Initially, God wanted Abram to leave the land of his birth, his relatives, friends, religion, etc. and move with his wife, servants, cattle, etc. to Canaan far to the west. Though we are not told exactly how the transition took place, I have a theory which follows. Abram’s society being patriarchal, he was still subject to his father, Terah. Therefore, God moved on Terah to leave Ur and move to Canaan. For whatever reason, Terah did not continue on to the Promised Land, but rather died in route. Now out from under his father’s authority, Abram was free to live where he wished. He wished to live where God told him to live.

God wanted Abram to leave the land of his birth in order to fulfil his commission to establish a homeland for those who would become His chosen people–Israel. To fulfil his commission Abram had to be separated from the heathen that surrounded him. By crossing over the Euphrates River he was crossing the “water of no return.” He was deliberately leaving sin behind in order to enter a right relationship with God. His “baptism” in the Euphrates River symbolized his sins being washed away. Many years later the descendants of Abraham (Abram) would hear the Lord tell them to follow Abraham’s example by crossing a body of water for the same reason–to leave sin behind in order to develop a right relationship with Him and to enter their Promised Land.

Upon entering Canaan, God had told Abraham that all of the land his feet touched would one day belong to his descendants. Generations later the Israelites left Egypt in order to occupy that land. The Scriptures tell us that the area God promised Abraham’s descendants (Israel) consisted of several times more land than what is known as Israel today. We find this written in Genesis 15:18 where God said to Abram: “Unto your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt (the Nile) unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” This meant that the Israelites would be bordered by water on three sides, the Mediterranean Sea forming the third border. This geographical configuration would make defending their land relatively easy. The Lord promised to push the pagan Canaanites out of the land. Israel was to keep them out and to make no covenants with them. God’s people were to have no social or spiritual relationships with their pagan neighbors. HIS RULE HAS NOT CHANGED.

The Scriptures tell us that, because the Israelites disobeyed the Lord, He had scattered them throughout the world where the vast majority of them live today as Gentiles. Approximately 5% of the world’s 15 million Jews (the tribes of Judah, Levi and Benjamin) live in the Promised Land today. The remaining 95% of Jews are scattered throughout the world. The other tribes of Israel also remain scattered throughout the nations, their ancestry unknown to both themselves and their Gentile neighbors. See White Fields.

God’s sin-and-suffer-the-consequences system applies to those individuals and nations who claim to be God’s people today. To understand this truth let us examine the act of “crossing over”/ “passing through” from a spiritual perspective, noting that it is still God’s method of separating church sheep from church goats. See The Church, the Gospel and the Goats. L.J.