Genesis 12:5

And they went forth into the land of Canaan.

We must keep in mind that Abraham was. great pastoral chieftain,. prince like an Arabian Sheik of our own times. He was attended, wherever he journeyed, by his flocks and thousands of servants and tribesmen. At one time we see him leading 318 "trained servants," men drilled in the art of war, to battle. As manners have remained stereotyped for thousands of years in the East, we can form. pretty correct idea of Abraham's march, from observing that of. Bedouin encampment. Dean Stanley thus pictures it: "All the substance that they had gathered" is piled high on the backs of the kneeling camels. "The souls that they had gotten in Haran" run along by their sides. Round them are their flocks of sheep and goats, and the asses moving underneath the towering form of the camels. The chief is there, amid the stir of movement, or resting at noon under his black tent, marked out from the rest by his cloak of brilliant scarlet, by the fillet of rope that binds the loose handkerchief to his head, by the spear he holds in his hand to guide the march, or to fix the encampment. The chief's wife, the "princess" of her tribe, is there in her own tent, to make the cakes, or to prepare the usual meal of milk and butter; the servant or child is ready to bring in the red lentile soup for the weary hunter, or to kill the calf for the unexpected guest.

Into the land of Canaan they came.

The line of march would lead up the Euphrates, then across the desert to Damascus, where Abraham may have obtained his chief servant, Eliezer of Damascus; and the land of Palestine would be entered from the north.