dred, and come hither to a land which / will shew thee. Then departing from the land of the Chaldees, he dwelt in Charran." This first call is not recorded, but onlj- implied in Gen. xii ; and it is distinguished by several pointed circumstances from the second, which alone is there mentioned. Accordingly Abra- ham departed, and his family, including his aged fa- ther, removed with him. They proceeded not at once to the land of Canaan, which, indeed, had not been yet indicated to Abraham as his destination ; but they ' came to Haran, and tarried at that convenient station for five current years, until Terah died, at the age of 205 years. Being free from his filial duties, Abraham, now 75 years of age, received a second and more pointed call to pursue his destination : " Depart from thy land and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land which I will shew thee" (Gen. xii, 1). The difference of the two calls is obvious; in the former the land is indefinite, 1 icing designed only for a temporary residence ; in the latter it is definite, intimating a permanent abode. A third condition was also annexed to the latter call, that he should separate from his father's house, and leave his broth- er Nahor's family behind him in Charran. He, how- ever, took with him his nephew Lot, whom, having no children of his own, he appears to have regarded as his heir, and then went forth, " not knowing whither he went" (Heb. xi, 8), but trusting implicitly to the Divine guidance. (See Philo, Opera, i, 436; ii, 43; Saurin, Discours, i, 1G1 ; Dissert, p. 92 ; Simeon, Worhs, i, 100; Roberts, Semens, p. 52; Hunter, Sac. Biog. p. 55 sq.). See Ur ; Haran.
Abraham probably took the same route as Jacob afterward, along the valley of the Jabbok, to the land of Canaan, which he found thinly occupied by the Ca- naanites, in a large number of small independent com- munities, who cultivated the districts around their sev- eral towns, leaving ample pasture-grounds for wander- ing shepherds. In Mesopotamia the family had been pastoral, but dwelling in towns and houses, and send- ing out the flocks and herds under the care of shep- herds. But the migratory life to which Abraham had now been called compelled him to take to the tent- dwelling as well as the pastoral life ; and the usages which his subsequent history indicates are therefore found to present a condition of manners and habits analogous to that which still exists among the nomadc pastoral or Bedouin tribes of south-western Asia. The rich pastures in that part of the countiy tempted Abraham to form his first encampment in the vale of Moreh, which lies between the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim. Here the strong faith which had brought the childless man thus far from his home was reward- ed by the grand promise : " I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing ; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. xii, 2, 3). It was further promised that to his posterity should be given the rich heritage of that beautiful country into which he had come (v. 7). It will be seen that this important promise consisted of two parts — the one temporal, the other spiritual. The temporal was the promise of posterity, that he should be blessed himself, and be the founder of a great na- tion ; the spiritual, that he should be the chosen an- cestor of the Redeemer, who had been of old obscurely predicted (Gen. iii, 15), and thereby become the means of I Jessing all the families of the earth. The implied condition on his part was that he should publicly pro- fess the worship of the true Cod in this more tolerant land; and, accordingly, " he built there an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him." He soon after, perhaps in consequence of the jealousy of the Canaan- ites, removed to the strong mountain-district between Bethel and Ai, where he also built an altar to that "Jehovah" whom the world was then hastening to
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