The Patriarchs
The earliest years of Jewish history are called the Patriarchal Age, and the men who were the leaders of the people were called Patriarchs. It was a very simple age. The people were nomadic, wandering from place to place to find pasturage for their great flocks and herds. They lived in tents. The patriarchs were the sheiks of the tribes, like sheik Ilderim in the story of "Ben-Hur." It must be remembered that they lived in a rude and uncivilized time. They had none of the high moral teaching which we have. They often did things which were evil, but they also sought earnestly after God, and often in the silence of the desert, under the stars of night, found him, and worshiped him as truly as we do. Their story is the common human tale of struggle and defeat and victory, which is repeated under different circumstances in every age.
ABRAHAM
The Story of the First Great Hero of Israel's History. How He Tented with His Flocks on the Upland Pastures of Palestine, and Became the Father of a Great Nation.
THE MIGRATION.
He Leaves His Father's Home and Journeys to a New Country.
There was a man named Abram, who lived in the city of Ur of the Chaldees.
Now the Lord said unto Abram, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth he blessed."
So Abram went, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and all their families and servants; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.