Famine in the Promised Land
Text: Genesis 12:1-20
Today, may or may not be the beginning of a journey together. But whether God allows me to stay with you over a long period of time or whether today is merely a temporary lesson for an eternal purpose, God has placed this message on my heart. Today, I want to tell you a story. Like most stories, it doesn’t begin with an individual. It begins in an environment. It begins in a family.
Now, I know most pastors jump right into the Abraham account in verse 1 of Chapter 12 of Genesis. I think we have to step back a few verses and see what happened. It seems in Genesis 11:26-32 that there were ten generations from Shem, the son of Noah whose name means “placed” or “appointed” to indicate that something special was to come through him, to Terah. The number 10, of course, is equal to the number of digits we have on our two hands and our two feet. So, symbolically, 10 became the number that represented sufficiency. If we have two hands full, we’ve got all we can handle, temporarily.
So, God began working in the Semite lineage and it must have reached a milestone in potential because we find ourselves reading about the tenth generation. Of course, where Shem’s name has the idea of being “placed” or “appointed” for a purpose, Terah’s name comes from the Akkadian for “ibex” or “wild goat.” Apparently, he was supposed to wander, but he “settles” for Haran instead of the land of promise while his son, Abram (“great father”) and Sarai (first “contentious” but later “princess”) become the lineage of promise. The irony, of course, is that the “Great Father” is married to a woman who, according to v. 30, is unable to have children.
Now, I have something positive and something negative to say about Terah. The positive is the fact that he inculcated a vision for the land of promise in his family. The negative is that he “settled” for something less. Either he became tired, he became ill, or he became comfortable with the fertile lands on the bank of the Euphrates and didn’t follow his dream to the conclusion. There is a Jewish midrash (not Scripture) that tells a funny story about Terah being a merchant who sold idols but had a son named Abram who wasn’t convinced about the validity of the gods because the real God had been speaking to him. Since it isn’t actually scripture, I’m going to do a very Hebrew thing and expand it a little.
One day, when Terah was taking his lunch break, Abram was left to mind the store. A customer came in looking for a new god because he wasn’t having much fortune in his life. So, he asked Abram for a recommendation and Abram decided to demonstrate that none of these idols had any power. He started systematically destroying the idols and throwing them down to the ground and scared the customer to death. The customer went out of the shop running and screaming lest he be struck down for the blasphemy Abram was committing. Terah sees the customer running out, takes in the destruction at the shop, and asks Abram who committed this blasphemy. Abram points to the largest idol because he doesn’t believe the idols can really do anything. This frightens Terah so that he decides to go to a land where they worship other gods in order to avoid repercussions from both the gods and the mob (a city isn’t going to take kindly to having its gods destroyed).
I love the story because it illustrates something about the way a person might become disillusioned with those things that everyone else accepts as gods, but I don’t accept the story because Genesis 11 seems to indicate that Terah was headed for the land of promise. I think this is more positive because I’ve seen lots of parents who instilled a dream in their children. In fact, Wailam’s (my wife’s) mother gave her the dream of studying in America. But her mother died before she could see that Wailam finished her education at the American School. As a result, Wailam had to go through a long, convoluted path before she could get to America. Of course, here she won the ultimate prize…me. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
The point is that parents need to pass along dreams, values, skills, knowledge, and insight to their children. But more importantly, we need to pass along our faith and our assurance of the salvation and sanctification that comes from God. And, I believe Terah did that, even if he didn’t get to experience the land of promise (or lost the conviction that he needed to experience the land of promise) with Abram.
The negative aspect can be expressed by examining the verb “settled” as something of a pun. Naturally, the English translation is just translating the verb as “settled,” “lived,” and “dwelt,” but the English has the advantage of suggesting something else. To us, “settling” not only means to settle down and live your life, but it means to accept something less than what we could have had. We settle for a less exciting job than we want; we settle for a more practical car or house than we want; and we settle for a school with less reputation than the university we really wanted to attend. What has happened? We’ve lost the vision.
I also can’t resist making a point made by one of my old college professors. Dr. Cecil Hyatt always used to say that almost anytime God is about to move, there have to be some first-class funerals before there can be a first-class revival. Terah dies before Abram goes onward to the land of promise, a whole generation dies before Israel conquers the land of promise, in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord, and more. In fact, aren’t we as believers supposed to die to Sin and self prior to Christ living within us as per Galatians 2:20?
Well, there are times when we have to look realistically at our chances, but we should never lose the vision of what God wants us to do. Indeed, in many ways, the vision defines us. So, let’s look at Chapter 12. In verse 1, the first thing we’re told is that God called Abram to leave the comfortable and the familiar to go where God would show him. The journey of faith begins with an exodus from the familiar and the comfortable. We have to be willing to risk the unknown, the uncertain, and the unexpected. I like to use a baseball analogy here. Have you ever heard, “You can’t steal second with your foot on first?” Well, the life of faith works in the same way. We can’t place ourselves in God’s hands while we’re hedging our bets in the world.
But the life of faith has its own reward. Notice there are three important verbs in the first person in these first few verses. They even sound a lot alike in the Hebrew: “ehr-eh-kah” I will SHOW you, “eh-ehs-kah” – I will MAKE you, and “eh-vah-reh-kah” I will BLESS you. God wants to give us the vision for where we need to go, God wants to craft us into what we need to be in order to reach for that vision, and, in all of this, God wants to fulfill us—give us a tangible sense that God is accomplishing something in our lives.
Look at your map again here for a moment. Notice that Haran is on the east side of the Euphrates. To get to the land of promise, you have to cross over or pass over the Euphrates River. The Hebrew verb for doing that is “ah-VAHR” and, in the Hebrew, it is the root for the very name “Hebrew.” (Note: It may not be in other languages because one word, “apiru,” which means rabble has been suggested as the root for “Hebrew.” If so, the Hebrew name puts a more positive spin on the race, much like the term “Christian” was essentially supposed to mock believers as “Little Christs,” but is generally perceived as positive today.) Abram is defined as a Hebrew because he passed over the Euphrates, the Exodus generation was defined as Hebrew because they passed over the Sea of Reeds, and the conquest generation was defined as Hebrew because they passed over the Jordan. The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 6 that New Testament believers passed over the waters of baptism and became defined as God’s people at that point.
There comes a time in the walk of faith in which we have to be willing to be identified as God’s People. There comes a time when we have to be willing to have people shake their heads and wonder what we’re thinking that we would leave the fertile lands of Haran, risk the crossing of the Euphrates and strike out in the direction of Damascus. Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m mentioning Damascus since Genesis 12 doesn’t. I mention it for two reasons: 1) Genesis 15 tells us that Abram had named as his heir a steward by the name of Eliezer of Damascus (I figure Abram must have picked him up somewhere and it might as well have been in Damascus itself.) and 2) Josephus’ history (not a book of the Bible) describes a time when Abram was considered “King of Damascus.” The latter may not be so, but it might be. After all, by Genesis 14 Abram has some kind of army around his household—enough to defeat a coalition of kings in battle.
If Abram did spend some time in Damascus before continuing on his way, I think it might suggest something else to us. God doesn’t always take us on a straight line to our destinations. Sometimes, we need extra experience to knock off some of our rough edges. Sometimes, we need seasoning the task that God has for us. Sometimes, God has to take us into our own personal “desert” to teach us to depend upon God rather than ourselves. Regardless, IF Abram spent any time in Damascus before heading on to the land of promise, God used it. And IF we seem to spend any amount of time going about in circles or working at something other than what God has called us to, God will use those experiences, also. God doesn’t let anything in our lives go to waste. God uses it all to mold us and make us what God wants us to be.
Eventually, though, Abram does reach the land of promise. The first stop is Shechem. There, Abram camps beside what the general population calls a sacred tree. There, in the midst of those his descendents will eventually conquer, Abram builds an altar. Even though there is the “option” of a sacred tree, Abram doesn’t compromise. Abram knows he has reached the land of promise to worship the God who is SHOWING him where to go, MAKING him what he ought to be, and BLESSING him.
The next two stops I want you to see in the text are Bethel and Ai. We see in verse 7 that Abram builds an altar there. Now, I find it interesting that “Bethel” means “House of God” and “Ai” means “Ruin.” Here we have Abram living and worshipping right in between God’s house and ruin. And the fact is, all Christians live in that tension. Because we live in this world instead of the heavenly dimension, we all live between God’s house and potential ruin. And where we end up depends on where we’re focused. Are we focused on God or are we focused on the limitations of this world?
Now, eventually, we read that Abram migrated toward the Negev, the desert. Now, that’s not a problem for me, but I notice something significant here. When he was up in the land of promise proper, we see Abram building altars. As he moves by stages toward the Negev, we don’t see references to the altar building. Is it possible that Abram has lost some of his zeal?
Whether he has lost zeal or not, we read something very disturbing in verse 13. There was a famine in the land of promise. What?! God promised to bless Abram and his family if Abram came to the land of promise. Now, there’s a famine! Abram started the journey of faith and, instead of experiencing security, success, and well-being, he has to worry about finding enough to eat for his household. He did the will of God and he was still victimized by circumstances.
What does that tell us? It tells us that God didn’t promise us a Disneyland existence where everything is clean and everybody smiles. Simply because we are doing what God wants us to do doesn’t mean that everything is going to go smoothly. If everything did go smoothly, if there was no friction, what would having “faith” mean? It isn’t really faith if we just plug into the plan that makes everything go perfectly. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for…” not having everything given to you. Faith is working out God’s plan even when it’s difficult. I’ve always gravitated to that definition of faith given by a former pastor of mine, “Faith means believing God even when it looks bad for Him.” That’s why Hebrews 11:1 follows up the initial definition with, “…the evidence of things not-seen.”
If we could see everything God was doing and understood everything God was doing, it would be KNOWLEDGE not faith, it would be SIGHT not faith. And remember, we walk by faith and not by sight. God doesn’t want His people tied down by the senses and dimensionality of this world when faith can open us up to the heavenly dimension and spiritual reality.
Alas, even though Abram is held up as a paradigm of faith in Pauline writing, he doesn’t act in faith here. Instead of hanging in there in the land of promise, Abram just keeps heading south out of the land of promise and into Egypt. Now, that’s significant. Most of the time, the Bible uses Egypt as a negative symbol. Egypt is the land of slavery, a bad alliance for Israel, and a symbol of materialism. Egypt is the old world order, the land of unfaith.
But the Bible is a realistic book. It doesn’t present superhuman people to us. It presents real people and Abram makes a very real decision. He hears there is food and provision in Egypt and he leaves the land of promise to find it. What is he doing? He’s walking by sight instead of by faith. He’s looking for the easy way out of trouble instead of looking for God’s way. Instead of letting God deliver him miraculously, he goes for easy way.
I have a friend who thinks my interpretation is unfair. He points to Abram’s wealth coming out of Egypt as evidence that Egypt was God’s plan to save Abram from the famine. Of course, I keep telling him that there are so many problems with that. First of all, God TOLD Abram to go to the land of promise. We see no hint that God told him to go to Egypt in the text. Second, we don’t see Abram building any more altars. So, it doesn’t appear that he was seeking God’s guidance before moving on. Third, Abram has to mislead the Egyptians in order to feel safe. It is true that some texts indicate that Sarai was Abram’s half-sister and it is true that, in the area surrounding Haran (Nuzi), it was a practice for a husband to adopt his wife as a sister to tie two families even closer together. However, even if Sarai was legally, technically Abram’s adopted sister or half-sister, she was more realistically his wife and Abram was deliberately misleading the Egyptians to believe that she was not his wife. I don’t believe we have to mislead people in order to act in faith. Fourth, by not being truthful about Sarai’s relationship to Abram, Abram put the promise (of becoming a great nation) at risk. Sarai was admitted into Pharaoh’s harem. If God hadn’t intervened with the plague and the dream, it’s possible she could have ended up pregnant with an Egyptian child instead of the child of promise.
Worst of all, I think we need to consider the fact that Abram’s action, his non-faith, not only puts himself at risk (as he feared before he misled the Egyptians) and the promise at risk (since Sarai ended up in the harem), but also puts Pharaoh and his wives at risk. You see, whenever we disobey God, whenever we start heading our own direction, we put those around us at risk. Sometimes, our irresponsibility does collateral damage on others. So, even if we don’t care about ourselves, we should be careful not to put others at risk.
Well, the famine story has a happy ending. Pharaoh is so relieved that God is sparing him that he offers Abram some enormous wealth as a bribe just to get him away from Egypt. To me, this is very important. It indicates that God takes us as we are and, according to God’s timing, he can still make our crooked lines straight.
