ABRAHAM
(ABRAM) = «Father of elevation».
His name was altered by God, who called him ABRAHAM. There is no known etymological explanation for the change from Abram to Abraham.
The text comments on this change like this: “because I have made you the father of a multitude of people.” In this name (Abraham) the blessing of the Gentiles is assured.
Abraham’s family dwelt in Ur of the Chaldeans, and they were all idolaters (Josh. 24:2). As time went by, the nations, descendants of Noah, had turned their backs on the knowledge of God, and God had consequently given them over to a reprobate mind; In the development of the pagan system, many truths originally handed down through the line of the ancient patriarchs were perverted and obscured, and all the natural relationships that God had created were perverted (Rom. 1:18-32).
From this state of things, God sovereignly called Abram to leave not only the idolatrous nation to which his ancestors belonged, but also his family and his father’s house.
He was to go to a land that God would show him. Through his response of faith, he became the father of believers, and the friend of God.
1. his life.
He was 75 years old when he received the word to go to Canaan (Gen. 12: 4), and the promise that those who bless him would be blessed, and those who cursed him would be cursed; and that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3).
In Ur of the Chaldees he had married Sarai. It was after the death of his brother Haran that Abram left Ur with his wife; he set out for Haran; He obeyed only partially at first, for he left with his father and his nephew Lot, and remained several years in Haran, until the death of his father.
From then on, it seems that Abram begins to obey. God repeats the order in Haran. But again his obedience was not total, for he took Lot with him. It will not be until the separation from Lot that the promises given to Abram will begin to be fulfilled (Gen. 13:14).
It is unknown whether Abram was Terah’s firstborn, although he is listed first among his brothers (Gen. 11:26-27). It is possible that this first place was given to him by his calling, as the father of the chosen people.
From Haran to Canaan was the Damascus route, which Abram most likely took as he headed south. He was 75 years old when he left Haran, and lived 10 years in Canaan before taking Hagar as his concubine (Gen. 16:3); When Hagar had Ishmael, Abram was 86 years old (Gen. 16:16). Consequently, the journey from Haran to Canaan lasted less than a year.
During the first ten years of his wanderings in Canaan, Abram pitched his tents in Shechem, where God promised him that land for his descendants.
There he built an altar to Jehovah. He then went on to Bethel, where he erected another altar, calling on the name of Jehovah (Gen. 12:6-8). A famine broke out, and Abraham went down to Egypt, where, fearing for his life, and lacking faith then, he said that Sarai was his sister; Because of her beauty, she was taken to Pharaoh’s house, but God protected her, and Abraham and Sarai were expelled from Egypt after a rebuke (Gen. 12:10-20).
He returned to Canaan, and planted his camp again in Bethel, before the altar which he had erected before (Gen. 13:3). Seeing the great increase in his wealth in livestock, quarrels arose between his shepherds and Lot’s shepherds, so they decided to separate.
Abraham gave Lot the right to choose where to go (Gen. 13:9), and Lot chose the Jordan Valley (Gen. 13:11). Abram then placed his camp in the oak grove of Mamre in Hebron (Gen. 13:18), Jehovah declaring that he would give him all the land that he could see, to him and to his innumerable descendants (Gen. 13:14- 17).
Abram dwelt in Mamre for at least 15 years, perhaps 23 or 24. He had entered into an alliance with some Amorite princes (Gen. 14:13). Together with them, Abram undertook a war expedition against Chedorlaomer and other kings associated with him; These had invaded Sodom and Gomorrah, plundered them, and taken their inhabitants captive, including Lot.
After his victory over these kings and the deliverance of Lot and all the others, Abram refused to take even a thread of the spoil offered to him by the king of Sodom; he did not want to become rich from such a source (Gen. 14:23); But he received the blessing of Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who came out with bread and came to meet him: to him Abram gave tithes of everything.
God now revealed himself to him as his shield and great reward.
As Abram lamented his lack of descendants, God confirmed the promise to him (Gen. 15:5). “And [Abram] believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
This is the first mention of faith. When he asked how he would know that he was going to possess the land, God made a covenant with him with sacrifice, as was the custom in the East (Gen. 15:9-10).
However, this covenant was not confirmed by both parties, but only by God (Gen. 15:17-21) as it was only God, under the appearance of a torch of