A Journey Through The Old Testament - Elmer Towns

Damascus (cf. 15:2-3). When Abram arrived in Canaan, he continued traveling south until he
came to Shechem.
EXPRESSING FAITH AMONG THE CANAANITES
(Gen. 12:6-8)
Abram’s first stop in Canaan was near Shechem at a landmark identified as “the terebinth
tree of Moreh” (Gen. 12:6). This tree was apparently a significant local landmark, probably a
particular oak tree used in some kind of pagan worship. The difficulty in specifically identifying
the particular kind of tree is evidenced in the varieties of oaks present in Israel. The Hebrew
word alon is used to identify as many as nine species of oak and as many as twelve other subvarieties.
These are among the largest trees in the region which is probably why they were
chosen as shrines for the worship of pagan deities.
Identified simply as alon Moreh, some identify this tree as belonging to a man named
Moreh. The name Moreh has been translated “teacher” or “soothsayer” and it may have been the
name was really a title for the priest of some local Canaanite cult. If this is true, it is interesting
to note that God revealed Himself to Abram and promised him the land of the Canaanites at the
very place where they would come to worship them false god and perhaps practice divination in
an effort to determine the will of their gods. Abram’s faith in God was in this way demonstrated
to be more effective than the pagan worship of his neighbors.
When Abram arrived, the Scripture notes, “And the Canaanites were then in the land” (v.
6). Some five centuries would pass before the descendants of Abram would under Joshua
conquer the Canaanites and take the land God had given them: The presence of the Canaanites
was yet another test of Abram’s faith. God promised to give his descendants an alreadypossessed
land. To make matters even worse, from all appearances the cursed Canaanites seemed
to be better off than the blessed Abram. For one who had been raised in Ur and had lived in
Haran, the lifestyle of a bedouin shepherd must have at times seemed less attractive than that of
city dwellers in Canaan. This may be one reason why Lot eventually abandoned his tents for a
home in Sodom (14:12).
The Canaanites were the descendants of Canaan, the cursed grandson of Noah. Following
the dispersion after the Tower of Babel, the Canaanites came to settle in the general region
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. When Joshua conquered the Canaanites
and occupied the “Promised Land,” he carried out the curse on Canaan, son of Ham. He was
made a servant at that time. The religious attitudes of the Canaanites centered around the worship
of Baal and a hierarchy of gods including one called El.
The El of the Canaanites was not the same god as the Elohim of the Old Testament which
is sometimes abbreviated El. The worship of the Canaanite El involved human sacrifice, usually
children, though sometimes adults, whereas the worship of God in the Old Testament forbade
human sacrifice. When Abram “built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him” (12:7), he
was worshiping the God whose attributes included justice (18:25), righteousness (v. 19), grace
(19:19), wisdom (20:6), mercy (v. 6) and faithfulness (24:27). No pagan deity in Canaan ever
possessed so high a moral character.
The worship of God in Abram’s life normally involved the building of an altar. The verb
translated “built” is a form of banah which was usually reserved for the building of something
out of stone blocks. In this way Abram was demonstrating his faith differed from the Babylonian
worship of the moon god Nauna(r)-Sin. In Babylon, altars were made of baked or unbaked
bricks. In Canaan, two kinds of altars were built, the altar of earth and the altar of stone (cf. Ex.