The wandering Aramean?

Remembering where the Israelites came from.

Welcome to the Daily Bible Chapter. My name is James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as I attempt to read the Bible with fresh eyes, as if I don’t know anything about it, and without consulting experts on what it “really” means.. Let’s see where this takes us!

Deuteronomy 26

I’m reading Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

The curiosity in Deuteronomy 26 is the “wandering Aramean.”

‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.’

The common ancestor of the Israelites was Jacob, and if you recall from the latter portion of Genesis, he did wander quite a bit.

So… what’s an Aramean?

The GotQuestions website has its own theological biases, but I did find this information.

The borders of Aram encompassed a broad region immediately to the northeast of Israel, extending to the Euphrates River and including Mesopotamia. . . When Abraham sought a wife for his son Isaac, he sent a servant to the land of Aram to find Rebekah (Genesis 24:10; 25:20). Laban, Jacob’s father-in-law…