The verse is a hinge the Hebrew Bible almost hides. After the humiliation of Egypt, after Pharaoh hands Sarah back and sends the family away, (Genesis 13:3) tells us that Abram returns. Not to any place. To the exact place.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the geography with quiet care: he returned to the place where he had outspread his tabernacle at the first, between Bethel and Ai. The Aramaic word mashkena — tabernacle — is a loaded choice. It anticipates the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that Moses will build in the wilderness (Exodus 25:8). The Targumist is connecting Abram's tent to Israel's future tabernacle. The patriarch's camp, re-pitched on the same spot, is a prefiguration of the sanctuary that will travel with a later generation.
And notice what he does. He goes back to the altar (Genesis 12:8). He does not build a new one. He does not pretend Egypt did not happen. He retraces his steps and stands on the hill between the House of God and the Heap of Ruins — the same ridge between Bethel and Ai — and resumes the prayer he had started before the famine interrupted him.
This is one of the most powerful patterns in Jewish spiritual life. After failure, return. Not to a new place. To the last place where you were whole. The Targum's small geographic footnote — the same place, the same tabernacle — is a theology of teshuvah centuries before the word becomes a formal concept. Repentance, it turns out, often looks like a man walking back to a hill he has been to before.