Happy New Year everyone!! God is good.
Reading Genesis this morning I noticed something cool… the oak of Moreh.
GOD talks to Abram and instructs him to move his family to Canaan. Traveling through Canaan, they came to a place near Shechem and set up camp beside the oak of Moreh. There is a specific rhythm to the Bible and if something stands out that means it’s supposed to! Right off the bat Abram just got there so it’s not a Faith Marker yet… Also, any monument or place of significance is usually significant due to its size (Mt Sinai, Mt Zion, etc etc). So I figured something was going on with the oak of Moreh!
Genesis 12:6 NCB
Abram traveled through the land until he arrived at Shechem near the oak of Moreh. In those days the Canaanites lived in that land.
ALWAYS check the OJB version!!!!
Genesis 12:6 OJB
And Avram passed through the land unto the makom Shechem, unto Elon Moreh. And the Kena’ani was then in ha’aretz.
From the Oak of Moreh we now have ELON MOREH…
ELON
Meaning: Oak
MOREH
Meaning: Teacher
Canaanites associated trees with their gods and goddesses, and the natural environment was important to their culture. ELON MOREH brings it up a notch; Oak Teacher… But then in Deuteronomy the “oaks” of Moreh is mentioned, giving a plural version.
Deuteronomy 11:30 TLB
(Gerizim and Ebal are mountains west of the Jordan River, where the Canaanites live, in the wasteland near Gilgal, where the oaks of Moreh are.)
No doubt the oak of Moreh is significant, but then Judges gives us a better look, referring to the great tree at the stone pillar (that Abram placed).
Judges 9:6 ICB
Then all of the leaders of Shechem and Beth Millo came together. They gathered beside the great tree at the stone pillar in Shechem.
With all that said, I reason that this was a grove of gigantic trees, having 350+ years to grow after the flood, and the locals (Canaanites) thought them to be spiritual. One could also speculate that Abram wasn’t blindly wondering and stumbled upon this place but was being directed by GOD.
