Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/170

148 Here Terah sought him in secret; and Abraham addressed him a long discourse on the vanity of idol-worship, and the evil of serving the godless tyrant Nimrod. And Noah and Shern supported him.

Then Terah, who grieved over the death of his son Haran, consented to all that Abraham had said, and he went forth with Abraham and his wife Sarah, and Lot his grandson, the son of Haran, and all his household, and they settled at Charan, where the land was fruitful and well watered. The dwellers in Charan associated themselves with Abraham, who instructed them in the knowledge and fear of the Lord.

2. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM, AND THE VISIT TO EGYPT.

For three years Abraham dwelt in Charan, till God called him to go further with his wife Sarah, and to take up his abode in Canaan; but Terah and Lot remained at Charan. Abraham reached Canaan and pitched his tent among the inhabitants of that land; and on the spot where God promised that He would give him all that pleasant country for his inheritance, he erected an altar to the Eternal One. For fifteen years he had dwelt in Canaan, and Abraham was now aged 70, when, on the 15th day of the first month (Nisan), on the self-same day on which, in after years, the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the voice of God came to him saying, "I am the Lord that brought thee out of the furnace of Chaldæa; to thee will I give this land to inherit it." And he said, "Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Shall my descendants be faithful and true, and serve Thee the living God, or will they rebel against God, against Thee, as did the men before the Flood, and as did the men of Shinar who builded the tower?" Then God bade him take an heifer of three years old, or a she-goat of three years old, and a ram, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. And he took all these and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another; but the birds divided he not. And God said to him, "When, in after days, thy descendants shall build me a temple, in it shall these five kinds of victims be offered to me."