But after his father died the divine voice called him to go forward. Besides Sarah, the wife of Abraham, only Lot chose to share the pilgrim life. Abraham possessed large flocks and many servants. He was never to return to his homeland, and he took all that he had with him—“all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran.” In Haran both Abraham and Sarah had led others to the worship of the true God. These went with him to the land of promise, “the land of Canaan.”
The first place where they stayed was Shechem. Abraham made his camp in a wide, grassy valley, with its olive groves and gushing springs.. It was a beautiful and fertile country, “a land of brooks of water, ... of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey” (Deuteronomy 8:7, 8). But a heavy shadow rested on the wooded hills and fruitful plains—the altars of false gods were set up in the groves, and human sacrifices were offered on nearby hills.
Then “the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’” His faith was strengthened by this assurance. “And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.” Still a traveler, he soon journeyed to a spot near Bethel and again built an altar and called on the name of the Lord.
Abraham set us a worthy example. His was a life of prayer. Wherever he pitched his tent, close beside he set up his altar, calling everyone in his camp to the morning and evening sacrifice. When he moved away, the altar remained. Roving Canaanites were taught by Abraham, and wherever any of these came to that altar, they worshiped the living God there.
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