We are continuing our high level review of the Torah currently focusing on the character of Abraham.
Per God’s command, when Abraham left his hometown to head towards Canaan the first place he stopped at was a place called Shechem.
Today, Shechem is one of the cities of dispute located in the West Bank of Israel and is no longer called “Shechem”.
Instead it is known as the Arab city of Nablus.
Obviously I don’t accept this, so we’ll be going by the name Shechem.
It is here that God appeared to Abraham and uttered the following promise:
“To your offspring I will give this land.”
Genesis 12:7
Afterwards Abraham built an altar there to the Lord and I’m assuming he also made some kind of animal sacrifice (because what the heck else are altars used for?).
Abraham planned to settle down in Canaan but a severe famine forced him to head all the way south to Egypt.
This is where we’re told the story of Abraham’s run-in with Pharaoh when Abraham lied to Pharaoh and told him his wife Sarah was not his wife but his sister.
As a result, Pharaoh tried to take the beautiful Sarah to be his own wife and God had to intervene and tell Pharaoh he was a dead man if he so much as laid a finger on Abraham’s wife.
Obviously, this incident soured Abraham’s relationship with the ruler of Egypt.
Hence, after the famine ended, Abraham gathered his family and went back to Canaan and…
…it is here that a pattern is established that we’ll see occur again hundreds of years later with Abraham’s descendants and another Pharaoh of Egypt.
See, when Abraham returned back to Canaan, he was a much wealthier man than when he had left it.
Why?
Because the Pharaoh was so afraid of Abraham’s God that he gave him much wealth in the form of silver and gold in the hopes that Abraham’s God would not harm him.
Again, this same pattern would repeat during the mass exodus of the Israelites from Egypt when they stripped the Egyptians of all their silver and gold upon leaving Egypt.
Although Abraham now had much silver and gold, real wealth during these times was still based on the number of flocks and herds one possessed.
Before closing, I should also mention that during this time another major event of gargantuan proportions occurred.
At the place of Abraham’s birth northwards in Mesopotamia, a huge funeral was held for Noah.
Yup, I’m talking about the ark builder Noah.
At this time, he passed away after reaching just over 900 years of age and was mourned by thousands upon thousands of people.
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