“And Avram was 75 years old when he left Charan” (B’reishis 12:4). Since he was 100 when Yitzchok was born (21:5), the move to Canaan from Charan must have happened 25 years earlier. However, when explaining how the verse (Sh’mos 12:40) could say the Children of Israel were in Egypt for 430 years, or Avraham could be told his descendants would be subservient to another nation for 400 years (B’reishis 15:13), if the exodus occurred only 210 years after Yaakov’s son arrived in Egypt (see Rashi on 15:13), Seder Olam (1) tells us that Avraham was informed about the servitude in Egypt at the Bris bein HaB’sarim (BBhB) 430 years before it ended and 30 years before Yitzchok was born (400 years before the exodus). This would make Avraham 70 at the BBhB, which occurred in Canaan (see 15:7 and 15:16). In order to explain how Avraham could have been in Canaan when he was 70 if he didn’t leave Charan until he was 75, Seder Olam says that he made more than one trip to Canaan from Charan; he was in Canaan when he was 70, when the BBhB occurred, returned to Charan afterwards, and moved to Canaan permanently when he was 75.
If the BBhB occurred five years before Avraham moved to Charan, it would seem that the narrative(s) in Parashas Lech Lecha cannot be in chronological order. There are other explanations for the “430 years in Egypt” (seehttp://rabbidmk.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/parashas-lech-lecha-5772/), with one of the main reasons others prefer a different explanation being to maintain a chronological order. Nevertheless, according to Seder Olam (and the numerous Midrashim and commentators who follow its approach), the BBhB, which is taught towards the end of Parashas Lech Lecha, occurred five years before Avraham moved from Charan to Canaan, which is taught at the very beginning of Parashas Lech Lecha. But where does this “switch,” when the narrative goes back in time, occur?
The Talmud (B’rachos 7b) credits Avraham with being the first person to refer to G-d as “Master.” However, the verse quoted (15:8) is not the first time in the Torah where Avraham referred to G-d that way. Just a few verse earlier (15:2), Avraham refers to G-d the exact same way, yet this is not the verse the Talmud quotes. Tosfos says that the Talmud quoted the second verse because Avraham actually said that one first, making it the first time G-d was called “Master.” If so, the chronological switch must occur somewhere between these two verses.
Tosfos says it occurs after 15:6 (which is where we end the fifth Aliyah, although this could be for impact, ending on a positive note), adding that this addresses another issue too, as it was nighttime in 15:5 but daytime in 15:12; since these two pieces of narrative occurred years apart, the time of day has no chronological significance. Nevertheless, even if these weren’t visions (where switching from seeing stars to the sun setting also has no chronologically significance) it is still possible that there were two separate chronologically-intact communications, or that this communication lasted long enough whereby the second part happened at the end of the next day. It is therefore also possible that the switch occurs a bit earlier, after 15:2, which is between two similar statements made by Avraham without a response from G-d after the first. In 15:2, Avraham responded to G-d’s reassurance that he will be rewarded by saying that no reward will have any real value since he has no progeny, and in 15:3, which starts a new statement, Avraham also tells G-d that he has no progeny. It would fit quite nicely if the Torah was putting together two separate instances — separated by a significant amount of time — when Avraham said the same thing to G-d, using it as the “jumping off” point to flash back to what happened previously when he mentioned his childless status.
When Tosfos uses the chronology issue to explain why the Talmud quotes the second verse where Avraham called G-d “Master” rather than the first, we would have expected them to prove the point by bringing up the fact that Avraham was 70 at the BBhB and 75 when he left Charan. Instead, they prove that things are out of chronological order because Avraham was 73 when he fought the kings to rescue Lot (which immediately preceded the BBhB in the text’s narrative) and 70 at the BBhB. Since Avraham was 75 when he left Charan, according to Tosfos there seems to be two times that things are stated out of chronological order, not just one. Where in the text did that one occur?
We are told twice that Lot went with Avraham (12:4 and 12:5). Previously (http://rabbidmk.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/parashas-lech-lecha-5773/), I suggested that the first time refers to the trip from Ur Kasdim to Charan, while the second refers to the trip from Charan to Canaan. Since Avraham made more than one trip from Charan to Canaan, it is also possible that they refer to separate trips to Canaan, with Lot accompanying Avraham the first time (returning with him to Charan) as well as when he moved there permanently. However, if Lot had already separated from Avraham before his permanent move to Charan, Lot couldn’t have accompanied Avraham the second time. Yet, it is in-between the two mentions of Lot going with Avraham that the Torah tells us that Avraham left Charan (for good) when he was 75. Nevertheless, it is still possible to reconcile this possibility with Tosfos.
Midrash HaGadol (B’raishis 11:31 and 12:4) says that Avraham left Charan for Canaan when he was 70 (when the BBhB occurred), but traveled back and forth between the two for five years, moving to Canaan permanently when he was 75. Since Tosfos has Avrahan in Canaan not only when he was 70, but also when he was 73, they likely understood things similarly. It would therefore seem that the words “And Avram was 75 years old when he left Charan” are [part of] an introductory summation, telling us that the end of the process of moving to Canaan from Charan happened when he was 75, followed by the details of his prolonged move (which started when he was 70 and culminated when he was 75). If the information that Avraham was 75 is not part of the narrative, but an introduction to the narrative describing what happened within the five year span that ended when Avraham was 75, there is no chronological inconsistency with giving his age at the end of the process (75) before describing what happened when he was younger (73), during the process. Therefore, Tosfos does not mention Avraham being 75 when he moved to Charan regarding things being out of chronological order.
Avraham being 73 when he rescued Lot is based on (see Shabbos 10b-11a and Rashi and Tosfos there): The dispersion taking place when Avraham was 48; S’dom not being built until after the dispersion (as until then everyone lived in Bavel); S’dom being destroyed 52 years after it was founded; S’dom being ruled by the four kings for 12 years and rebelling against them for 13, with Avraham helped it gain its independence in the 14th year; and it never having been independent before Avraham rescued Lot. This last assumption is tenuous at best, as even if S’dom was built after the dispersion (and there were definitely cities built well before the dispersion; see Ramban on 11:28), it makes more sense for it have been founded independently and then forced to serve the four kings than for it to have been subservient to the four king from the outset. As a matter of fact, in order to explain Seder Olam saying that Avraham was not in Canaan after the BBhB until he was 75, Tosfos suggests that S’dom was independent for its first two years, thereby allowing Avraham’s rescue of Lot to occur when he was 75.
If Avraham left Canaan when he was 70 (as opposed to first coming when he was 70 and going back and forth for five years), when did he get there the first time (before he left for five years)? Sefer HaYashar says that Avraham moved from Charan to Canaan when he was 55, and stayed there until he was 70 (when the BBhB occurred). Although Sefer HaYashar has Lot only coming with Avraham the second time, when Avraham was 75, there are several issues with its narrative, none the least of which being that it has S’dom rebelling in its 13th year of existence (not its 15th, which would leave two years of initial independence) yet Avraham being 75 years old when he rescued Lot from the four kings. Instead of Lot accompanying Avraham from Charan to Canaan only the second time, perhaps Lot only accompanied him the first time (when Avraham was 55), remaining in S’dom after he moved there, including during the five years Avraham returned to Charan and then moved permanently to Canaan. If so,the entire Parasha could have occurred chronologically.
Rabbeinu Saadya Gaon, Radak and Ibn Ezra are among the commentators who follow Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel’s opinion (B’reishis Rabbah 42:6) that S’dom only rebelled for one year (the year following the 12 years it was subservient) rather than for 13 years. This allows Avraham’s resue of Lot to have occurred up to 12 years earlier, when he was 61, six years after he moved to Canaan the first time. If S’dom was initially independent, we can add those years to Avraham’s age. For example, if it was independent for four years, Avraham would have been 65 when he rescued Lot; if it was it was independent for nine years, Avraham would have been 70, i.e. right before the BBhB.
Lot moved to Canaan with Avraham when Avraham was 55. During Avraham’s first stay in Canaan there was a famine in Egypt, Lot separated from him and moved to S’dom, the four kings attacked S’dom and took Lot captive, Avraham rescued Lot, and G-d appeared to him shortly afterwards, enacting the BBhB. All of this happened, in chronological order, before Avraham returned to Charan (without Lot) when he was 70. The first part of 12:4 describes either Avraham’s trip from Ur Kasdim to Charan, or his first trip from Charan to Canaan. The second part of 12:4 introduces Avraham’s prolonged move to Canaan, which culminated when he was 75. The verses from 12:5 all the way through 15:21 recap the first stage of this move, from the time Lot went with him, when he was 55, until the BBhB, when he was 70. Just as the Torah is silent about Avraham’s years in Ur Kasdim and his years in Charan (including the five years when he returned), the Torah is silent about Avraham’s first 10 years in Canaan, resuming the narrative when he was 85 when Sara insisted that Avraham marry Hagar (16:1). But what it does describe (at least in Parashas Lech Lecha), is in chronological order.
