Genesis 12:5 - Exposition

And Abram took (an important addition to the foregoing statement, intimating that Abram did not go forth as a lonely wanderer, but accompanied by) Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all the substance — recush , acquired wealth, from racash , to gain (cf. Genesis 14:11 , Genesis 14:16 , Genesis 14:21 ; Genesis 15:14 ), which consisted chiefly in cattle, Lot and Abram being nomads— that they had gathered (not necessarily implying a protracted stay, as some allege), and the souls —here slaves and their children (cf. Ezekiel 27:13 )— that they had gotten —"not only as secular property for themselves, but as brethren to themselves, and as children of the one heavenly Father" (Wordsworth); that they had converted to the law (Onkelos); that they had proselyted (Raschi, Targam Jonathan, and Jerusalem Targum)— in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan ;—a prolepsis (cf. Genesis 11:31 , q.v.)— and into the land of Canaan they came —a distance of 300 miles from Haran, from which their course must have been across the Euphrates in one of its higher affluent, over the Syrian desert, southwards to Lebanon and Damascus (cf. Genesis 15:2 ), where, according to Josephus, the patriarch reigned for some considerable time, "being come with an army from the land of the Chaldaeans" ('Ant.,' 1.7), and a village survived to his day called "Abraham's habitation." According to the partitionists (Tuch, Bleek, Colenso, Davidson) this verse belongs to the Elohist or fundamental document; but if so, then the Jehovist represents Abram ( Genesis 12:6 ) as journeying through the land without having previously mentioned what land.