God directed Abram to go "to the land that I will show you" (Ge 12:1). We are not told how much advance information Abram was given about his destination. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik suggests that the journey was meant to develop Abram's "spiritual radar" for detecting holiness. In this scenario, Abram followed the lead of this radar until he reached the intended destination, and then God appeared to him and confirmed his choice (Gen 12:7).
Abram would have entered the Promised Land in the north, the most fertile region, but he continued on to the arid southern part of the land (v 9). This raises the question of why Abram didn't stay in the north. One proposed answer is that the holiness of Jerusalem drew him to continue southward.
On his journey Abram came "to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh" (v 6). Soloveitchik notes that in the patriarchal narrative, the word for place (makom) sometimes refers to a place of prayer (e.g., Ge 19:27; 28:11). Perhaps Abram prayed that his great-grandchildren would resist the possibility of assimilation with the Shechemites raised by Hamor's proposal (Ge 34:9-10). Perhaps he also prayed that his descendants would come again safely to the oak of Moreh (Dt 11:30) to confirm the covenant there.
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