Hai

Hai is an older transliteration of the place UPDV spells "Ai." Both references gathered under this umbrella belong to the opening of Abram's journey through Canaan — the campsite between Beth-el and Ai, where he first built an altar and to which he later returns.

The first altar between Beth-el and Ai

When Abram moves up from the southland into the hill country, he chooses a spot framed by two named places. "And he removed from there to the mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Ai on the east: and there he built an altar to [the Speech of] Yahweh, and called on the name of [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Gen 12:8). The site is fixed by its bearings — Beth-el to the west, Ai to the east — and at that point an altar is raised and Yahweh's name invoked.

Return to the same campsite

After his detour into Egypt, Abram retraces his steps to that very place. "And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai" (Gen 13:3). The verse names the destination by the same pair of landmarks. The return is not to a new altar but to the original one, "where his tent had been at the beginning" — Hai standing again as the eastern marker of Abram's first place of worship in the land.