to Egypt,” marching his way through a series of deserts through the Sinai peninsula towards Egypt's border fortresses (Genesis 12:10). Had he done the right thing? Was this passing the test, or not? Was he acting in faith? For what it's worth, God later had sharp words for his “stubborn children... who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt” (Isaiah 30:1-2). It raises questions about whether Abram had made “a move in the wrong direction – a spiritual decline.”¹⁸ We know where his body is – where's his heart, his soul?

What's more, we're told that “Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there” (Genesis 12:10). Sojourning isn't the action of a tourist. A sojourner is a resident alien – he may not be able to quite integrate into the land of his sojourn, but he's an immigrant who might stay years or decades or even a lifetime. Now, it's totally possible, from what the text says, that Abram expects to be in Egypt just “one or two years” and then return, trusting the “emergency... would not last forever.”¹⁹ Maybe. On the other hand, many Canaanites who went to Egypt to flee famine “stayed on and assimilated into Egyptian culture” over time, a temptation Abram might be courting.²⁰ Abram's “prepared to settle there indefinitely,”²¹ “staying in Egypt for an extended period of time.”²² Maybe he still hopes his seed will inherit some day, but for the foreseeable future, Abram bids the promised land goodbye.

Now, in fairness, many early Christians of great wisdom and holiness wanted to defend Abram here. Some saw the famine as a judgment on the Canaanites, and said that innocent Abram was, like Daniel later on, carried with them to “help the victims of famine..., to cure the sufferers” of their sin; or they viewed Abram as effectively a missionary sent to the Egyptians, “not falling but rescuing them” by sharing his wisdom with them,²³ so as to “make the light of his own virtue conspicuous to everyone.”²⁴ Some suggested this is why God allowed that famine, so he could “show the Egyptians Abraham's devotion and to encourage them to imitate the patriarch's virtue.”²⁵ Accordingly, these readers insisted that Abram passed the test of the famine, that he wasn't “alarmed or disturbed” by the gap between promise and provision, “but rather keeping his resolve undeterred in his belief that without doubt what was once promised him by God was in fact firm and secure.”²⁶

I'd love it, for Abram's sake, if that's true. But when I look Abram in the eye, I see a man who's thrown in the towel and taken his growling stomach on the run. Readers of Genesis ancient and modern have felt that in this episode Abram “fell away from the firmness of his faith,”²⁷ that he “fails the test,”²⁸ that he “displays... a lack of trust in God,”²⁹ that he's perhaps “disillusioned with God” and “lost interest in the promises.”³⁰

It seems as though what's motivated Abram's move is fear, and that fearful heart is something he carries with him. By the time he's nearing the border and “about to enter Egypt” (Genesis 12:11), Abram is gripped by “alarm and dread,” with “fear and trembling for his very life,”³¹ filled with “fear of violent death at the hands of his hosts.”³² Abram is convinced, he tells his wife Sarai, that given her attractiveness, the Egyptians wouldn't have any qualms over killing him to get their hands on her: “they will kill me, but they will keep you alive” (Genesis 12:12). Some ancient Jews guessed Abram had a prophetic dream that proved this to him,³³ and others imagined that the Egyptians had a known reputation in that department³⁴ – that's how they defended Abram's fear as rational and well-founded. But Genesis itself “hardly supports Abraham's fear.”³⁵ What we see on display here is that when Abram's faith is shaken by his circumstances, fear and insecurity creep in; and, when they're allowed to fester, they give birth to mistrust, paranoia, and xenophobia. Abram sees the Egyptians as a feared 'other,' and so he leaps to the worst assumptions about them, because he's already feeling despair. So some modern scholars charge that Abram's “fear demonstrates a lack of trust in God's recent promises,”³⁶ and that Abram is “lacking confidence in God's ability to take care of him and protect him.”³⁷ From there, he comes up with a solution of his own, “thinking of the potential for gaining wealth” in the situation even if it takes what some readers dub a “selfish and unprincipled action”³⁸ – even as Abram's ancient defenders say that he simply “took care of what he could, as much as he could, and he gave over to God what he could not take care of.”³⁹

But that's not what I see. I see Abram hitting a low point, and getting himself into a compromising situation, as a result of his paranoia and prejudice against the Egyptians, which results from his fear, which results from his despair, which results from his shaken faith in the promises of God, which results from the shock of the severe famine against the background of his expectation of blessing. At no point after the famine begins do we read that Abram called on the name of the LORD or that he prayed; in fact, his doomsday predictions to his wife are the first recorded words Abram utters in the Bible. This isn't the kind of uplifting picture of Abram we're used to – but Abram is still a newer believer, in a way, and the hard truth is that “even the most eminent men have fallen” from time to time.⁴⁰ Abram isn't a superhero, a man made of different stuff than you or I. Abram is a work in progress. Abram doesn't get an A+ in God's class – not without some extra credit late in the semester. But Abram's stumbles have as much to teach us as his wins.

Because we can relate to Abram's struggle. Sometimes our expectations turn out to be short-sighted. We expect that, when we're faithful to God, then things should go more smoothly. There oughtn't be so many setbacks. If we go where he tells us, we'll know because we start to thrive and flourish there – or so we're tempted to think. But Abram learns a different lesson. Faith isn't smooth sailing; it's not “happy all the day.”⁴¹ Our promised lands in life aren't always clear, and they aren't always healthy. Sometimes we're uprooted. Sometimes the famines last long; sometimes the fires rage and take everything. Sometimes it's a backhanded blessing buried in the pain, and sometimes the blessing tarries long at the warehouse and the delivery estimates leap to and fro.

Of course, if we skip ahead to the close of Abram's days and look back, we realize that not a word has failed – he was indeed blessed richly; it's just that his expectations started out too simple, as so often do ours. In the end of it all, Abram “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar” (Hebrews 11:13). As one medieval monk wisely put it, in the promised “land of Canaan,” Abram and his crew “never ceased from laboring and struggling against their enemies,” including the force of famine, “in order that they might understand... that they should seek by preference another country after this one, by which they might truly enjoy heavenly blessing and eternal rest.”⁴² If the famine strikes, if fulfillment here doesn't fulfill, it teaches us, not that the promise wasn't true, but to not settle short of what's in store.

Contrary to what Abram might have at first thought and what plenty of flashy modern ministries will assure you, St. Paul says that God “has blessed us in Christ,” not with every material blessing in the earthly places, but “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). In fact, as the children of Abraham through our union with Christ, St. Paul tells us we're “heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17). Read all together, the Bible makes very clear that this life isn't likely to make sense to us – not without keeping the eyes of faith open.

We may, like Abram, be compelled to the clutches of contradiction, or so it seems, where God's gifts feel broken and the promises look like frauds and hunger roars loud. But “who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine...? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35-37). And as we conquer, we discover what David prayed: “And now, O Lord GOD, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant; now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you” (2 Samuel 7:28-29). Until then, “though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food..., yet I will rejoice in the LORD” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Amen.

Finishing the Journey

Last year (can you believe it?), we heard the story of how Terah, father of Abram, had taken their family on a long journey away from Ur in south Sumer, traveling hundreds of miles north to what was probably their ancestral stomping grounds. And then, entrapped by the familiar culture, the prospects for profit, and the ease of ending their journey, there Terah paused at Harran. Never would he go a step farther toward where God had rally been leading him (Genesis 11:31-32). It was into that settled state of half-measures that God renewed his call on Abram's life, effectively demanding that Abram “abdicate core elements of his identity,”¹ and moreover insisting that Abram leave Harran and pursue the path onwards, with no details about a destination (Genesis 12:1-3). As one early Christian put it, God “put to the test the patriarch's godfearing spirit with the vagueness of his command.”² Would Abram trust God's promises enough to gamble his whole life on it and go?

How does Abram react? Not with questions or objections. Instead, in silent acquiescence like his forefather Noah, Abram “immediately obliges.”³ “Abram went, as the LORD had told him” (Genesis 12:4); or, as the New Testament puts it, “by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place” beyond where he'd been (Hebrews 11:8). That prompt “obedience to the divine command,” when the command was so imposing, was “a great testimony to the patriarch,” early Christians thought.⁴

But Abram didn't go alone. “Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his [late] brother's son,” whom he at this point effectively adopted.⁵ They were Abram's household, not Terah's, now, even though Lot was now a growing man starting his own family. Abram also took “all their possessions that they had gathered,” all their movable property – he didn't go forth as a “poor, wayfaring stranger,”⁶ even though he “left secure economic conditions in response to a divine calling.”⁷ He left Harran as a man with resources,⁸ which he'd need to sustain his crew on the journey, “taking them to meet his needs” and theirs.⁹ Speaking of his crew, Abram brought “the souls that they had acquired in Harran” (Genesis 12:5). While some Jewish readers glossed this as “the persons whom they had subjected to their law,”¹⁰ and others took it as “the souls they had converted,”¹¹ likely it's talking about servants in their employ. Not two decades later, we'll hear that just the adult men “born in his house” number over three hundred, so this seems no measly troop even now (Genesis 14:14). I wonder if, as Luther thought, they all “believed this preaching of Abraham” and so “followed the holy head of the household with the utmost joy,”¹² or if instead they were – so far – simply along for the ride. Abram commits them to what, in human terms, seemed “an uncertain future.”¹³

But, in the words of one old preacher, Abram “believed the words coming from God, with no hesitation or uncertainty, but rather, with mind and purpose firmly decided, he set out.”¹⁴ What happened next? How'd they know which way to go? Maybe Abram had a general idea already that Canaan was the plan, or at least a good idea, since he was hardly the first to travel that way 'round the Fertile Crescent. But then again, the Bible adds that Abram “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). So maybe he got a mental picture and walked until he saw it, or maybe he had a fresh prompting of direction day by day.¹⁵ God led him.

So Abram, obeying the call, trusted in the LORD to steer his steps. But the Bible includes precisely zero details about the journey they made. Probably setting out in the spring, they would have walked south from Harran down through the Balikh River valley until they reached the east-west road. Filing in among the other merchant caravans to where the road split, they might've taken the branch that led to Aleppo, then the trade center at Qatna, before the Kings Highway took them down to Damascus, another major stop for trade caravans; pushing on to the southwest could've led them to Hazor, a strategic site at the very north tip of Canaan.¹⁶ By that point, Abram had gone nearly five hundred miles from Harran, and these were rougher miles than the ones to Harran from Ur;¹⁷ at a rate of at most six miles in a day's time, given their herds and flocks, getting to Canaan would've probably taken around three months or so.¹⁸ And then, at last, there they were, with Canaan open before them.

Reading Abram's journey spiritually, we know that, just like Abram had to surrender his old life, at baptism Christians were traditionally called to renounce the devil and all his pomps and pleasures – or, as Paul put it, to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” (Titus 2:12).¹⁹ In that moment, we, like Abram's troop, admit to being “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). And from there, we – again, like Abram – set out on a journey to somewhere we haven't yet seen: “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). Each day of that journey, we – again, like Abram – “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). One day, we know, we'll finish. We don't know how long it'll take. We don't know exactly which twists and turns God will lead us through. But we trust the country God has in store is better than the turf we're passing by.

As for Abram's troop, “they came to the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:5). Whether Abram knows it or not yet, this is their destination, the land God said he'd show him. And, in retrospect, Abram has completed the journey his father Terah was meant to but never did.²⁰ “And Abram passed through the land,” heading south into Canaan (Genesis 12:6). Likely the first part of Canaan he saw was Galilee. Imagine Abram walking the lake's western shore – and do you think Abram maybe paused over the empty plot where Nazareth would one day be?

But if he did, he didn't linger long. He continued on, we read, “to the place at Shechem,” a city in the heart of Canaan about a 42-mile hike south of Nazareth, “to the oak of Moreh” in the surrounding countryside, which, since 'Moreh' evidently means 'teacher,' may have been “a pagan site for oracles”²¹; and “at that time, the Canaanite was in the land” (Genesis 12:6). The land was in the midst of rebounding from a great population crash a few centuries before; by this point, it might've had about forty thousand inhabitants.²² And so “by faith he went to live in the land... as in a foreign land” (Hebrews 11:9), “in the manner of a nomad and refugee, like some despicable outcast; yet he made no difficulty of this situation,” but “trusted in God's promises.”²³

Early Christians often held that, because of Abram's active faith in taking this journey, he “immediately became worthy of the greater favor of God.”²⁴ And so, at the oak of Moreh, “the LORD appeared to Abram” (Genesis 12:7). Before, he'd heard God's call, but now, out of that greater favor, God somehow manifests himself to Abram.²⁵ The destination becomes the scene of divine vision! As one ancient teacher taught, “as far as our created nature and its limitations go, it is an impossible achievement; but as far as God's loving-kindness goes, it is possible, since through his goodness he allows himself to be understood.”²⁶ John tells us that “no one has ever seen God,” but that “the unique God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). Could it be that, when “the LORD appeared to Abram” (Genesis 12:7), Abram beheld Christ? Jesus, after all, later declared that “Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

So “the LORD appeared to Abram and said, 'To your seed I will give this land'” (Genesis 12:7). Childless Abram's own offspring will inherit the very territory he's now seeing around him in all directions; this land, even though now inhabited, will one day be turned over to them by the authority of the LORD God Almighty. From this moment on, it becomes “the land of promise” (Hebrews 11:9) – the start of a core theme of the entire Old Testament.²⁷ If Abram's to become a great nation like God said (Genesis 12:2), he'll need all this land!²⁸

It's an awesome pledge, one we'll unpack more later on. And Abram believes it. How does he respond to the gift of God? He “built an altar to the LORD who had appeared to him” (Genesis 12:7), and in this way Abram “gave thanks for the promises made to him.”²⁹ The Bible says nothing about Abram making an offering on that altar,³⁰ but ancient Jews and Christians usually figured that “he offered up upon it a burnt offering to the LORD who appeared to him.”³¹ Whether he does or not, Abram's response is evident gratitude and celebration.

But Abram's not done. “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” (Genesis 12:8). The route south from Shechem, past the walled city of Shiloh, keeps Abram in the lightly populated hill country, good grazing land that's still close enough to towns where he can buy and sell.³² The spot where he stops now, a little over twenty miles down the meandering road south from Shechem, puts Abram just over ten miles north of Calvary. He pitches his tent in the mile-long stretch between Bethel and Ai. 'Bethel' means 'house of God,' while 'Ai' means 'ruins' – and doesn't that capture something of where we live, suspended between the prospect of ruin and the inviting house of God?³³

There, in this place of tension between the heavenly house of God and the ruination of hell, facing Calvary over the horizon, “there he built an altar to the LORD” – again (Genesis 12:8)! Notice, Abram doesn't build a city or house – he lives out of a tent he pitches here and there – but he does build altars, “monuments in honor of God.”³⁴ Abram won't let his life make a permanent impact on the land, but he will imprint the land with a lasting testimony to a God of grace!³⁵ Abram “leaves behind markers of God's presence throughout the land,”³⁶ and thereby, in plain view of the Canaanite shrines in both Shechem and Bethel, unveils an alternative his new neighbors might consider.³⁷ Though Abram has a heavenly hope which the promised land symbolizes (Hebrews 11:13-16), Abram stakes claims for God on the earthly land, aiming to reshape this world for God's glory.³⁸

It was to that end that Abram “built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD” (Genesis 12:8). Some later Jews suggested it was on New Year's Day, “on the first of the first month, that he built an altar upon that mountain, and he called on the name of the LORD: 'You are my God, the eternal God!'”³⁹ There “he erected an altar in thanksgiving” again and “performed the sacrifice of praise and righteousness,” at least a “spiritual sacrifice,”⁴⁰ when he “invoked the name of God.”⁴¹ Maybe he was seeking guidance for where and when to actually put down firm roots.⁴² But certainly he was leading his troop, for the first time in Canaan, in “formal public worship” of the one true God – there at this altar he'd built on the land.⁴³

As for us, likewise camped out in our little mile between the ruins and the house of God, “we have an altar” far greater than those Abram built, for ours is made fit for the offering that brings holiness to earth (Hebrews 13:10) – ours is an altar of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Lord who calls us on our journey, however long or however short it may prove. Jesus is the Lord who inspires the faith by which we walk each day we travel through this land. Jesus is the Lord who waits for us in the heavenly country, and “we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Jesus is the one for whom we, not for our own dwelling but to his glory, imprint the land, raising altars of praise where we can call on his name. Jesus is the one who, just over ten miles from where Abram worshipped, “suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood” (Hebrews 13:12), the body and blood he lifts at these altars he builds with and through and ultimately in us. “Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God” (Hebrews 13:15), 'til our journey's done. Amen.