- 71-
CHAPTER 11: The Calling of Abram - His Arrival in Canaan, and
Temporary Removal to Egypt (GENESIS 11:27-13:4)
WITH Abram an entirely new period may be said to begin. He was to be the ancestor
of a new race in whom the Divine promises were to be preserved, and through whom
they would finally be realized. It seemed, therefore, necessary that, when Abram was
called, he should forsake his old home, his family, his country, and his people. Not to
speak of the dangers which otherwise would have beset his vocation, a new
beginning required that he should be cut off from all that was "behind." Had he
remained in Ur of the Chaldees, he would at best only have been a new link in the old
chain. Besides, the special dealings of God, and Abram's faith and patience, as
manifested in his obedience to the Divine command, were intended to qualify him for
being the head of the new order of things, "the father of all who believe." Lastly, it
was intended that the history of Abram, as that of his seed after him, should prepare
the way for the great truths of the Gospel, and exhibit as in a figure the history of all
who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hitherto, God had only
interposed, as in the flood, and at the confounding of tongues, to arrest the attempts
of man against His purposes of mercy. But when God called Abram, He personally
and actively interfered, and this time in mercy, not in judgment. The whole history of
Abram may be arranged into four stages, each commencing with a personal
revelation of Jehovah. The first, when the patriarch was called to his work and
mission;(Genesis 12-14) the second, when he received the promise of an heir, and the
covenant was made with him;(Genesis 15, 16) the third, when that covenant was
established in the change of his name from Abram to Abraham, and in circumcision
as the sign and seal of the covenant;(Genesis 17-21) the fourth, when his faith was
tried, proved, and perfected in the offering up of Isaac.(Genesis 22 -25:11) These are,
so to speak, the high points in Abram's history, which the patriarch successively
climbed, and to which all the other events of his life may be regarded as the ascent.
Descending the genealogy of Shem, Abram stands tenth among "the fathers" after the
flood. He was a son - apparently the third and youngest - of Terah, the others being
Haran and Nahor. The family, or perhaps more correctly the tribe or clan of Terah,
resided in Chaldea, which is the southern part of Babylonia. "Ur of the Chaldees," as
recently again discovered,^30 was one of the oldest, if not the most ancient, among the
cities of Chaldea. It lies about six miles away from the river Euphrates, and, curious
to relate, is at present somewhere near one hundred and twenty-five miles from the
Persian Gulf, though it is supposed, that at one time it was actually washed by its
waters, the difference being accounted for by the rapid deposit of what becomes soil,
or of alluvium, as it is called.
Thus Abram must in his youth have stood by the seashore, and seen the sand
innumerable, to which his posterity in after ages was likened. Another figure, under
(^)