Acts 7:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And he gave him none inheritance in it, &c.— Probably Canaan was not at that time so universally given to idolatry as Chaldea; for there Abraham met with Melchisedech, who was a worshipper of the true God; and as he was a king, very likely his subjects were not idolaters; but in Chaldea idolatry must have had a large spread, when Terah's family, nay, and most likely Abraham himself, was infected; for St. Paul calls him, Romans 4:5. τον ασεβη, an ungodly person, or an idolater; for that is the word by which he usually intends to signify an idolater. Therefore the calling Abraham into Canaan at that time, was a likely method to preserve him from the further infection of idolatry, as it removed him from his kindred, who would have been apt to have tempted him more than strangers;—and as he was directed to a land where idolatry had not then spread so much. Nay, yet further to deter Abraham, God intimated to him, that in some future generations that very land of Canaan should become notorious for idolatry, and then God would take it from the inhabitants, and give it to him for a possession, even to his seed after him; for so the sentence should properly be read. It is plain that Abraham had not a foot of land in Canaan; for he bought a burying-place to bury his dead.