The command was to leave behind one's country, one's people, and even one's father's household and go to some land that God will show, which may not have had any features discernible to the eye but was demonstrably heart-felt. It was a most unexceptional request, then, when an old man who had no children and no great wealth and no reason to suspect that he would have either responded to it with a journey that would change history. Genesis tells us that his name was Abram, and that later it was changed to Abraham, and that the entire story was related in those four words So Abram went.
Left Their Greatest City
It is important to Abram's story to understand just what he had left behind. His ancestors came from Ur in Mesopotamia, a thriving metropolis excavated in the last century from the tell of modern-day Iraq. The buildings there reveal a city of wide thoroughfares paved with stone, broad street, two story homes, schools with boys who write mathematical calculations on clay tablets, and a ziggurat reaching up to meet the gods. In short, it was a fit home for the gods and a fit home for men. But it was a home, and a prosperous one, and it is no small part of Abram's story that God had called him to leave it. The gods of the city were not as welcoming. The Book of Joshua later adds a reminder to the children of Israel that Abraham's ancestors were idolaters who worshipped gods of their choosing rather than the Lord. So Abraham left behind his home, his comfortable life, and the gods of his fathers. He was, in no small way, beginning a new life as a stranger in a strange land. It is notable that he did not hesitate. The text of Genesis has little to say about his personal thoughts, beyond a general statement that he simply obeyed. So Abram took with him his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, his possessions, his people, and his doubts if he had any. He began his travels toward Canaan.
A Promise without a Map
A close reading of the text reveals three great parts to the promise, each of which exceeded the limits of human experience. God told him, I will make you into a great nation, which he did, since Abraham is now the father of dozens of nations. God told him, I will give you this land, which he did not, since the land was only a promise and Abraham died in it without ever owning so much as a farmhouse. God told him, I will make through you a blessing for all the families of the earth, a promise that is still being fulfilled. It is also true that he never laid eyes on most of the things he was promised. He died in a foreign land, a stranger in his own promised home. The only land he owned was the cave where Sarah was buried. He is remarkable precisely because his actions reflected what he believed to be true, and he believed that he would one day inherit a land he never laid eyes on. He is further remarkable because later writers would find in his life a fitting example of devotion to a promise that seemed impossible. He obeyed the command to leave home, and he obeyed the command to journey toward a place described in no detail, and he obeyed the command to sacrifice something he loved.
God told Abraham to count the stars: so shall your offspring be.
Waiting in the Wilderness
It is hardly surprising that he grew impatient. Waiting in the wilderness for a son, he decided, after thirty years of marriage to his wife Sarah, that he would have to make do with a servant. So he said to God, You have given me no children, and so a servant born in the house will be my heir. God's answer was to take him out of the tent to look at the sky. He told Abraham to look at the stars if he could see them and to count them, for that many would be his descendants. Then he says something remarkable. Abram believed the word of God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. So he waited another twenty five years, but he was not disappointed. When a son was born to him and his one hundred year old wife, and when his mother's laughing disbelief was joined to his own, he named the boy Isaac, which means he laughs. The wilderness was not as lonely as it seemed.
The Man who Negotiated with God
There are two things that are noteworthy about Abraham in his encounters with God. When his nephew Lot was taken as prisoner of war by an alliance of kings, Abraham raised a force of three hundred and eighteen trained servants and went after them. He pursued them through the night and rescued Lot at the battle. The second encounter is even more remarkable. God told Abraham that He would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham asked Him, How many righteous people do You find there? Well, said Abraham, suppose there are fifty righteous in the city. Will you destroy it for the sake of ten? For forty? For thirty? For twenty? For ten? For that matter, even if not? God said to him, Well, maybe not. I would stay away from it. So Abraham argued with God and negotiated with Him, and God listened. Perhaps best of all, not even God objected to the idea that Abraham could negotiate with him. He is one of the few characters in the Bible who can be accused of having too much self-confidence, but even so, he was always careful to speak respectfully to God. Even when he spoke with the Judge of all the earth, he did not insult him, which is probably why God did not kill him.
Three days' walk, with the wood on the boy's shoulders: the hardest test of Abraham's life.
The Longest Step of All
And then comes the long step that has kept readers thinking and doubting for three thousand years. The God who had saved Abraham from Egypt and from the kings of Mesopotamia and from the flames of hell had grown increasingly insistent. Now he told Abraham to take his son, his only son, his beloved Isaac, and kill him on a distant mountain. The text is mercifully sparing with details. The mountain was three days' walk from where they were in the land of Moriah, where Abraham and Isaac walked for three days. When Isaac asked his father if he knew where the lamb was for the sacrifice, Abraham told him that God would provide a ram, and so he did. At the last moment, as Isaac lay bound on the altar and Abraham's hand was about to strike his heart, God called out to him and stopped him. Now I know that you fear God, said the voice, and Abraham called the mountain The Lord Will Provide, for God had provided a ram for the sacrifice. Jews remember this moment as the Akedah, and no one pretends that it is not the most horrifying moment in the Torah. No one doubts that this is the moment when Abraham had proved himself to be the most faithful servant of God, or that God had demonstrated that He did not require children on His altars.
Faith Counted as Righteousness
At the heart of Abraham's story was the simple statement that he had believed what God had said to him, and that believing had been counted to him for righteousness. Abraham believed God, the text said when he was out in the wilderness looking at the stars, and so it was counted to him for righteousness. His life was not an easy one, and his faith was not the kind of blind faith that sees everything as gold. It is also true that it was counted to him for righteousness, and that it would be counted to his children and his descendants for all time. Abraham is the father of faith, and his name was remembered not only in Judaism but in Christianity as well. Islam honors Ibrahim as a prophet and a model citizen of God's kingdom. More than half the people on earth believe in a God who has chosen to make Abraham the father of an entire nation of believers. He left behind the comforts of home and the familiar gods of his fathers and lived his life in a tent. He had only his children and his grandchildren, and his wealth, and the promise that it would all be his.
