Genesis 20:1: Four place names in one sentence, and the whole of a move in it
Read it →"From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar." One sentence, four places, and the end of the longest settled stretch of his life. "From there" is Mamre: he has been at the oaks near Hebron since Genesis 13:18, five chapters and twenty-odd years, and everything that has happened to him has happened from that tent. Now he goes south, and the verse spends its whole length saying where south is. It says it three ways, which is why it earns a map. The territory of the Negeb is the dry country below the Judean hills, and the sources anchor the whole region at the tell where Beersheba stands. Between Kadesh and Shur is a bearing rather than an address — two landmarks eighty miles apart, one an oasis in the northern Sinai and one the wilderness on the Egyptian frontier, and living between them means living out in that open country and not in a town. And then he sojourns in Gerar, which is a town: a Philistine one, on the wadi that still carries the name, thirty-five miles west of Hebron and twelve north-west of Beersheba. The sources are all but unanimous about it — 628 of 641 votes for Tel Haror. No reason is given for the move, which is unusual: the famine of Genesis 12 is stated, the parting from Lot is argued out over a chapter, and this one just happens. It is the first verse after the plain is destroyed and the first after Abraham has stood on his ridge and watched the smoke go up, and the country he leaves is the country he had that view from. What happens at Gerar is what happened in Egypt a quarter of a century earlier, almost line for line: he says of Sarah that she is his sister, the king sends and takes her, God intervenes before anything can come of it, and he is sent away rich and rebuked. This time he stays in the neighbourhood afterwards — the wells at Beersheba, the oath with Abimelech, and the tamarisk tree are all in the next chapter, twelve miles east of here.
Regions on this map
Thirty-five miles south-west of the oaks he had lived under for twenty years, off the hills and onto the wadi country of the western Negev. It is the one place in the verse he actually arrives at.
The Philistine town he sojourned in, where he said of Sarah "she is my sister" and heard from Abimelech the same answer Pharaoh had given him a quarter of a century earlier. The sources are all but unanimous about the tell: 628 of 641 votes for Tel Haror, on the wadi that still carries the name.
Today: Tel Haror, western Negev
The dry country under the Judean hills, where he spends more of his life than anywhere but Hebron. The sources anchor the whole region at the tell Beersheba stands on, eight chapters before he digs a well there.
The dry country south of the hills, and where Abraham spends more of his life than anywhere except Hebron. He was "still going toward" it when the famine sent him further south still; it is the first Canaanite ground he stands on coming back out of Egypt; and this verse sends him down into it for three chapters. Isaac is living in it when Rebekah arrives.
no point of its own; every source anchors the Negeb at Tel Be'er Sheva, which is the tell Beersheba stands on eight chapters later
Two landmarks eighty miles apart, given as a way of saying that he was living in open country rather than in a town. He never goes to either of them.
The northern end of the Sinai's largest oasis, and one half of the bearing this verse gives. It is the firmest identification on the frame — 773 votes for Ain el-Qudeirat — and Abraham arrives at it in none of the three verses that name it.
Today: Ain el-Qudeirat, northern Sinai
The wilderness on the Egyptian frontier, and the other half of the bearing. Genesis uses it three times as a direction and never as a destination: Hagar is found on the way to it, Abraham lives between it and Kadesh, and Ishmael's sons settle from Havilah to it. 298 of its 367 votes are for the same stretch of the north-western Sinai.
Today: the wilderness east of the Egyptian frontier (representative point)
Genesis 20:1 in full
- Genesis 20:1From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the and lived between and ; and he sojourned in .