Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa said: “When they were created [behibare’am]” – be’Avraham30Behibare’am and be’Avraham are spelled with the same letters. – due to the merit of Abraham. Rabbi Azarya said regarding this statement of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa: “You alone are the Lord; You made [the heavens, the heaven of heavens, and all their host, the earth and everything that is on it, the seas] and everything that is in them” (Nehemiah 9:6).
And for what purpose was all this effort undertaken? It is for: “You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram, and took him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and set his name as Abraham” (Nehemiah 9:7). Rabbi Yudan said: “The ibex are in the high mountains” is not written here, but rather, “the high mountains are for the ibex” (Psalms 104:18). Why were the high mountains created?
For the ibex. The ibex is weak and fears wild beasts, but when it seeks to drink, the Holy One blessed be He introduces a manic spirit into it and it shakes its horns back and forth, producing noise, and it [the wild beast] flees. “The crag is a shelter for the hyrax” (Psalms 104:18) – the hyrax takes shelter under the crag from the bird of prey when it flies over so that it will not prey on it. If the Holy One blessed be He took into account this impure being when creating His world, would he not do all the more so for the merit of Abraham? That is a rhetorical question.