We have here the call whereby Abram was removed from, the land of his nativity into the land of promise. This call was designed both to try his faith and obedience, and also to set him and his family apart for God, in order that the universal prevalence of idolatry might be prevented, and a remnant reserved for God, among whom his true worship might be maintained, his oracles preserved, and his ordinances established till the coming of the Messiah. God seems also, by sending him into Canaan, a country given up to the most gross, cruel, and barbarous idolatry, even the sacrificing of their own children to their idols, to have intended that he, and the other patriarchs descended from him, should be witnesses for God to these nations before their destruction; which is the plan God has generally, if not always, pursued; seldom, if ever, destroying a people for their wickedness, till he has sent his truth, in one form or another, and his witnesses among them.
Concerning the circumstances of this call, we may receive further information from Stephen's speech, Acts 7:2, where we are told, 1st, That the God of glory appeared to him, to give him this call, and that in such displays of his glory as left Abram no room to doubt. 2d, That this call was given him in Mesopotamia; and that, in obedience to this call, he came out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran or Haran about five years: and from thence, when his father was dead, by a fresh command, he removed him into the land of Canaan. Get thee out of thy country Now, by this precept, he was tried whether he loved God better than he loved his native soil, and dearest friends: and whether he could willingly leave all to go along with God. His country was become idolatrous, his kindred and his father's house were a constant temptation to him, and he could not continue with them without danger of being infected by them; therefore God said, Get thee out. Hereby also he was tried whether he could trust God farther than he saw him; for he must leave his own country to go to a land that God would show him; he doth not say, it is a land that I will give thee: nor doth he tell him what land it was, or what kind of land; but he must follow God with an implicit faith, and take God's word for it in general, that he should be no loser by leaving his country to follow God.