Bibelkommentare

On his arrival in Canaan, “ Abram passed through the land to the place of Sichem: ” i.e., the place where Sichem, the present Nablus, afterwards stood, between Ebal and Gerizim, in the heart of the land. “ To the terebinth (or, according to Deuteronomy 11:30, the terebinths) of Moreh:” אלון איל (Genesis 14:6) and אילה are the terebinth, אלּון and אלּה the oak; though in many MSS and editions אלּון and אלון are interchanged in Joshua 19:33 and Judges 4:11, either because the pointing in one of these passages is inaccurate, or because the word itself was uncertain, as the ever-green oaks and terebinths resemble one another in the colour of their foliage and their fissured bark of sombre grey. - The notice that “ the Canaanites were then in the land ” does not point to a post-Mosaic date, when the Canaanites were extinct. For it does not mean that the Canaanites were then still in the land, but refers to the promise which follows, that God would give this land to the seed of Abram (Genesis 12:7), and merely states that the land into which Abram had come was not uninhabited and without a possessor; so that Abram could not regard it at once as his own and proceed to take possession of it, but could only wander in it in faith as in a foreign land (Hebrews 11:9).

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Here in Sichem Jehovah appeared to him, and assured him of the possession of the land of Canaan for his descendants. The assurance was made by means of an appearance of Jehovah, as a sign that this land was henceforth to be the scene of the manifestation of Jehovah. Abram understood this, “ and there builded he an altar to Jehovah, who appeared to him, ” to make the soil which was hallowed by the appearance of God a place for the worship of the God who appeared to him.

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