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300 It was against this background of fast developments that Abra- ham was ordered to go to Canaan. Though silent concerning Abraham's mission, the Old Testament is clear regarding his desti- nation: Moving expeditiously to Canaan, Abraham and his wife, his nephew Lot, and their entourage continued swiftly southward. There was a stopover at Shechem, where the Lord spoke to Abra- ham. "Then he removed from there to the Mount, and encamped east of Beth-El; and he built there an altar to Yahweh and called the name of Yahweh." Beth-El, whose name meant "God's House"—a site to which Abraham kept coming back—was in the vicinity of Jerusalem and its hallowed Mount, Mount Moriah ("Mount of Directing"), upon whose Sacred Rock the Ark of the Covenant was placed when Solomon built the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. From there "Abram journeyed farther, still going toward the Negev." The Negev—the dry region where Canaan and the Sinai peninsula merge—was clearly Abraham's destination. Several di- vine pronouncements designated the Brook of Egypt (nowadays called Wadi El-Arish) as the southern boundary of Abraham's do- main, and the oasis of Kadesh-Barnea as his southernmost outpost (see map). What was Abraham to do in the Negev, whose very name ("The Dryness") bespoke its aridity? What was there that required the patriarch's hurried, long journey from Harran and impelled his presence among the miles upon miles of barren land? The significance of Mount Moriah—Abraham's first focus of interest—was that in those days it served, together with its sister mounts Mount Zophim ("Mount of Observers") and Mount Zion ("Mount of Signal"), as the site of Mission Control Center of the Anunnaki. The significance of the Negev, its only significance, was that it was the gateway to the Spaceport in the Sinai. Subsequent narrative informs us that Abraham had military al- lies in the region and that his entourage included an elite corps of several hundred fighting men. The biblical term for them—Naar— has been variously translated as "retainer" or simply "young man"; but studies have shown that in Human the word denoted riders or cavalrymen. In fact, recent studies of Mesopotamian texts dealing with military movements list among the men of the chariots and the cavalry LU.NAR ("Nar-men") who served as fast riders. We find an identical term in the Bible (I Samuel 30:17): after King David attacked an Amalekite camp, the only ones to escape were "fourhundred Ish-Naar"—literally, "War-men" or LU.NAR— "who were riding the camels." THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN