With this in mind, we need to begin with a template – a biblical pattern.
Abraham
must be the first to be named
God’s General.
There can be no biography of Abraham in the ordinary sense. Thus, the main source for reconstructing the figure of Abraham is the book of Genesis—from the genealogy of Terah (Abraham’s father) and his departure from Ur to Haran in chapter 11 to the death of Abraham in chapter 25. According to the biblical account, Abram who is later named Abraham a native of Ur in Mesopotamia, is called by God (Yahweh) to leave his own country and people and journey to an undesignated land, where he will become the founder of a new nation. After his father dies in Haran, he obeys the call unquestioningly and (at 75 years of age) proceeds with his barren wife, Sarai, later named Sarah his nephew Lot, and other companions to the land of Canaan. Abraham forged the path of righteous by faith. God spoke and Abraham believed. He left his home, his father’s house, to follow God without knowing where he would be led. When God spoke the promised son he and Sarah longed for – Abraham accepted God at His word.
Scripture says that Sarah was barren until the age of eighty-nine and Abraham was ninety-nine when God reaffirmed that they would bear a son. Romans 4 tells that he did not consider his age or the deadness of Sarah’s womb, he did not waive in relation to the promised child.
Eventually, he not only has a son, Ishmael, by his wife’s maidservant Hagar but has, at 100 years of age, by Sarah, a legitimate son, Isaac, who is to be the heir of the promise
Yet Abraham is ready to obey God’s command to sacrifice Isaac, a test of his faith, which he is not required to consummate in the end because God substitutes a ram. At Sarah’s death, he purchases the cave of Machpelah near Hebron, together with the adjoining ground, as a family burying place. It is the first clear ownership of a piece of the promised land by Abraham and his posterity. Toward the end of his life, he sees to it that his son Isaac marries a girl from his own people back in Mesopotamia rather than a Canaanite woman. Abraham dies at the age of 175 and is buried next to Sarah in the cave of Machpelah.
Abraham forged a path in to the unknown, the path of righteousness by faith. He left a legacy for his descendants to follow, not only the Israelites, but the Gentiles – descendants without number.
Abraham is the first general to make the list.