And Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him.
Abram has just crossed into Canaan, and the land God promised him is already full of other people. Now, for the first time since the call, the LORD appears to him, names the land as a gift for his offspring, and Abram answers with an altar.
God had said nothing new to Abram since he left Ur. The appearing comes only after Abram reaches the place God named.
His first act, on arrival at the plain of Moreh, near Shechem, was to put up an altar. At this spot the LORD appeared to him and renewed His promise: "to your offspring I will give this land." This is the first recorded time God showed Himself since Abram left Ur of the Chaldeans. It illustrates our Lord's words to His disciples in John 14:21: "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Obedience always brings the light and joy of the Lord's presence as its reward to the soul.
Compare what God said at the start with what He says now. The wording has changed, and so has the way God speaks. (The older translation quoted below reads "the LORD had said" in verse 1; the ESV has "the LORD said.")
"The LORD appeared to Abram" — He not only spoke but "appeared." To my mind that word is not casual but deliberate... The first time, all we read is that "the LORD had said." Now we find that "the LORD appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land." Nothing is vague any longer. It is precise. It is not "a land that I will show you," but "to your offspring I will give this land." What is the consequence? There "he built an altar to the LORD" — and not only that, but "to the LORD who had appeared to him." So it is clear to my mind that this was what had to come before worship. Worship waits until the Lord shows Himself.
The verse before this one says the Canaanite was in the land. The order of the two statements is deliberate.
The presence of the Canaanite in God's land was bound to test Abraham. It would be a demand upon his faith and hope, an exercise of heart, a trial of patience... But there, too, he finds the Lord... "The Canaanites were in the land." The Canaanite held it at that moment. So that Abraham's eye would not rest on him, the LORD appears to Abraham as the One who was going to give the land to him and to his offspring forever. So Abraham was taken up with the Lord, and not with the Canaanite... instead of dwelling on Satan's power to keep us out of the inheritance, we should grasp Christ's power to bring us in.
Abram owned none of this land, yet he built. The altar said something to the people around him and something to God.
Abraham had answered God's call and reached the land of his pilgrimage. Then God appeared to him and told him His purpose about his inheritance. Only then did Abram build his altar. You could say he built it in the light of God's purpose. To the Canaanite in the land, the altar was a witness that this pilgrim and stranger among them had a God he worshipped. To God, the altar was the evidence that Abraham wanted to meet His mind and will by having communion with Him.
The place names are not decoration. One writer reads them as a picture of how we learn from God.
We hear of the first halt at Sichem (Shechem), at the oak of Moreh. The first of these words means "shoulder." The second means "instructor." We find instruction when we bow our shoulder to carry the load. He who is willing to do God's will shall know the teaching: he who will learn of Christ must take His yoke.
Commentators differ in emphasis here. Some tie this promise to Israel and the land itself. Others read it through what the New Testament says about Abraham's offspring.
In Galatians 3:16 the apostle is speaking of Genesis 12 and 22, but there he means one special offspring. God made the promise to Abraham alone, and confirmed it to his offspring in Genesis 22... The reasoning in Galatians is that Christ alone is the offspring meant in Genesis 22, where God speaks of the nations of the world. And if we are in Christ, then we too are the offspring of Abraham.
What begins here does not stay a single episode. The altar of verse 7 and the tent of verse 8 become the shape of everything that follows.
"And Abraham built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him." He serves God and enjoys communion with Him. From there he goes to another place and pitches his tent. He builds a new altar to the LORD and calls on the name of the LORD. He is a pilgrim in the land of promise; and that is his entire history... Abraham's tent and altar here shape his whole history, and every experience of faith grows out of those two things.
- Obey, then see. No further light came to Abram until he reached the land God named. Obedience brought the appearing.
- See, then know. What was once "a land that I will show you" becomes "this land" — vagueness replaced by a definite gift.
- Know, then worship. Abram raised the altar to the LORD "who had appeared to him"; worship waits on God making Himself known.
- Worship, then witness. The same altar told the Canaanite that this stranger had a God, and told God that Abram wanted communion with Him.
- Witness, then wait. The land was occupied and the promise still unfulfilled. So Abram lived by tent and altar — a pilgrim whose inheritance rests on the promised offspring.
And he removed thence towards the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, [having] Bethel toward the west, and Ai toward the east; and there he built an altar to Jehovah, and called on the name of Jehovah.
Abram moves on, climbs into the hills, and settles nowhere. He pitches a tent and builds an altar between two towns — Bethel, "house of God," and Ai, "a heap of ruins" — and the verse raises one question: why does a man promised a whole land own nothing in it but a tent and an altar?
The wording marks a change.
Abraham and those with him answered God's call by faith, and so became strangers and exiles. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit says that they "acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13). This stands out in his history. In Haran, Abraham stayed for a time, and we read that he "settled there." Once he reached the land, we read that he "pitched his tent," like a man with no fixed home. We also read that he "passed through the land." As a stranger he had only a tent in this world. As a pilgrim he was passing through to another world.
Hamilton Smith (older translations read "dwelt there" and "strangers and pilgrims")
The altar is Abram's answer to something God did first.
He built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. Again he built an altar, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he called upon the name of the LORD. The revelation of the LORD produces worship. The basis of worship is a conscious and precious relationship with the LORD. Abram knew the LORD's grace toward him; therefore he worshipped Him and called upon His name.
Together the two objects give the shape of the man.
The tent and the altar clearly present him to us as a stranger and a worshipper. As such, he was a man entirely separated from the course of this evil world.
The names on both sides of the tent matter.
He worships in the fullness of blessing, and then his "tent" also comes into view for the first time, pitched on the mountain east of Bethel. "Ai" means "a heap of ruin." It is the city that resists the power of Israel in Joshua, after Jericho falls to the ground. It is as if the ruins of Jericho had risen up against those who had lost God's victorious presence, their strength. As a picture, Ai is no doubt the ruined old creation. So Abram pitches his tent between a judged world and the "house of God," with both in view.
The last clause of the verse has a cause behind it.
Calling on the name of the LORD showed Abram's knowledge of the LORD and his dependence on Him. The altar was the outward evidence of his link with God, a testimony for everyone to take account of. But his calling on the name of the LORD was not only a profession of faith in Him. It was also the evidence of a living link formed by the call of God. Abram would never have called on the name of the LORD if God had not first called Abram while he was in Ur of the Chaldeans. God's call gave him the power to answer it. That call also gave him the desire and understanding to call upon the LORD's name.
The land is not yet his, and the Canaanites are still in it. That is where the altar goes up.
Abram was not called to drive out the Canaanite. Yet we find his altar to the LORD on the very ground of the wicked nations, and his tent as well. Here is a worshipper and a stranger in the very place where the Canaanite was flourishing. Here is an altar with the smoke of accepted sacrifice rising in the very face of the enemy. It is a wonderful sight. We may well travel back in spirit to the tent pitched between Bethel and Ai. There we can bless the LORD, who could sustain the pilgrim father and his household in true worship in the enemy's own stronghold.
This spot becomes a fixed point in Abram's story. The rest of the chapter shows the cost of leaving it.
Pressed by circumstances, he does not consult God. He finds himself in the presence of the world, where he had sought help and refuge, and he denies his true relationship with his wife. The world cherishes him, and God at last judges that world, sending Abram out of it again. During this whole period, and until he had returned to the place from which he started, he had no altar.
- Call — God spoke first; Abram could only call on that name because that name had already called him out of Ur.
- Tent — in Haran he settled; in the promised land he only pitches a tent. He is a stranger passing through to another world.
- Altar — the LORD appeared, and worship followed. Revelation produces worship, and tent and altar together mark Abram as stranger and worshipper.
- Position — the tent stands between Bethel, "house of God," and Ai, "a heap of ruin." God's dwelling is on one side, a judged world on the other. Abram keeps both in view.
- Return — Egypt cost him the altar; not until he came back to this exact place did he have one again.