Staying Alive

In Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai and their traveling band flee starvation during a famine by heading towards Egypt...a story that will repeat on a grand scale later on, eventually leading to the whole Moses phenomenon. Here in chapter 12, we run into another repeating story, the "if they know you are my wife they will kill me to get to you, so just pretend you're my sister, okay?" story. A story important enough to tell over again with other characters in a few chapters, but odd enough that most preachers don't use it as a Sunday morning text.

What to do with this subterfuge and handing over to haremdom? (Not to mention the uncomfortable detail that Sarai doesn't have to entirely lie when she says she is Abram's sister...they hadn't yet discovered the genetic woes of inbreeding.)

Perhaps it is as basic as taking the story at face value. Abram says it plainly. "I know you are beautiful woman, and when the Egyptians see you, they will kill me. Say you are my sister, that it may go better for me, and that my life will be spared on your account."

This was no trip down the interstate to Disney World. Travel was risk.

For perspective, here is an excerpt from Volume 1, Number 2 of the National Geographic Magazine, published in 1889. In this excerpt, the President of the National Geographic Society, Gardiner G. Hubbard, writes about Europeans exploring Africa.

"...travelers in ever-increasing numbers have entered Africa on every side. Some who have entered...have been lost in its wilds and two or three years after have emerged on the opposite coast; others have passed from the coast, and have never been heard from...."
"Stanley started from Zanzibar on his search for Livingstone with two white men, but returned alone. Cameron set out by the same path with two companions, but upon reaching the lake region, he was alone..."
"Probably every second man, stricken down by fever or accident, has left his bones to bleach along the road."

When God said, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you," it was no simple journey.

Lives were constantly at stake.

Sarai was very beautiful. And for her sake, Pharoah dealt well with Abram.

One less set of bones bleaching along the roadside.

Haran Haran

Late in Genesis 11, after a bunch of begatting and geneaology, we meet Terah. Terah was the father of three sons: (1) Abram, who will later become Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, (2) Nahor, who was named after his granddaddy, and (3) Haran.

Today, let us ponder number three son, Haran. Haran was the father of Lot. Lot will become famous for traveling with his uncle Abraham and for living in Somom and Gommorrah, for losing his wife to saltdom, for sleeping with his daughters and becoming the ancestor of enemy nations. Many cool things.

Haran becomes famous for nothing, which is to say, not famous at all. But here at the end of chapter 11, his name pops up with odd regularity. Haran is the son of Terah. Haran is the name of Nahor's (number two son) father-in-law. Haran is the name of the town where papa Terah dies. For a small number of verses, everything comes up Haran. Haran Haran Haran.

I'm struck by the pain in verse 11:28. "Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans." Maybe it is because I've seen too often the pain of parents outliving their children. Maybe it is because he died before they ever left to see the world. But it strikes me as so deeply sad.

Perhaps when they did travel, they named the place they first settled after this lost son and brother and father. They took his memory with them. The place became Haran.

The invisible character, the memory that makes the journey. The grief between the lines.

Haran, Haran, Haran. Someone remembered him.