Setting: Genesis 12:6-7
The free men among us had, for the most part, not spent many days outside of a city before. Over the long journey their skin had darkened and, I think, their spirits lifted with the freedom and the harsh beauty of the wilderness. I have always been a man of the land and I have never preferred a palace to a bed beneath the stars. In fact, I have always preferred the company of animals to men. But I will say that the town of Laish inspired in me a sense that city life can have its own freedom and wonder. Ur, Babylon, Mari, Damascus, these are places of great wealth and art, but Laish is a place of rustic charm, and harmony between god and man. The city is idyllic. Nestled between mountains, the cool, clear streams are fed by melting snow. The land is fertile. The people are cheerful, and they live at peace with one another. My master Lot was delighted by the settlement and inquired of Abram whether this might not in fact be the land of El Elyon. Abram said that all the earth is the land of El Elyon, but the land to which we were called was not here. We could sense that Lot wanted to protest, but as Abram’s heir, he is more or less constrained to follow Abram or else to bid his inheritance farewell. And a man has a better chance of reasoning with a wild ass than with Abram when he has instructions from El Elyon. So we left the pristine mountains of Laish, and came very soon to Hazor, a place of impressive military might. Here were fighting men, with thick leather armor and bronze shields, in no small number. I do not know what Abram said to them to placate them, but they granted us free passage without quarrel. While the cities I have known in Chaldea have each had their own unique character, the people of the various settlements have been more or less the same. Not so here in Canaan. Ammonites, Moabites, Hittites, Phoenicians, even Egyptians and Chaldeans live in close proximity with one another. And their gods are no less diverse: Baal, Asherah, El, Marduk, Utu-Shammash, Enlil, Chemosh, Dagon, and Milcom to name a few. To be sure, it is a place where a man can choose what he wants to be. My master Lot senses this with great excitement, though he follows in the footsteps of his uncle Abram with annoyance that his inheritance shackles him to the man. All the way from Harran to Hazor, we had moved slowly but more or less steadily. But then we came to Shechem, and here Abram rested us for some weeks. The city itself, while inhabited by various nationalities, was governed by the Egyptians to whom it paid heavy tribute. A nobleman of Egypt named Khu-Sobek had captured the city in the name of Senusret, Egypt's king. We did not dwell within the city, though we did have frequent commerce with it. To reach our camp, one would walk a few minutes to the south along the road, called “the Way of the Fathers”, and depart from the road at the great Oak of Moreh. From there one would turn toward the steep northern slope of Mount Gerizim, and proceed for just a few minutes until arriving at our camp, near the spring of water that flows near the foot of the mountain. Shechem is no Laish, but the area does give the feeling that it is a good place to settle. And for a time, it seemed that this might be what Abram would do. By the Oak of Moreh there was an altar to Baal and a humble tent of prostitution for Asherah. Abram added to the religious culture of the area by building an altar to Adonai at the foot of Gerizim, within sight of the others. There he would go as the sun was setting and offer burnt offerings and call upon the name of Adonai.