Gen 12:6 Back to the future

Gen 12:6   Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. (ESV)

I feel like I am going backwards at the moment. I was trying to work out where Abram went after God had spoken to him when I realised I didn't know where Abram was when God spoke to him. It was a place called Shechem, also called Shichem (Gen 12:6) and  Sychem (Acts 7:16) and is the first specific Palestinian place mentioned in Genesis. That has got to be worth thinking about for a bit.

Let's time travel back and watch the events that happened in this place over the course of the bible. At first it’s just a small collection of huts standing at the entrance to a narrow East, West valley. On either side of it stand the two tallest mountains in central Palestine (Mt Ebal and Mt Gerizim). A large number of people and livestock approach from the North. A man walks away from the main group and stands in the shade of a massive oak tree. As he looks around he becomes aware of another man standing near him. The man speaks “Abram, do you see all this land? I will give all this land to your decedents”. As Abram looks back the man he is gone.

Scroll forward a generation or so. There are more houses now and a fortifying wall has been put up around the settlement. Abram's grandson, Jacob, has just settled back in the land at  Shechem after meeting his brother Easu. He buys some land the and pitches his tents (Gen 33:18-19). A little later we see him burying a load of idols under the great oak (Gen 35:1-4). He also digs a well a short distance from the town (John 4:5-6).

Another generation passes and Joseph comes into sight looking for his brothers (Gen 37:12). He wanders about for a bit, speaks to a man in a field and then heads off North to Dothan. Joseph never comes back alive but years later Moses brings his bones with him out of Egypt and Joshua buries them here at Shechem (Gen 50:24-26, Ex 13:19, Josh 24:32, John 4:5).

After the Israelites took the land Joshua turns up here to underline the covenant a couple of times to the people (Josh 8:30-35, Josh 24). Gideon's son Abilmelech persuades the people of Shechem to accept him as their ruler and then murders his 70 brothers. The people gather at the great tree in Shechem to crown him King. Later the people rebel against him and he totally destroys the city. Israel reject Solomon's brother Rehoboam here (1 Kings 12:1-19) and by the time of the NT it has becomes a main settlement of the Samaritans bustling with life and activity.

A number of women are talking and laughing together as they draw water from the well just outside Shechem. As the sun gets higher in the sky and the day heats up they make their way back to the city. At noon a group of men arrive at the well. They talk and then all but one go into the city. Shortly after they enter a lone woman comes makes her way to the well. Jesus, seemingly unaware of cultural norms, strikes up a conversation with the woman and asks her for a drink.

In that place steeped in history, where God had first promised the land, were Josephs bone's lay, where idols had been buried and alters built: Jesus sits down by Jacob's well and talks with a Samarian women. What a context for a conversation! God had been faithful through the years as his people wobbled and wavered and now,  in the same place that God visibly appeared to Abram in the form of a man, Jesus, God incarnate, the word made flesh, the one to whom all the promises pointed, the Messiah, asks a lonely, broken lady for a drink. "If you only knew" he says. Wow.

I had no idea that this little place in the hill country of Ephraim (Jos 20:7) was going to be so interesting. The New Bible Dictionary tells me that today Tell Balata is on the same site some 30 miles north of Jerusalem. I'm so glad I lingered on this verse a while longer. I now feel ready to move forward and dive into the outworking of God's great plan to bless the nations in his Son Jesus Christ.    

Note Acts 7:16 seemed to say that Abraham brought the land where Joseph was buried (Gen 33:19, Joshua 24:32) but Jacob brought that land and Abraham purchases a cave in a field Genesis 23:3, 10, 17)