Setting: Genesis 12:8
Abram and his people camped not far outside of our city. He spoke peaceably to us and inquired of our religion. He examined our bulls and goats and we traded in knowledge of animal husbandry. Abram is a man with much livestock, and like myself, he does not hesitate to sacrifice the best of his flocks to the gods. Or rather, to the god, in Abram’s case, for he worships El and El alone. Why the man should forsake Baal and Ashera I could not grasp. He denied not their power in the world but insisted that El’s authority is over all, and that appeasing El alone accomplishes what is necessary. We do have a quite ancient monument to El, but Abram undertook the project of building a separate altar, to the east of our city, not far from the slopes of Ebal, where El could be worshiped in the solitude of the desert.
Abram came in a stranger but he quickly became a friend. I had hoped that he would stay here and combine forces with us as we bear up against the ever-encroaching Jebusites of the south. Alas, when he arrived the land was already in drought, and the drought was prolonged as he camped by Ebal until it was certain that there was not sufficient grass nor water to keep his flocks healthy. We dined together, and we worshiped El together. Then I embraced the man, and he went south, among the very Jebusites I detest. Nonetheless, I have never known a better man. It seemed as though he cared more about the least person in Luz then he did about himself. Somehow, though he was the pilgrim, he managed to be the overly hospitable party in the relationship, despite our best efforts. I still visit his alter to El at times. It is a quiet place to sit and think, or to pray and to dream. As I watched him leave, at the head of his household, headed south to find grass and water, I knew that here was a patriarch of Canaan.