The Faith of Abraham: Obedience

by Abraham V. Llera

NASSIRIYAH, Iraq was one of the major battles during the initial stages of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. It
was also where US Army private Jessica Lynch was rescued by American special forces which later
was exposed as a fake rescue staged in time for the evening news.

A scant 16 km west of Nassiriyah is Ur (a.k.a. Ur Kasdim, Ur of the Chaldees), home to the greatest
model of obedience next to Mary: Abraham. You wont find Ur on any map, whats left of Ur now are ruins
and archaeological excavation sites, incredibly preserved to this day.

If you picture Abraham as a nomad living with his family in a tent on a desert with goats, sheep, and
camels and nobody else around him and his family for miles and miles aroundyou have the wrong
picture.

Abraham came ten generations after Noah, plenty of time for blast-to-the-future type of changes to come
about. Not surprisingly, Ur Kasdim in Abrahams time estimated to be around 2000 B.C to 1980 B.C. or
4,000 years ago was a bustling commercial hub of 24,000 to 65,000 people.

Picture narrow streets crammed with craftsmens shops selling everything from leather goods to precious
trinkets, with the river (a confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers) busy with cargo vessels fed by
cattle carts and donkey caravans that linked Ur and Mesopotamia with present-day Iran, Turkey, and
Afghanistan.

It was here in Ur Kasdim that Abram received his marching orders (more accurately, his walking orders)
from God.

Gen 12:1 The Lord had said to Abram, `Leave your country, your people and your fathers household
and go to the land I will show you.'

How do we know this happened in Ur Kasdim?

Stephen tells us in Acts 7:2-3: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in
Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. `Leave your country and your people, God said, `and go to the
land I will show you.

Nehemiah confirms this in Neh 9:7: You are the LORD God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur
of the Chaldeans.

The Lord Himself reminded Abraham later, when he was in Canaan: I am the LORD, who brought you
out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it (Gen. 15:7).

Not as the crow flies (straight line between two points), but as the ass plods along winding roads, a
journey from Ur Kasdim to Haran would be about 700 miles (1,126 kms), from Haran to central Canaan,
roughly 950 miles (1,528 kms) more, or a total of 2,654 kms, roughly the distance from Manila to
Davao and back, on foot!

You can just imagine the logistics that the trip involved. After Ur Kasdim, theres only one supply point
Haran and its 1,528 kms of no civilization before they reach their destination!
Food they take along in the form of rolling stock goats and sheep; but what about water? How about
food and water for their livestock? What about if they had pregnant women, nursing babies, or the
elderly, or the infirm with them? What about venomous snakes, scorpions, poisonous lizards and
spiders? And, yes, how about bandits and slave traffickers? Other caravans may also be plying the
route, but would they be friendly?

The caravan likely included the people above plus retainers (servants, slaves, their families), goods, and
animals on a hard trek, probably walking with possessions and provisions loaded on asses, covering
perhaps 10- 20 miles for each day on the road. There were no camels then.

One Rabbinic tradition has it that Abram was given a test, in fact, not just one test, but ten, the most
popular being the aborted sacrifice of Isaac. One other is his having to circumcise himself with a flint
knife at age 99. But the very first one is Gen 12:1: The Lord had said to Abram, `Leave your country,
your people and your fathers household and go to the land I will show you.'

The Lord wanted to see if Abram would obey or not. Like Mary, Abram had the freedom to say NO,
and for some very good reasons: he was already 75 when he left Haran for the final leg of his journey; he
prospered big time in Haran; and, in the language of Protestants, Abram had a thriving ministry in Haran,
converting many.

Yet Abram fulfilled his destiny, and completed the delayed journey to Canaan. Thats obedience for you.