from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 
(Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Contents
 

 

Lesson 10

Genesis 12: Call of Abram

The Story

We have reached the end of the chapters that were taken by Moses from the Ancient Word. We come now to a different kind of writing, to literal history of people who really lived and of events that really happened. But these are told in the Lord's Word in such a way that the chapters, as much as those from the Ancient Word, all have spiritual meaning, about our own spiritual life and the life of the Lord in this world. (A. 1403-1405)

Primary

The Lord called Abram to take a long journey. The little map in our notes today will help us to follow the journey. First it was from Ur up to Haran. In this part of the journey, Abram was traveling with his father Terah and his brother Nahor. Another brother, Haran, had died in Ur before they started, but Haran's son Lot, Abram's nephew, was with them. They lived a while at Haran, and Terah died there. Nahor stayed there and made it his home. But Abram and Lot with him journeyed on again at the Lord's command to Canaan, with their families and flocks. (Who was Abram's father? Who was the brother who stayed in Haran? Who was the nephew who went on with Abram?) We must know, too, Sarai, Abram's wife.

We go with them to Canaan and to several places in the land after they crossed the Jordan River. They came first to the oak (not the plain) of Moreh, and to Sichem, the old city Shechem, near the middle of the land. There was here a lovely meadow to which we come several times in the story of Jacob and of Joseph. They grew very fond of this place. Then Abram moved on to Bethel, high on the hills looking out over the land. In each place to which he came, he built an altar and worshiped the Lord. We shall soon come again to Bethel, but we have first to journey on with Abram into the open pasture country at the south of Canaan, and then to Egypt, because there was famine in the land of Canaan. It was a long journey and away from his native land; but the Lord called Abram and was leading him, and promised great blessing to him and to his family. The Lord protected Abram and Sarai from harm in Egypt and they grew rich, especially in sheep and cattle. Read the blessing in Gen. 12:2, 3, 7.

Junior

We must go back and begin to read at verse 27 of chapter 11. We have begun to follow the journeys of a tribe as they folded up their tents by the city of Ur near the mouth of the Euphrates. Terah was the father of the tribe, and one of his sons was Abram. Terah and his sons set out from this old city, already old in their time, and traveled with their camels and flocks and herds up the valley of the Euphrates River to Haran. If they were going to Canaan, why did they not go straight across the country to the west? It was a desert; they could not cross it, but must go around it to the north, keeping near to the rivers. Remember this in the story later on when we hear of people going and coming between Canaan and Babylon.

Terah died in Haran. The family of Nahor, Abram's brother, stayed on in Haran, but the Lord called Abram to leave this land and its idols and to come into the Holy Land.

It would be good if we could, to get acquainted with Haran in passing, for we shall hear often of the part of the family which remained here (What was the name of the brother of Abram who stayed in Haran?) and we shall visit them again to find a wife for Isaac, and again with Jacob. But we have few interesting pictures of Haran, and must picture it to ourselves from what the story tells us of this place in a land of shepherds.

Abram journeyed from Haran with his nephew Lot. It was the moving of a tribe with flocks and herds. (Gen. 14:14) They crossed the Euphrates, came down by the old city of Damascus, no doubt an old city in the time of Abram, down through the country east of Jordan, and across the ford of the Jordan into the Holy Land. The Jordan was a boundary of Canaan and a sort of gate of entrance to the land. The first camp in the land was by the oak or terebinth (a tree something like an oak) of Moreh. It was near Sichem or Shechem, where a beautiful meadow stretches eastward from the mountains Ebal and Gerizim. Here Jacob afterward lived and dug a well. Here Joseph came looking for his brethren, and here the Lord talked with the woman of Samaria. Abram was the priest as well as the leader of the tribe, and when he camped he built an altar to make sacrifices to the Lord. They journeyed on and camped again on the high hill east of Bethel, from which there is a wide view over the country east and west. (Gen. 13:3, 9, 10) Who remembers other things that afterward happened at Bethel, from one of which it got its name which means "the house of God"? Still they journeyed on to the South Country. Can you follow on the map to the great open pastures about Beersheba?

There was famine in the land. This sometimes happened when there was no rain, and then many people went to Egypt where the meadows are kept fresh by the overflowing of the Nile. Do you remember people by and by who went to Egypt to buy food when there was famine in the land of Canaan? Now Abram went with his family and his flocks and oxen and asses and camels. Egypt was an old country even in those days. The great pyramids that travelers now see in Egypt and other monuments were old in the time of Abram. There was the same river with its canals, the same meadows and palms. The Egyptians were kind to Abram, and they gave him a home among them and sent him back safe to the land of Canaan.

Abram trusted the Lord and obeyed Him, when the Lord called him to leave his native land and take this journey. There was blessing promised, and we know from the story that follows how the family of Abram was increased. And do you see fulfillment of the promise, "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed"? We may think of the wonderful service that the family of Abram would do for the world in receiving and caring for the Sacred Scriptures, the Divine Word. And in that family, too, our Lord would be born.

Is there a lesson here to help us in making our lives useful and a blessing? You will say yes when you remember that the land of Canaan in Scripture stands for heaven and a heavenly life. The call to us is to leave the ways that are natural to us which are not good, and to follow the Lord's ways. It needs courage and faith and patience, but it is the way to make our lives a blessing to ourselves and to others.

And wait, one other wonderful thought. What does the story tell us about the Lord's life in this world? He must turn from all things in the nature which He inherited from humanity, which were not perfect, and must turn to the things that were Divine. He must have found strength and courage in this promise to Abram, and in other promises to Abram and to Jacob.

1. Where was Abram's first home? Where did he live for a time on his journey? To what land did the Lord call him?

2. Where was Abram's first camping place in the land of Canaan? What was growing there?

3. Where was his next camp? On what? Near what city?

4. In what direction did he journey on?

5. Why did Abram go for a time to Egypt?

6. Does the Lord call us to take a journey? What is the promised land where He makes ready our home?

Spiritual Study

Intermediate

Every part of Scripture in its deepest sense is about the Lord, and every part in senses less deep is about the spiritual life of the church and of every human being. Swedenborg in his expositions of Scripture follows now one and now another of these lines of application. The Arcana interprets the first eleven chapters of Genesis mainly in their applications to the spiritual life of the early churches on the earth. But now at chapter 12 there is a change, and the application is made to the life of the Lord, and this line of application is followed for the most part to the end of Genesis. Deeper facts of the Lord's development and conflicts and glorification are opened to us which do not appear in the letter of the Gospels. It is especially interesting to find that the story of Abram describes in its deeper meaning experiences of the Lord's childhood, about which the Gospels tell so little.

In the literal story we read of Abram. In the deeper meaning we read of the Lord in childhood, when He began consciously to recognize His duty to leave the tendencies to evil and the weaknesses which He inherited from the mother Mary and to turn to things celestial and Divine. The call of Abram and his obedient following of the call represent the consciousness of this duty in the Lord's mind as a Child and His faithful turning as a Child to things Divine. In general this is pictured in Abram's leaving the distant and idolatrous land of Ur and Haran and coming into the land of Canaan. (A. 1414) The work was not done in a moment, but step by step, and the successive stages of progress are represented by the places at which Abram camped. Each state marked a fuller union with the Divine, which is represented by Abram's altar and worship in each place of his sojourn. The Arcana will help you to see what states are represented by the oak of Moreh, Shechem, and Bethel. (A. 1442, 1443, 1451)

Going on toward the South. A certain spiritual quality is associated with each point of the compass. The garden was eastward of Eden; what did it mean? The east is associated with the greatest nearness to the Lord and openness to His love; the west represents a state more remote in affection; the south is associated with the bright light of intelligence, and the north with obscure intelligence. What change is represented by Abram's journeying toward the South Country? Advance in heavenly intelligence. (A. 1458)

And then the famine and the stay in Egypt. The hunger of the Lord as a Child was to know how to do the saving work, the love for which He felt within. The famine was grievous. Every child is eager to know, and asks a thousand questions. The Lord's desire to know was greater in proportion to His great longing to be doing the Divine saving work. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." Egypt, the land to which the nations looked in famine, which was also the storehouse of learning from the ancient days, represents a natural state, especially a state of natural learning which is normal and beautiful for a child. The Lord's learning as a Child is represented by Abram's going to Egypt in this time of famine, and also by the stay of the Child Jesus in Egypt, of which the Gospel tells us. (A. 1460, 1461, 1464)

In connection with this visit of Abram in Egypt is the incident of calling his wife his sister for his own greater safety. There is almost a repetition of the incident later in the story of Abram (Gen. 20:2, 5, 12), and again in the story of Isaac (Gen. 26:7). A similar experience must be described relating to earlier and later periods of development. But what is the experience described? We have thought of Abram as representing the Lord as a Child, especially the growing desire of the Child to be doing the Divine saving work. His wife then represents affection for the knowledge which will show how to do the work, which will give the love expression. This affection is represented by Sarai as the wife. But when we apply ourselves to learning, we become interested in truth and knowledge for their own sake, and this is Sarai as a sister. Presently the loving purpose again comes forward, claims so much of the knowledge as can be applied to use and discards the rest. So Sarai is recognized again as the wife of Abram, and they leave Egypt with much riches. (A. 1492-1496)

Do we see a reflection of this story when a young man, wishing to devote his life to some good use, goes to school and college to get the knowledge that will show him how to do the use? While busy with his studies, he is interested in the knowledge for its own sake. And it is safer for his love of use that in this Egyptian, college atmosphere it is not always kept to the front. But in time he must return to his purpose of use and discard the things of knowledge that do not serve this purpose.

This story of the Old Testament makes more full our understanding of the brief statement in the Gospel that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

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