Why God Commanded Abraham to Go West

Before the Bible tells us God commanded Abraham to go
to a distant, unfamiliar land, which would be where
there’s now a country which all people in the world now know
as Israel, we’re told his father had attempted to go there.

No Bible text explains why this paternal pioneer
began a journey there by going west though uncommanded
by God, or how his son Abraham could hear
God’s curiously pre-Zionist demand.

Had Abraham explained that his bizarre decision
was based on his desire to act just like his father,
he might have been suspected of a dire derision
of his father’s failure to fulfil his mission, rather

than honoring this pioneer most properly by trying
to reach a goal that this explorer never could attain.
To gain his father’s target his son was relying
on God’s approval, palliating paternal failure pain

by means of premature obedience of the fifth commandment,
attempting to fulfil his father’s far-flung goals.
Abraham interpreted what this commandment really meant:
to be good children we must follow righteous parents’ roles.

On Mount Sinai this commandment would be given
to Moses only later on, but here’s my explanation,
hoping that by every reader I’ll be as forgiven
as Abraham was by the father of the father of our nation.

Gen. 11:31 states:

וַיִּקַּ֨ח תֶּ֜רַח אֶת־אַבְרָ֣ם בְּנ֗וֹ וְאֶת־ל֤וֹט בֶּן־הָרָן֙ בֶּן־בְּנ֔וֹ וְאֵת֙ שָׂרַ֣י כַּלָּת֔וֹ אֵ֖שֶׁת אַבְרָ֣ם בְּנ֑וֹ וַיֵּצְא֨וּ אִתָּ֜ם מֵא֣וּר כַּשְׂדִּ֗ים לָלֶ֙כֶת֙ אַ֣רְצָה כְּנַ֔עַן וַיָּבֹ֥אוּ עַד־חָרָ֖ן וַיֵּ֥שְׁבוּ שָֽׁם׃

And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there.

Note that Gen. 11:27 tells us about the “generations of Terah,” but that the Torah never mentions “the generations of Abraham.”  I am wondering whether the failure of Terah to reach the land of Canaan implies that he behaved like the Judean exiles in Babylon who did not return to Judea when encouraged to do so by Gen. 12:6 tells us that Abraham (Abram) either ignored or was hitherto unaware of a problem ahead:

וַיַּעֲבֹ֤ר אַבְרָם֙ בָּאָ֔רֶץ עַ֚ד מְק֣וֹם שְׁכֶ֔ם עַ֖ד אֵל֣וֹן מוֹרֶ֑ה וְהַֽכְּנַעֲנִ֖י אָ֥ז בָּאָֽרֶץ׃

Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, at the terebinth of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land.

Rashi explains that the reference to Shechem and Canaanites in this verse is to draw readers’ attention to the military consequences of Abraham’s obedience of the command to go the land of Canaan, the future site of the country of Israel: he intended to pray on behalf of his descendants, Jacob’s sons, but, since biblical narratives subtly refer to the future as well as the past, was possibly anticipating the time when they would come to fight against ‘the Canaanites’, represented by Shechem.