But why did they intend to go into the land of Canaan? As Abram subsequently continued this migration in simple dependance upon Gods guidance (Genesis 12:1), it was probably the Divine rather than the human purpose that is here expressed. Hence, it follows that Isaac, his seed, was born thirty years after the call of Abram. It is quite possible that God made the three promises to Abraham's father Terah first, but he failed the test by remaining in Haran. So he may have found a blossoming trade in Haran. The heroes of the Bible are men with like passions (James 5:17) and feet of clay. We are, as I said before, never told why he packs it in in Ur and heads for Canaan. Little of the culture, religion, or philosophy of the people of Ur was to be a part of what God planned to do with His people, Israel. Abraham received only one call (Genesis 12:1). Stephen informs us in Acts 7:2 Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Nahor lived 119 years. We have already seen that Abram was seventy-five years of age at the death of Terah. The other day I heard a preacher put it very pointedly. From Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. I would have assumed that Terah was a God-fearing man, who brought up his son, Abram, to believe in only one God, unlike the people of his day, but this was not so. How did Dominion legally obtain text messages from Fox News hosts? Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. We often read of Abraham, the man of faith, supposing that he was always that kind of man. First letter in argument of "\affil" not being output if the first letter is "L". Much more important than where he was, God was concerned with who he was, and in Whom he trusted. Specifically, Stephen's comment, in reply to the high priest (Acts 7:1), is based on Jewish oral tradition, and was recognized by the Jewish High Counsel (called the "Sanhedren"). Why was Abraham promised land that belonged to others (Genesis 12)? 128 S. Schultz, Abraham, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975, 1976), I, p. 26. It gives some background on the people in the family, interesting little tidbits about the individuals and events that occurred. Ed, Issue 46, Winter 2023. Lucan. And, most important, I can find hope for a person like myself. But this important difference has been overlooked, that according to Greek usage, denotes an (any) angel of the Lord, whereas according to the rules of the Hebrew language means the angel of the Lord; that in the New Testament the angel who appears is always described as without the article, and the definite article is only introduced in the further course of the narrative to denote the angel whose appearance has been already mentioned, whereas in the Old Testament it is always "the Angel of Jehovah" who appears, and whenever the appearance of a created angel is referred to, he is introduced first of all as "an angel" (vid., 1 Kings 19:5 and 1 Kings 19:7). Abram died at the ripe old age of 175 (25:7-8), a much shorter time than Shem (11:10-11) or Arpachshad (11:12-13). To our knowledge, he had no particular spiritual qualities which drew God to him. The name must not be confounded with that of Haran, the father of Lot, as really it is in the Heb. What are some tools or methods I can purchase to trace a water leak? (3) The Christians walk is a pilgrimage. Why did Terah want to leave Ur? Terah, Jewish literature records, was a craftsman who made idols. Beyond this, Abram was destined to become a blessing to men of every nation. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. I can identify with men and women like this. Our permanent home is not to be found in this world, but in the one that is to come, in the presence of our Lord (cf. Though proceeding by easy stages, the aged patriarch seems to have been exhausted by the length and the difficulty of the way. And in the land of Kenaan was Melkizedec, the king of Salem, and the priest of the Most High God. That is my kind of hero. Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charran.(NIV). According to the biblical book of Genesis, Abraham left Ur, in Mesopotamia, because God called him to found a new nation in an undesignated land that he later learned was Canaan. To this hope our Lord, the Messiah, spoke, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56). There may well have been political or economic factors which made such a move expedient, apart from any spiritual considerations. Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professors, theologians, and those interested in exegetical analysis of biblical texts. Abram did not even know where he would settle. While the exact meaning of the expression, called upon the name of the Lord may not be known, worship is surely described. Get our Question of the Week delivered right to your inbox! The land, as we have already said, is implied in verse 1. Ultimately, the whole world was blessed by the coming of the Messiah, who came to save men of every nation, not just the Jews: Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith that are sons of Abraham. This points to the fact that Ur may have been one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the Tigris-Euphrates area when Abraham emigrated northward to Haran. Schultz, Abraham, ZPEB, I, p. 22. Do not expect that God will indicate each turn in the road with a clearly marked sign. (r) Cartwright's Preacher's Travels, p. 14, 15. Map of Ancient Mesoptomia (Courtesy israel-a-history-of.com). Scripture intended to present us here, through the symbolic conquest of Abram, with a kind of forecast of what would happen to his descendants later. Cassuto, Genesis, II, pp. This is why Genesis 12:1 says what it says. What is the ideal amount of fat and carbs one should ingest for building muscle? Bob was born and raised in a Christian home i More, The Net Pastors Journal, Eng. This I believe to be a significant observation, for many Christians seem to feel that Gods way is the way of the bizarre and the unusual. (n) Nat. Haran.The Charran of Acts 7:4, that is, Carrhae in North-west Mesopotamia, about twenty geographical miles south-east of Edessa. I respect Abraham for not only leaving the security of his father's home, but also the familiarity of his father's faith. But we neither regard this rendering of the psalm as in harmony with the context, nor assent to the assertion that with a double accusative, in the sense of making into anything, is ungrammatical.)<. Not only did Terah worship idols, but he even operated a business selling deities. Stephen informs us in Acts 7:2 "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Did Abraham leave Haran before or after his father died? But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there. Starting in Genesis 11:27, we have the account of Terah's (Abraham's father) family line. As we turn our attention to Genesis chapter 12 let us do so with an eye to Abraham as an example of the walk of faith. Acts 17:27). 1. But when He had established a covenant with him after the flood, and thereby had assured the continuance of the earth and of the human race, the direct manifestations ceased, for God withdrew His visible presence from the world; so that it was from heaven that the judgment fell upon the tower of Babel, and even the call to Abram in his home in Haran was issued through His word, that is to say, no doubt, through an inward monition. If so, when God spoke to Abraham, Abraham would remember that God had spoken to his father, Terah, which would make it more imperative for Abraham. d. What we do know, is that Terah NEVER LEFT Haran but died when the blessings were there . Though Josephus (j) represents it in this light, that Terah hating the country of Chaldea, because of the mourning of Haran, he and all his went out from thence: and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there; which Josephus (k) calls Charan of Mesopotamia, and yet Stephen speaks of Abraham being in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charan; but then Mesopotamia is to be taken both in a more general and a more limited sense; in general, it took in Mesopotamia and Chaldea, and in the eastern part of it was Ur of the Chaldees, and when Abram came from thence to Haran, he came into Mesopotamia, strictly so called. - From these varying forms of appearance it is evident that the opinion that the Angel of the Lord was a real angel, a divine manifestation, "not in the disguise of angel, but through the actual appearance of an angel," is not in harmony with all the statements of the Bible. We will examine these, first of all, for the purpose of obtaining a clear conception of the form in which the Angel of Jehovah appeared. Balaam He met in a human or angelic form, with a drawn sword in His hand (Numbers 22:22-23). Terah wanted to leave Ur because he was afraid a war would start. Did Terah go to Canaan because God spoke to Abram?". Of this long period his seed was to be a stranger in a land that was not theirs for four hundred years Genesis 15:13. The answer is because God told him to (Genesis ch.12). It was both a very early and a very late outpost of Chaldean power. One purpose of the genealogy of chapter 11 is that it informs us that men were living shorter lives, and having children younger. Can you fathom the fact that after leaving Haran for Canaan, God worked in Abrams life for one hundred years? It is there that the specific details of the covenant are spelled out. Haran was in the north, where Terah, Abraham's father, had taken him after Terah's father died (Genesis 11:27-32). Terah had still been an idolater, when God called Abe the first time. And the guidance vouchsafed had for its object the calling forth of faith in response to the promise, which should maintain itself amidst all the changes of this earthly life. Abram was called, that through him all the families of the earth might be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3). Christian faith grows. Five years? Some of As Abram went from place to place, the will of God must have seemed like a riddle. Ephesians 2:19, I Peter 1:17, 2:11). Even if we render this passage, with Delitzsch, "making His messengers of winds, His servants of flaming fire," the allusion, as Delitzsch himself observes, is not to the creation of angels; nor can the meaning be, that God gives wind and fire to His angels as the material of their appearance, and as it were of their self-incorporation. Hence the new form which the divine guidance of the human race assumed in the call of Abram was connected with the general development of the world, - in the one hand, by the fact that Abram belonged to the family of Shem, which Jehovah had blessed, and on the other, by his not being called alone, but as a married man with his wife. 134 Cassuto, the great Jewish scholar disagrees. This whole calculation exactly agrees with the incidental statement of Paul to the Galatians Gal 3:17 that the law was four hundred and thirty years after the covenant of promise. They do not expect God to lead them in a normal, predictable fashion. It was not until chapter 15 that a full description of the land was given: On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: (Genesis 15:18). God was therein posing to Abe the idea of rejecting Terah as unworthy of Abe's full evangelistic effort. The family were in the city of Haran for five years. Men of all nations would be blessed by the Scriptures which, to a great extent, came through the instrumentality of the Jewish people. The writer wished to stress here the positive aspects of the Christians walk, not his failures. God told Abram to leave without knowing where the path of obedience would lead, but believing that God was leading as he went. Here was the basis for the great name that God would give to Abram. Terah's Descendants. Ur was a large and prosperous city-state in Mesopotamia (present-day southern Iraq). When he is promised a land, and when that land is not given, he must look beyond the promise to its Maker so that he may understand. Did Abraham meet Jacob as alluded in Hebrews 11:9? Consequently, Terah was 130 years old when Abraham was born (205 -75 =130). The call of Abram is recorded for us in Genesis 12:1: Now the Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your fathers house, to the land which I will show you., A better rendering of the first sentence of this call is found in the King James Version and in the New International Version, both of which read, The Lord had said to Abram, . 31 And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. Haran was in the north, where Terah, Abraham's father, had taken him after Terah's father died (Genesis 11:27-32). The foundation for this was laid by God in the call and separation of Abram from his people and his country, to make him, by special guidance, the father of a nation from which the salvation of the world should come. This remains to be proven. This is the reason why we have placed one hundred and thirty (seventy and sixty), in the genealogical table opposite Terah, because the line of descent is not traced through Haran, who was born when he was seventy, but through Abram, who by plain inference was born when he was one hundred and thirty years old. As such, it would have been an act flowing from faith. Much of Abrams first moves were neither purposeful nor pious, but rather were a more passive response to external forces. The dispersion of the descendants of the sons of Noah, who had now grown into numerous families, was necessarily followed on the one hand by the rise of a variety of nations, differing in language, manners, and customs, and more and more estranged from one another; and on the other by the expansion of the germs of idolatry, contained in the different attitudes of these nations towards God, into the polytheistic religions of heathenism, in which the glory of the immortal God was changed into an image made like to mortal man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things (Romans 1:23 cf. The Word of God is sufficient for mans faith. Terah was just too old, by that time, to actually make any life in Canaan, and might even have died from the long journey that would have been required to get all the way to Canaan. God has said that all men are sinners, deserving of, and destined to eternal punishment. He obeyed unquestioningly the commands of God, from whom he received repeated promises and a covenant that his "seed" would inherit the land. Nearly one-fourth of the book of Genesis is devoted to this mans life. It is true that from the very beginning God had manifested Himself visibly to men; but in the olden time we read nothing of appearances, because before the flood God had not withdrawn His presence from the earth. Ur was in the southern part of Mesopotamia, and was the starting point for Abraham's journey to Canaan. Terah, their father, coordinated the gathering of his family to journey west to their destination ( Genesis 11:31 ). Even to Noah He revealed Himself before the flood as one who was present on the earth. The lesson we may need to learn is this: very often the way God would have us go is the most sensible way that we would have chosen anyhow. When Abram had an encounter with God, [1] this brother directed his family to leave their native land and go to the land of Canaan. A priest implies a considerable body of true worshippers scattered over the country. "A faith, which laid hold of the word of promise, and on the strength of that word gave up the visible and present for the invisible and future, was the fundamental characteristic of the patriarchs" (Delitzsch). Abram was, in our vernacular, no spring chicken when he left Haran for Canaan. When Sarah died, he had to buy a portion of the land for a burial site (23:3ff.). It is of interest to note that Islam holds Abram second in importance to Mohammed, with the Koran referring to Abraham 188 times.128. Genesis 11:31 tells us that Ter'ah took Abraham, Lot, and Sarai, and began the journey to Canaan, perhaps out of grief for the loss of his son Haran, but certainly before the call on Abraham. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his l. 5. c. 24. In the year 1921 B.C. and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; that is, as Jarchi interprets it, Terah and Abram went forth with Lot and Sarai, or "with them" may mean with Nahor and Milcah: for Josephus (h) says, that all went into Charan of Mesopotamia, the whole family of Terah; and the Arabic historian (i) is express for it,"Terah went out from Chorasan, and with him Abram, Nahor, Lot, his children, and their wives, and he went to Charan, where he dwelt:''and it is certain, if Nahor and his wife did not set out with them, they followed them afterwards, for Haran was the city of Nahor, where his family in later times dwelt, see Genesis 14:10 what moved Terah to depart from Ur of the Chaldees seems to be the call of God to Abram, which, though after related, was previous to this; and he acquainting his father Terah with it, he listened to it, being now convinced of his idolatry and converted from it, and readily obeyed the divine will; and being the father of Abram, is represented as the head of the family, as he was, and their leader in this transaction; who encouraged their departure from the idolatrous country in which they were, and set out with them to seek another, where they might more freely and safely worship the true God. I am greatly distressed by the glamorizing of heroes, especially by Christians. On the form in which God appeared, in most instances, nothing is related. We must remember that Cassuto, as a Jew, did not regard the New Testament to be authoritative. First, what would motivate Terah to uproot his family and leave the great city of Ur to travel 1,000 miles to the land of Canaan? Why did God punish Pharaoh for Abrams lie (Genesis 12:17)? But even if the address in Genesis 22:16, where the oath of the Angel of Jehovah is accompanied by the words, "saith the Lord," and the words and deeds of the Angel of God in certain other cases, might be explained in this way, a created angel sent by God could never say, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," or by the acceptance of sacrifices and adoration, encourage the presentation of divine honours to himself. The obstacles were largely overcome by the initiative of God in the early stages of the life of Abram. I found your contribution useful +1. 305-306. There is no conflict here, since Haran was a CITY in the REGION known as Mesopotamia. What more should we require than Gods Word? But Terah was influenced by other motives to put himself at the head of this movement. Pharsal. as an appearance of "the angel of Elohim," and of "the God of Bethel" (Genesis 31:11, Genesis 31:13); and in his blessing on the sons of Joseph (Genesis 48:15-16), "The God (Elohim) before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God (Elohim) which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads," he places the angel of God on a perfect equality with God, not only regarding Him as the Being to whom he has been indebted for protection all his life long, but entreating from Him a blessing upon his descendants. Such was true in Abrams 1ife.139 Such is the case with every believer. Why did Terah died in Haran? He would have to take a roundabout route staying on "the fertile crescent," rather than taking a direct route across the desert. Abe passed God's first personal test. The report of this comparatively favorable state of things in the land of Kenaan would be an additional incentive to the newly enlightened family of Terah to accompany Abram in obedience to the divine call. Gordons view is discussed, but rejected by Howard F. Vos, Genesis and Archaeology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1963), pp. The force of these facts has been met by the assertion, that the ambassador perfectly represents the person of the sender; and evidence of this is adduced not only from Grecian literature, but from the Old Testament also, where the addresses of the prophets often glide imperceptibly into the words of Jehovah, whose instrument they are. For some reason, Terah and his family stopped short of Canaan, and remained in Haran. 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