Sermon Tone Analysis

Thursday November 10, 2005

Genesis: Genesis 12:4-5-Abraham’s Journey From Haran to Canaan

Lesson # 59

Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 12:1.

This evening we will study Genesis 12:4-5, which records Abraham’s journey from Haran to the land of Canaan.

Genesis 12:1, “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you.”

Genesis 12:2, “And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing.”

Genesis 12:3, “And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Genesis 12:4, “So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him.

Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.”

“Lord” is the proper noun Yahweh, which is the covenant name of God indicating that Abram had a covenant relationship with God.

Genesis 12:4 records Abram’s obedience to the Lord’s command in Genesis 12:1 to leave his country (Haran) and go from his father’s house, to the land, which the Lord would show him and which obedience demonstrated his faith in the Lord.

Hebrews 11:8, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.”

He did not know where he was going and it was not until he was in the land itself that Abram was told by the Lord that he and his descendants would be given the land of Canaan as indicated by Genesis 12:7.

Genesis 12:5, “Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.”

Genesis 12:6, “Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh.

Now the Canaanite was then in the land.”

Genesis 12:7, “The LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’

So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.”

Genesis 12:4 tells us that Abram’s nephew Lot went with him, thus easing the pain of separating from his family and countrymen.

Genesis 12:4, “So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him.

Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.”

“Lot” was the son of Haran and the nephew of Abram according to Genesis 11:27.

Genesis 11:27, “Now these are the records of the generations of Terah.

Terah (the-rakh-“delay”) became the father of Abram (“exalted father”), Nahor (naw-khor-“snorting”) and Haran (haw-rawn-“mountaineer”); and Haran became the father of Lot (“covering”).”

Genesis 11:28, “Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.”

The fact that Haran died in the presence of his father Terah left Lot an orphan and the childless Abram took care of him.

The fact that Lot went with Abram does not indicate that Abram violated the Lord’s command in Genesis 12:1 to go it alone since Lot of his own choosing went with Abram as indicated by the change of verb to laqach (jq^l#) in Genesis 12:5, which is translated, “took.”

This verb laqach is not used in the passive stem with Lot and Abram’s family as the subject.

If the verb was used in the passive stem with Abram’s family and Lot as the subject, then it would mean that Abram took them all with him against their will.

Rather, the verb is in the qal active stem indicating that Abram took responsibility for this entourage and they did not go against their will.

This passage also records that Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran, which by the standards of that day and age would make him middle-aged.

Remember, the aging process at this time was still much slower than it is in our day and age, so that Sarai, who was ten years younger than Abram, was still considered a beautiful woman according to Genesis 12:11.

This decision to leave Haran at this point in his life would not have come easily at his age as at an earlier period in his life.

He was uprooted by God at point when most men were settling down.

So the mention of Abram’s age gives us insight into the quality of this great act of faith.

Genesis 12:4 records that this migration from Haran succeeded under God whereas the migration from Ur under Abram’s father Terah did not since they stopped in Haran.

Haran still exists in and is located in northern Mesopotamian, a commercial city on the Balikh River, sixty miles from its entrance into the Euphrates.

The city was on the busy caravan road connecting with Nineveh, Asshur, and Babylon in Mesopotamia, and with Damascus, Tyre, and Egyptian cities in the west and south.

It was a natural stopping place for Terah and Abraham on their trek to Palestine.

Interestingly, Haran, like Ur, was a center of the moon god cult.

Genesis 12:5, “Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.”

The name “Sarai” means, “princess and suggests that rulers would come from her lineage and that she was a woman of a measure of social standing.

Her name was later changed to “Sarah” in the covenant ceremony that appears in Genesis 17:5.

Sarai was the daughter of Terah by a different mother than Abraham’s (20:12), therefore; she was the half-sister of Abraham.

The fact that Abram took not only Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew but also “all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran” indicates that Abram was evidently a fairly prosperous rancher or businessman at this time because he had considerable wealth and a number of servants.

The journey to Canaan was a long one, approximately four hundred miles to the southwest of Haran.

The phrase “they set out for Canaan” does “not” indicate that Abram knew where he was going since according to Hebrews 11:8, he did “not” know where he was going and Genesis 12:7 records that the Lord did “not” identify for him that Canaan would be his ultimate destination or land promised to him until he was finally in the land.

Genesis 12:1 records that the Lord said He would show Abram where this land was, thus inferring that Abram had to take this trip in faith meaning trusting in the Lord for His guidance, asking for that guidance in prayer and then listening to God in prayer tell him where he would eventually settle.

We must identify the voice of God in order to listen to God.

How to identify the Voice of God: (1) God will never tell us to get involved in any activity or relationship that is inconsistent with the Word of God.

(2) God will often ask us to do something, which conflicts with human wisdom.

(3) God will never tell us to do anything that gratifies the old Adamic sin nature.

(4) God will challenge our faith or trust in Him in order to build our relationship and intimacy with Him.

(5) God will often call for us to be courageous.

The Process involved in fellowship: (1) Communication: Listening to God (2) Comprehension: Understanding what God says (3) Confidence: Trusting in what God says (4) Change: Being transformed by what God says.

Without this process of communication, there simply cannot be any real spiritual change in the life of man.

Because of this, God is deeply concerned about how well we listen when we are listening.

The Bible repeatedly emphasizes the importance of listening.

The specific clause “hear the Word of the Lord” occurs 32 times in the NIV and 28 times in the NASB.

The words “hear” or “listen O Israel” are found 6 times in the NIV and the NASB.

“Listen” is found 331 times and the majority of these passages in some way deal with listening to the Lord.

“Hear” is found 347 times and again, many of these also have to do with hearing God’s Word.

We also find a number of comments like “Incline your ear,” or “give ear” or “pay or give attention” and similar expressions used in various ways to call man, and especially to God’s people, to listen intently to God.

In the New Testament, the Lord warns us to consider carefully what you hear (Mk.

4:24) and how you hear (Lk.

8:18).

The words “today, if you hear his voice,” are found three times in Hebrews and once in the Old Testament (Heb.

3:7, 15; 4:7; Ps. 95:7).

Seven times, once in each of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 we read, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

In Mark 4:9 the Lord warned, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” and again in verse 23 He said “if anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

(NIV)

The point is simple, God has much to say to us and because He is the all-wise and sovereign God and because of our finite humanity as well as our old Adamic sin nature, it is absolutely critical for us to listen carefully.

But, as individuals with an old Adamic sin nature, even as sinners who have been redeemed, we are ever so prone to be distracted and drawn away with other things, even with good things.

We can too easily be like Martha, who was distracted by so many things, rather than Mary who sat at the feet of the Savior to hear His Word.

The lesson is obvious: We are to listen so we can learn to trust the Lord and to fail to listen shows our determination to pursue life through our own resources and foolishness.

The Bible is our index or guide for all the other ways God communicates.

If we are going to listen to God and discern His voice in the other avenues He uses, we must be listening to His Word, the Bible.

God communicates His Word in many ways: through those who teach it formally and informally as the pastor-teacher, in personal exhortation and encouragement, through song or music, through books, tapes, film, etc.

However, the primary method God has chosen, and that which is foundational to all the other ways God communicates in the church age, is the local assembly when the church is assembled together for the hearing of the Word.

Other things are involved, prayer, singing, praise, the Lord’s Table, but at the center is the proclamation of the Word (2 Thess.

2:13; 1 Tim.

4:11, 13; 2 Tim.

4:1-4).

We must also understand that God communicates through the events of our lives: (1) Special Times of Worship (singing, praise, prayer, teaching, ordinances).

(2) Blessings that reveal His love and grace.

(3) Trials and Irritations that become tools to get our attention and build character, but only as we hear and learn to relate and rest in the promises and principles of Scripture.

So Abraham spent a lot of time listening to God in prayer.

This is how he determined to go to Canaan.

“Canaan is the more ancient name of Palestine, apparently derived from Hurrian, meaning, “belonging to the land of red purple,” the dye the early Canaanites or Phoenician traders peddled far and wide.

It was obtained from the murex shells found on the Mediterranean (Phoenician) coast” (Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament, page 54, AMG Publishers).

“Canaan” was the land west of the Jordan River before the conquest by Joshua, which had the Mediterranean Sea as its eastern border and whose position served as the route of two major highways between Egypt and the Western coast of the Arabian Peninsula to Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (with connections to India and Europe respectively).

The natural boundaries of Canaan as expressed in the Bible extend from the Negev in the South to the northern reaches of the Lebanon Range in Syria and the land west of the range and of the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

Henry M. Morris, “Trade routes from Haran down into Damascus and the Canaanite countries were already established at this time” (The Genesis Record, page 296, Baker Book House).