This period of Israel history is recounted in Gen 12-50, and begins with the call by God to Abraham to leave his home in ancient Ur in Mesopotamia (c. 2000 BC) to follow Him to the land He will show him. By then many of the great civilizations 
had already come and gone. The Great Pyramids at Giza, for example, were already 500 years old, and decaying. The golden age of Ur was already past. Things were not faring well for the Mesopotamian civilizations and great swathes of people were on the move, looking for greener economic pastures.
Childless and old, this call tested Abraham as a man of faith. Coming eventually into the land we now know as Palestine Abraham received the specific promise from God that this land would one day be given to his descendants. The promise saw no fulfilment in this period time except for a small plot of land he bought to bury his wife Sarah in Keriath Arba (Hebron), and another small plot that his grandson Jacob purchased in Shechem. Two generations later Abraham�s household had grown to about seventy persons, and settled in the land of Egypt, where his great grandson Joseph would rise up to become chief minister to the Pharaoh.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2013