“Long Camping Trip!”

Genesis 12: 4, 6: “So Abram went forth as the Lord has spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran … And Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh.” We know that Abraham lived to the age of 175 (Genesis 25: 7), so that means he lived in Canaan for one hundred years. Although he traveled occasionally, especially in the early days, he lived almost all of that time in a tent in Shechem, under the teberinth tree. Yet in that entire century, he never built a house. Why not? Because he did not own the land; it belonged to the Canaanites. It seems he believed in the promise of God that his descendants would possess the land, and was willing to wait. He never even considered anything as foolish as squatter’s rights!