Setting: Genesis 12:6-7
Why does Adonai speak to me? Why?! Why has He called Abram, of all people, out into the desert to follow Him? I am no Nephel, no Rapha, no Anank, no Gibbor Chayil. I am no Utnapishtim, no Ur-Nammu, no Aplahanda or Senusret or Khu-Sobek. I am no Nimrod. What does He see in me, that I should become a partner of God? Nay, not a partner of God, a partner of El Elyon, the God of gods? A man not eighty years old, yet already showing signs of age, with a barren wife and a handful of people, wandering in the desert. This is who He has chosen? There were those in Harranu that asked me how I could leave my country, my kindred, and my father’s house in search of an unknown land. But all that I forsook I forsook not in disgust or even in charity but rather in sacrifice. Do we not preach day in and day out of the virtues of sacrifice? Is it not axiomatic that when we give something up to the gods, they are pleased and respond in mercy? I have gained the reputation of a man of great religiosity. But I am merely acting in accord with the laws of the gods, who are far stronger than I. What other choice do I have? Could I possibly succeed by withholding the very sacrifice that Adonai demands? Of course I must lay it on the altar, and God in His goodness will use it for good. But there is something about El Elyon that disturbs me. It bewilders my religious senses. This God comes to me before I have even made the sacrifice, with promises of blessing. What kind of God comes not to the altar you have made and smiles upon you, but comes and smiles upon you when as yet you have built no altar? Shamefully I admit that I had as yet built no altar to Adonai, nor led the people in calling on His name, when He appeared to me at the foot of Gerizim. I had gone out at evening to the field to meditate, and as the sun sank below the horizon, an unnatural darkness fell across the land. So black was this darkness that even the shadows fled from it and I was in wild terror at what must follow. Then all was warm and calm and Adonai appeared to me. Why did He appear to me? And why did He say to me what He did? In Harranu, El had declared that He would make a great nation out of my household, and bless me, and make my name great, and that he would bless them that bless me and curse those that curse me. What divine prodigality! But here, at Shechem, He has said that unto my seed He will give this land. Unto my seed? What can this mean? Am I to take another wife? While it is not uncommon for a man of my standing to take along three or four wives, I do not believe that Adonai intends this. I have loved My Princess with a purity that would be marred by the involvement of other wives. When I contemplate it my mind is immediately turned back from the notion. Surely, Lot is to be my heir, and my seed is to be named through him. And what an immense honor, though the people be descended from Harran as much as from myself, to be named as the father of a great nation! It is humbling to look up at Gerizim, and across the plain to Ebal, and to know that this land will belong to my children. Was my mother right in naming me Abram after all? In my shame at not having built one sooner, I oversaw the construction of a stone altar there, where Adonai appeared to me and declared this promise concerning my seed. I do not deserve such kindness from God. I do not understand El Elyon.