“Now there was a famine in the land of Canaan; and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there” (Gen. xii. 10).  Few events in the history of mankind are more interesting than the visit which the author of the Pentateuch thus places before us in less than a dozen words.  The “father of the faithful,” the great apostle of Monotheism, the wanderer from the distant “Ur of the Chaldees,” familiar with Babylonian greatness, and Babylonian dissoluteness, and Babylonian despotism, having quitted his city home and adopted the simple habits of a Syrian nomadic sheikh, finds himself forced to make acquaintance with a second form of civilization, a second great organized monarchy, and to become for a time a sojourner among the people who had held for centuries the valley of the Nile.  He had obeyed the call which took him from Ur to Haran, from Haran to Damascus, from Damascus to the hills of Canaan; he had divorced himself from city life and city usages; he had embraced the delights of that free, wandering existence which has at all times so singular a charm for many, and had dwelt for we know not how many years in different parts of Palestine, the chief of a tribe rich in flocks and herds, moving with them from place to place as the fancy took him.  It was assuredly with much reluctance that he quitted the open downs and fresh breezes and oak groves of Canaan the land promised to him and to his seed after him, and took his way through the “desert of the south” to the great kingdom with which he and his race could never hope to be on terms of solid friendship.  But the necessity which constrained him was imperative.  When, from the want of the ordinary spring rains, drought and famine set in on the Palestinian uplands, there was in ancient times but one resource.  Egypt was known as a land of plenty.  Whether it were Hebrew nomads, or Hittite warriors, or Phoenician traders that suffered, Egypt was the sole refuge, the sole hope.  There the river gave the plenteous sustenance which would be elsewhere sought in vain.  There were granaries and storehouses, and an old established system whereby corn was laid up as a reserve in case of need, both by private individuals of the wealthier classes and by the kings.  There among the highest officers of state was the “steward of the public granary.” whose business it was, when famine pressed, to provide, so far as was possible, both for natives and foreigners, alleviating the distress of all, while safeguarding, of course, the king’s interests (Gen. xlvii. 13-26).

Abraham, therefore, when he found that “the famine was grievous in the land” of Canaan, did the only thing that it was possible for him to do—­left Palestine, and wended his way through the desert to the Egyptian frontier.  What company he took with him is uncertain.  A few years later we find him at the head of a body of three hundred and eighteen men capable of bearing arms—­“trained servants born in his house”—­which implies the headship over a tribe of at least twelve