How was Abraham's journey to Canaan?

Answer 1

The story begins with Terah, whose sons were Abram, Nahor and Haran. Abram married Sarai, who we learn later was also his sister. Haran, who was the father of Lot, died in the family’s home city of Ur of the Chaldees. Terah then took his extended family to Haran near Canaan, and died there. Ur and Haran happened to be the chief cities of the moon god Sin, which some scholars see as significant in the early development of the Abraham legend.

According to The Bible, God told Abram he would make of him a great nation, and said to go to a new land that he would give to his descendants. Abram was seventy five when he left Haran with Lot and his family (12:4) and travelled to Canaan. When Abram reached Shechem, God told him that he would give this land to Abram's descendants, but Abram continued south into the Negev desert. When there was a famine in the land, Abram travelled to Egypt.

Genesis gives two parallel stories of Abraham where he got tangled up in his deviousness. First he told the Pharaoh that his wife Sarah was his sister, for fear that the Pharaoh would kill him in order to have sex with her (12:13), only to be found out and banished from Egypt, returning to the Negev. Later (20:2), for the same reason, he told the king of Gerar that his by now quite elderly wife (Sarah was now over 90 years old and stricken with age) really was his sister.

Back in the Negev, there was strife between those who tended Abram's flocks and those who tended Lot's, so they parted ways, with Lot crossing the Jordan and Abram staying in the land of Canaan.