Abram enters Canaan

“So Abram departed, as the Lord had directed him” — the Hebrew is “as the Lord had spoken to him” — and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five when he left Haran. He took Sarai, Lot, their goods, and the people they had acquired (BSB); the Hebrew is “the persons they had made” in Haran. Keil takes these as “the male and female slaves that Abram and Lot had acquired” Driver, likewise, takes “souls” as persons, “here denoting slaves” The Targum, in Etheridge’s rendering, reads “and the souls whom they had proselyted in Haran” Both readings are set out; the verb “make” allows either, and no lean is taken. They came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through as far as the oak of Moreh at Shechem (the Greek has “the high oak,” with no name Moreh); “the Canaanite was then in the land.” The Lord appeared and promised the land to his offspring (zera', “seed”; BSB “offspring”). Abram built an altar there, then another between Bethel and Ai, where he called on the name of the Lord, and journeyed on toward the Negev by stages (two infinitives of continuance; BSB “journeyed on”). He goes as the Lord has spoken. The wording is in the language notes on 12:4–9; the places, in the historical note on the route.