Abraham’s Altars

The divine call came to Abraham while he was still in Haran (in the early patriarchal narratives. Abraham’s name appears as Abram. The new name of Abraham will be used throughout this article). The divine command was simple and yet demanding: “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Abraham’s response was striking: although he did not know his destination, he went without hesitation, without doubting God’s word.

When Abraham arrived in Canaan, he could not take immediate possession of the land because at that time, the Canaanites were still living in the land (Genesis 12:6). This statement implies that Abraham could not take possession of the land without a challenge. The only thing Abraham was able to do was to travel through the land which the Lord had promised to give to him.

After his arrival in Canaan, Abraham traveled through the land as far as Shechem and came to the site of the great tree of Moreh. In the history of Israel’s religious traditions, Shechem became an important religious site; it was the place where the Lord first appeared to Abraham after his arrival in the land of promise.

There, at Shechem, the Lord appeared to Abraham. This theophany was the first of many appearances of God to Abraham. Stephen mentioned that God had appeared to him while he was in Ur (Acts 7:2), but there is no mention of altars built by Abraham in Ur or Haran.

In Shechem, God renewed the promise he had made to Abraham: “I am going to give this land to your descendants.” Although the land was inhabited by the Canaanites, Abraham believed God’s promise even though he was an old man, seventy-five years old, and a man without a son.

In Shechem Abraham built an altar to the God who appeared to him in order to acknowledge, with a grateful heart, God's kindness to him and his family and by this act, he reaffirmed his trust in the promise which God had made to him (Genesis 12:7).

From Shechem, Abraham traveled south and set up his tent in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. While at Bethel, Abraham built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord, and there Abraham “called upon the name of the Lord” (Genesis 12:8).

The expression to call upon the name of the Lord is a term for the worship of God. The expression appears in Genesis 13:4 and 26:5 in connection with the building of altars.

However, Abraham did not stay in Bethel very long. He had not yet found a permanent place in which to settle in the new land. He was only a stranger and sojourner in the land, wandering from place to place, stopping here and there to find adequate pasture to feed his flock. Thus, Abraham continued his journey south, until he reached the Negev.

The act of building altars conveyed a significant religious message to the inhabitants of the land. When Abraham arrived in the land of Canaan, he was a sojourner there, living among the Canaanites and their religious practices, and yet he was able to establish the worship of God in the land. An important factor in Abraham’s pilgrimage was that wherever he pitched his tent he also built an altar to God.

Although Shechem was a Canaanite city and although the site of Moreh was a holy place for the inhabitants of the land, Abraham’s altar was an implied message that his God was different from the gods of the land. Abraham could not worship with the Canaanites because the worship of YHWH was incompatible with the cultic practices of the Canaanites. As Walter Brueggemann (Genesis [Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982], p. 123) wrote: “Abraham is called always to be a minority report among those who live and manage society against the promise.”

In addition, the building of an altar in the land was, in fact, a form of taking possession of it. The worship of God in the new land expressed Abraham’s faith in the fulfilment of the divine promise. Abraham was already in the land of promise, and could leave the future implementation of the promise to God. Thus, Abraham was, by building those altars, taking possession of the land.

In the narrative of Abraham coming to Canaan, three places are mentioned: Shechem (Genesis 12:6), the region between Bethel and Ai (Genesis 12:8), and the area of the Negev (Genesis 12:9). These are three of the sites occupied by the Israelites in the conquest of the land of Canaan by Joshua and the army of Israel.

When Abraham arrived in Canaan, he went to Shechem and built an altar, thus claiming the land for his God. Then he went to Bethel, with Bethel in the west and Ai in the east and there he built an altar to God. From there he journeyed to the Negev and in Hebron he bought the field of Machpelah.

The places Abraham visited were the same places the armies of Israel conquered when they entered the land of Canaan. After the fall of Jericho, the first city the Israelites conquered was Ai, the location of which is expressed with the same words used in Genesis 12:8: “With Bethel on the west and Ai on the east” (see Joshua 7:2; 8:9, 8:12). After the conquest of Ai, the Israelites built an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal, an area near Shechem (Joshua 8:30).

The building of altars by Abraham and his purchase of the field of Machpelah was an indirect way of claiming the land for God. Thus, in the theology of the patriarchal narratives, the conquest of the land of Canaan had already begun when Abraham built those altars and when he bought the land of Machpelah.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Further Reading:

For another perspective of this topic, read Abraham and the Promises of God.


Tags: Abraham, Altars, Machpelah, Promise

Abraham and the Promises of God

In an article dealing with the call of Abraham, Brian D. Russell wrote that the call of Abraham is the beginning of a story of holiness, mission, and community. Abraham left a legacy that affects all believers today. He became a “model for living as a sojourner in a foreign land.” (To read the article, click here)

Abraham’s legacy as a model of a believer living as a sojourner in a foreign land is based in part on God’s promise to Abraham. At the time God called Abraham, God told Abraham to leave his country, his people and his father's household and go to the land he would show him (Genesis 12:1).

Abraham left Haran and came to Canaan at the call of God (elsewhere, I have discussed whether Abraham left from Ur or Haran. To read my article on Abraham, click here). When Abraham came to Canaan, he “traveled through the land” (Genesis 12:6). In Shechem God promised Abraham: “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7).

The descendants of Abraham would be the heirs of what God had promised to him, but the promise was made to Abraham: he would receive the land. More than once God promised that he would give the land to Abraham himself:

“All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever” (Genesis 13:15).

“Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you” (Genesis 13:17).

“He also said to him, ‘I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it’” (Genesis 15:7).

“The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:8).

God’s promise to Abraham was renewed to Isaac. At the time of the famine in Canaan, God told Isaac not to go to Egypt, and then made him this promise: “Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham” (Genesis 26:3). The promise to Isaac was that God would give to him, Isaac, and to his descendants, the land God promised to give to Abraham.

Then, the same promise was made to Jacob. At the time Jacob was fleeing from his brother Esau, God appeared to Jacob in a vision and promised to give him the land of Canaan. The Lord spoke to Jacob and said: "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying” (Genesis 28:13).

Each of the patriarchs received a promise from God that they, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would receive the land in which they lived. Throughout their lives, the patriarch lived as sojourners in the land God promised to give to them. Abraham “traveled through the land,” “pitched his tent” here and there, moved from one place to another, walking through the length and breadth of the land as if claiming the land God had given to him.

This brings me to Mr. Russell’s article. Writing about the fact that Abraham was a sojourner in the land of promise, Mr. Russell wrote: “Abraham died before seeing the fulfillment of God's promise of the Land of Canaan. It was for later generations to experience the gift of the land. Abraham spent his days moving around the land of Canaan living as a stranger in a strange land.”

However, if Abraham died before receiving the land, what then of God’s promise? God promised Abraham: “Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you” (Genesis 13:17). And how about God’s promise to Isaac and to Jacob that they too would receive the land? Did the patriarchs die without receiving God’s promise?

There is, however, another way of understanding the fulfillment of the promise God made to the patriarchs. When Sarah died in Hebron, Abraham bought a parcel of land in Canaan (Genesis 23). In his dealings with the owners of the land, Abraham bought a cave in which to bury Sarah and a large field with many trees in it.

When looked at from the perspective of God’s promise to Abraham, the purchase of the cave of Machpelah is very significant. The writer of Genesis is emphasizing that Abraham became the owner of a portion of the land of Canaan legally, the same land that one day would belong to his descendants. In fact, the plot of land became the final resting place for the patriarchs and their wives. On the land Abraham bought to bury Sarah, he was buried. In addition, there Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah were also buried (Genesis 49:29-32).

In his book Old Testament Theology. Volume 1: Israel’s Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 232-33, John Goldingay wrote: “Abraham and Sarah do come into secure legal possession of land in Canaan, even if it is a burial possession. It is a mere foothold, or rather skeleton-hold, in the land, but it means that Sarah, and in due course Abraham, Isaac, Leah and Jacob, will be able to rest there forever in the land Yhwh promised.”

God’s promise to give Abraham the land of Canaan raises a question: Can God’s promises be trusted? The narrative about Sarah’s death fits well within the perspective of God’s covenant with Abraham. Gerhard von Rad, in his commentary on Genesis (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), p. 245, wrote: “Did the patriarchs who forsook everything for the sake of the promise go unrewarded? No, answers our narrative. In death they were heirs and no longer ‘strangers.’ A very small part of the Promised Land, the grave, belonged to them.”

The writer of Genesis is showing that Abraham came into possession of the land as a gift from God, as evidence that God’s promise was already being fulfilled in the days of Abraham. In the New Testament, Paul says that the presence of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers is a “deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 1:22). In death, the patriarchs received a portion of the land and that burial ground became a deposit, guaranteeing what was to come.

The above comment is not a criticism of Mr. Russell’s article. Rather, it is an attempt to clarify one important aspect of God’s dealing with Abraham. I encourage you to read Mr. Russell’s article.

Claude F. Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Further Reading:

For another perspective of this topic, read Abraham’s Altars.



Tags: Abraham, Hebron, Machpelah, Promise, Sarah