Israel did not always do so well with this. “Don’t do unto others what the Egyptians did unto you!” God essentially commands again and again. Small wonder that in God’s Law as revealed to Israel through Moses in places like Leviticus there is again and again special provisions made for “the alien who is within your gates.” Israel needed to have a special place in its heart for immigrants because they themselves had both been an immigrant people and they knew what it was like to be mistreated as the foreign people in a different land (Egypt). The proverbial “wandering Aramean.” His descendants eventually do put down roots in Canaan but before Genesis is finished, the whole clan of Abraham’s kin have re-located to Egypt where, eventually, they will be treated cruelly before once again becoming a wandering people on a journey back to the Promised Land. Years ago when I was on a study committee for my denomination to think about immigration and a biblical way to view immigrants, I noted in the Bible section that I wrote in the larger report that as a result of God’s “Go!” command in Genesis 12, Abraham essentially became a lifelong immigrant. Near as we can tell, that is the sum total of land in Canaan he ever owned. By the time Sarah dies in Genesis 23, Abraham has to parlay with the locals to purchase a plot of ground large enough to bury his wife in. He never owns anything again like he had presumably owned his land in Haran. Oh yes, he gets to Canaan eventually but never settles down. Initially at least the going was more important than the place to which one was going.įor Abraham we know that he actually never gets back the kind of settled home he had in Haran. Just hit the road, head out in some general direction, and sit tight for further navigational instructions. Their destination is, according to God, “the land I will show you.” Today we’d say we would not even have anything to punch into our Google Maps or GPS. well, they didn’t even know how to finish that sentence as the story begins. The last thing they would have wanted to do was pull up stakes and set out for. Wherever “home” might be for us, it is as often as not something still up ahead of us rather than something we already possess.Ībram and Sarai were, of course, already well established in Haran. The people of God are a traveling people. And it sets up what will become a curious dynamic for the people of God forever after.
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