Genesis 12:6

6 And Abram traversed the land lengthwise as far as the place Sychem, to the high oak, and the Chananites then inhabited the land.

Genesis 12:6 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 12:6

And Abram passed through the land
Entering the northern part of it, as appears by his going southward, ( Genesis 12:9 ) he went on

unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh;
the place afterwards called Shechem, from a prince of that name in the times of Jacob; and so it was called when Moses wrote, and therefore, by way of anticipation, calls it so here; it was about the middle of the land of Canaan, and the same with Sychar, a city of Samaria, in the times of Christ, ( John 4:5 ) . Moreh was the name of a man, from whence the plain took its name, which was near Sichem; some render it the oak of Moreh ^F5, perhaps the same with that in ( Genesis 35:4 ) or a grove of oaks of that name; the Syriac and Arabic versions render it the oak of Mamre wrongly.

And the Canaanite [was] then in the land;
in that part of the land where they were in Jacob's time, see ( Genesis 34:30 ) this land belonged to the posterity of Shem, but Canaan's offspring seized upon it and held it, as they did in the times of Moses, but were then quickly to be removed from it; but now they were settled in it in Abram's time, which was a trial of his faith, in the promise of it to his seed, as well as it was troublesome and dangerous to be in a country where such wicked and irreligious persons lived.

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 (hrwm Nwla) "quercetum More", Tigurine version, "quercum Moreh", Pagninus, Montanus.

Genesis 12:6 In-Context

4 And Abram went as the Lord spoke to him, and Lot departed with him, and Abram was seventy-five years old, when he went out of Charrhan.

5 And Abram took Sara his wife, and Lot the son of his brother, and all their possessions, as many as they had got, and every soul which they had got in Charrhan, and they went forth to go into the land of Chanaan.

6 And Abram traversed the land lengthwise as far as the place Sychem, to the high oak, and the Chananites then inhabited the land.

7 And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, I will give this land to thy seed. And Abram built an altar there to the Lord who appeared to him.

8 And he departed thence to the mountain eastward of Baethel, and there he pitched his tent in Baethel near the sea, and Aggai toward the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord, and called on the name of the Lord.