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PART III THE PATRIARCHAL AGE OF THE WORLD. CH. 11:27-50:26.
7. THE GENERATIONS OF TERAH (CH. 11:27-25:11).
Gen_11:27
Now (literally, and, intimating the close connection of the present with the preceding section) these are the generations—the commencement of a new subdivision of the history (Keil), and neither the winding-up of the foregoing genealogy ('Speaker's Commentary') nor the heading only of the brief paragraph in Gen_11:27-32 (Lange; vide Gen_2:4)—of Terah. Not of Abram; partly because mainly occupied with the career not of Abram's son, in which case "the generations of Abram" would have been appropriate, but of Abram himself, Terah's son; and partly owing to the subsidiary design to indicate Nahor's connection, through Rebekah, with the promised seed. Terah begat Abram, "Father of Elevation," who is mentioned first not because he happened to be Terah's eldest son (Keil), which he was not (vide Gen_11:26), or because Moses was indifferent to the order in which the sons of Terah were introduced (Calvin), but because of his spiritual preeminence as the head of the theocratic line (Wordsworth). Nahor, "Panting," not to be confounded with his grandfather of the same name (Gen_11:25). Haran, "Tarrying," the eldest son of Terah (Gen_11:26), and, along with Abram and Nahor, reintroduced into the narrative on account of his relationship to Lot and Milcah. That Terah had other sons (Calvin) does not appear probable, And Haran begat Lot. ìåÉè ; of uncertain etymology, but may be = ìåÌè , a concealed, i.e. obscure, low one, or perhaps a dark-colored one (Furst).
Gen_11:28
And Haran died before his father. Literally, upon the face of his father; ἐνώπιον τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ (LXX); while his father was alive (Munster, Luther, Calvin, Rosenmüller); perhaps also in his father's presence (Keil, Lange), though the Jewish fable may be discarded that Terah, at this time an 'idolater, accused his sons to Nimrod, who cast them into a furnace for refusing to worship the fire-god, and that ,Haran perished in the flames in his father's sight. The decease of Haran is the first recorded instance of the natural death of a son before his father. In the land of his nativity. Ἐν τῇ γῇ ῇ ἐγεννήθη (LXX.). In Ur of the Chaldees. Ur Kasdim (Gen_11:31; Gen_15:7; Neh_9:7). The Kasdim—formerly believed to have been Shemites on account of
(1) Abram's settlement among them,
(2) the preservation of the name Kesed among his kindred (Gen_22:22),
(3) the close affinity to a Shemite tongue of the language known to modern philologists as Chaldee, an Arameean dialect differing but slightly from the Syriac (Heeren), and
(4) the supposed identity or intimate connection of the Babylonians with the Assyrians (Niebuhr)—are now, with greater probability, and certainly with closer adherence to Biblical history (Gen_10:8-12), regarded as having been a Hamite race (Rawlinson, Smith); an opinion which receives confirmation from
(1) the statement of Homer ('Odyss. ,' 1.23, 24), that the Ethiopians were divided and dwelt at the ends of the earth, towards the setting and the rising sun, i.e; according to Strabo, on both sides of the Arabian Gulf;
(2) the primitive traditions
(a) of the Greeks, who regarded Memnon, King of Ethiopia, as the founder of Susa (Herod; 5:54), and the son of a Cissian woman (Strabo, 15.3, § 2;
(b) of the Nilotic Ethiopians, who claimed him as one of their monarchs; and
(c) of the Egyptians, who identified him with their King Amunoph III; whose statue became known as the vocal Memnon;
(3) the testimony of Moses of Chorene ('History of Armenia,' Gen_1:6), who connects in the closest way Babylonia, Egypt, and Ethiopia Proper, identifying Belus, King of Babylon, with Nimrod, and making him the son of Mizraim, or the grandson of Cush; and
(4) the monumental history of Babylonia, which shows the language of the earliest inscriptions, according to Rawlinson "differing greatly from the later Babylonian," to have been that of a Turanian people. The term Ur has been explained to be identical with It, a city (Rawlinson); the Zend Vare, a fortress (Gesenius); Ur, the light country, i.e. the land of the sun-rising (Furst); and even Ur, fire, with special reference to the legendary furnace already referred to (Talmudists). Whether a district (LXX; Lange, Kalisch) or a city (Josephus, Eusebius, Onkelos, Drnsius, Keil, Murphy, 'Speaker's Commentary'), its exact site is uncertain. Rival claimants for the honor of representing it have appeared in
(1) a Persian fortress (Persicum Castellum) of the name of Ur, mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus as lying between Nisibis and the Tigris (Bochart, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Delitzsch);
(2) the modern Orfah, the Edsssa of the Greeks, situated "on one of the bare, rugged spurs which descend from the mountains of Armenia into the Assyrian plains" (Stanley's 'Jewish Church,' 1.7); and
(3) Hur, the most important of the early capitals of Chaldaea, now the ruins of Mugheir, at no great distance from the mouth, and six miles to the west, of the Euphrates. Yet none of them is quite exempt from difficulty. A military fort, to take the first-named location, does not appear a suitable or likely place for a nomade horde to settle in; while the second has been reckoned too near Charran, the first place of encampment of the emigrants; and the third, besides being exceedingly remote from Charran, scarcely harmonises with Stephen's speech before the Sanhedrim (Act_7:2). Unless, therefore, Stephen meant Chaldsea when he said Mesopotamia (Dykes), and Abraham could speak of Northern Mesopotamia as his country (Gen_24:4), when in reality he belonged to Southern Babylonia, the identification of Ur of the Chaldees with the Mugheir ruin though regarded with most favor by archaeologists, will continue to be doubtful; while, if the clan march commenced at Edessa, it will always require an effort to account for their coming to a halt so soon after starting and so near home; and the Nisibis station, though apparently more suitable than either in respect of distance, will remain encumbered with its own peculiar difficulties. It would seem, therefore, as if the exact situation of the patriarchal town or country must be left undetermined until further light can be obtained.
Gen_11:29
And Abram and Nahor took them wives (cf. Gen_6:2): the name of Abram's wife was Sarai. "My princess," from sarah, to rule (Gesenius, Lange); "Strife" (Kalisch, Murphy): "Jah is ruler" (Furst). The LXX. write Σάρα , changing afterwards to Óáñ ̓ ñ ̔ á to correspond with Sarah. That Sarai was Iscah has been inferred from Gen_20:12; but, though receiving apparent sanction from verse 31, this opinion "is not supported by any solid argument" (Rosenmüller). And the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah (Queen, or Counsel), the daughter of Haran, i.e. Nahor's niece. Marriage with a half-sister or a niece was afterwards forbidden by the Mosaic code (Le Gen_18:9, Gen_18:14). The father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah, whose name "Seer" may have been introduced into the narrative like that of Naamah (Gen_4:22), as that of an eminent lady connected with the family (Murphy). Ewald's hypothesis, that Iscah was Lot's wife, is pure conjecture.
Gen_11:30
But Sarai was barren; she had no child. Perhaps in contrast to Milcah, who by this time had begun to have a family (Murphy).
Gen_11:31
And Terah took—an act of pure human volition on the part of Terah (Kalisch); under the guidance of God's ordinary providence (Keil); but more probably, as Abram was called in Ur (vide infra), prompted by a knowledge of his son's call, and a desire to participate in his son's inheritance (Lange)—Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. The Samaritan reads, "and Milcah his daughter-in-law, the wives of Abram and Nahor his sons," with an obvious intention to account for the appearance of Nahor as a settler in Charran (Gen_24:10); but it is better to understand the migration of Nahor and his family as having taken place subsequent to Terah's departure. And they went forth with them. I.e. Lot and Sarai with Terah and Abram (Keil); or, better, Terah and Abram with Lot and Sarai (Jarchi, Rosenmüller, Murphy, 'Speaker's Commentary); though best is the interpretation, "and they went forth with each other" (Lange, Kalisch). For the reflexive use of the personal pronoun vide Gen_3:7; Gen_22:3, and cf. Gesenius, 'Gram.,'§ 124. Other readings are, "and he led them forth" (Samaritan, LXX; Vulgate, Dathius), and "and they (the unnamed members of the family) went forth with those named" (Delitzsch). From Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. Expressive of the Divine destination, rather than of the conscious intention of the travelers (Heb_11:8), though Canaan was not at this time unknown to the inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates valley (vide Gen_14:1-12). And they came into Haran. Charran, Καῤῥαι , Carrae, in northwest Mesopotamia, about twenty-five miles from Edessa, one of the supposed sites of Ur, and celebrated as the scene of the overthrow of Crassus by the Parthians (B.C. 53). And dwelt there. Probably in consequence of the growing infirmity of Terah, the period of their sojourn being differently computed according as Abram is regarded as having been born in Terah's 70th or 130th year.
Gen_11:32
And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years. So that if Abram was born in Terah's 70th year, Terah must have been 145 when Abram left Haran, and must have survived that departure sixty years (Kalisch, Dykes); whereas if Abram was born in his father's 130th year, then Terah must have died before his son's departure from Haran, which agrees with Act_7:4. And Terah died in Haran.
The migration of the Terachites.
I. THE DEPARTURE OF THE EMIGRANTS. The attendant circumstances of this migration—the gathering of the clan, the mustering of the flocks, the farewells and benedictions exchanged with relatives and friends, the hopes and fears of the adventurous pilgrims—imagination may depict; the reasons which prompted it may be conjectured to have been—
1. The spirit of emigration, which since the dispersion at Babel had been abroad among the primitive populations of mankind. The arms of a Trans-Euphratean state had already penetrated as far west as the circle of the Jordan, and it has been surmised that this Terachite removal from Chaldaea may have been connected with some larger movement in the same direction.
2. The oppression of the Hamites, who, besides being the most powerful and enterprising of the early tribes, and having seized upon the fattest settlements, such as Egypt, Canaan, and Chaldaea, had wandered farthest from the pure Noachic faith, and abandoned themselves to a degraded polytheism, based for the most part upon a study of the heavenly bodies. That the Cushite conquerors of Southern Babylonia were not only idolaters, but, like Nimrod, their leader, destroyers of the liberties of the subject populations, has at least the sanction of tradition.
3. The awakening of religious life in the breasts of the pilgrims. That Abram had by this time been called we are warranted on the authority of Stephen to hold, and though Terah is expressly said to have been an idolater in Ur, it is by no means improbable that he became a sharer in the pure faith of his distinguished son. At least it lends a special interest to this primitive migration to connect it with the call of Abram.
II. THE JOURNEY OF THE EMIGRANTS. Though upon the incidents and experiences of the way, as upon the circumstances and reasons of the departure, the inspired record is completely silent, yet the pilgrimage of the Chaldaean wanderers was—
1. From an idolatrous land, which could not fail to secure, even had it not already received, the Divine approbation. Not that flight from heathen countries is always the clear path of duty, else how shall the world be converted? But where, as was probably the case with the Terachites, the likelihood of doing good to is less than that of receiving hurt from the inhabitants, it is plainly incumbent to withdraw from polluted and polluting lands.
2. By an unknown way. Almost certainly the road to Canaan was but little understood by the exiles, if even Canaan itself was not entirely a terra incognita. Yet in setting forth upon a path so uncertain they were only doing what mankind in general, and God's people in particular, have always to do in life's journey, viz; travel by a way that they know not; while for comfort they had the sweet assurance that their path was steadily conducting them from idols and oppression, and the certain knowledge that they were journeying beneath the watchful and loving superintendence of the invisible Supreme. Happy they whose path in life, though compassed by clouds and darkness, ever tends away from sin and slavery, and never lacks the guidance of Abram's God!
3. To a better country. In comparison with the rich alluvial soil of Southern Babylonia, the land of Canaan might be only a bleak succession of barren hills; but, in respect of liberty to worship God, anywhere, in the eyes of men whose hearts were throbbing with new-found faith, would seem superior to idolatrous Chaldaea. Without endorsing Luther's fancy, that Shem and his followers had already withdrawn to Palestine, and that Terah and his family were setting forth to place themselves beneath the patriarch's rule, we may reasonably suppose that, like the Pilgrim Fathers of a later -age, they were seeking a new land where they might worship God in peace.
III. THE HALTING OF THE EMIGRANTS. In the absence of definite information as to the motives which induced it, this sudden stoppage of their journey at Haran is usually ascribed to either—
1. The irresolution of Terah, who, having become wearied by the fatigues and perils of the way, and having found a comfortable location for himself and flocks, preferred to bring his wanderings to a close, as many a noble enterprise is wrecked through weak-kneed vacillation, and many a Christian pilgrimage broken short by faint-hearted indecision; or—
2. The unbelief of Terah, who, in the first flush of excitement produced by Abram's call, had started on the outward journey with strong faith and great zeal, but, as enthusiasm subsided and faith declined, was easily persuaded to halt at Haran—an emblem of other pilgrims who begin their heavenward journey well, but pause in mid career through the cooling of their ardor and declining of their piety; or—
3. The infirmity of Terah, who was now an old man, and unable further to prosecute his journey to the promised land, thus making the delay at Haran a beautiful act of filial piety on the part of Abram, and on that of Terah an imperious necessity.
See in this migration of, the Terachites—
1. An emblem of the changefulness of life.
2. An illustration of God's method of distributing mankind.
3. An example of the way in which an overruling Providence disseminates the truth.
4. A picture of many broken journeys on the face of earth.
Two weddings.
I. THE TWO BRIDEGROOMS—Abram and Nahor.
1. Younger sons in Terah's family.
2. Eminent men in Ur of the Chaldees.
3. Favored saints in the Church of God. Marriage is honorable in all.
II. THE TWO BRIDES—Sarai and Milcah.
1. Near relations of their husbands. Though permissible at that early stage of the world's history, the intermarriage of relatives so close as half-sister and niece is not now sanctioned by the law of God.
2. Attractive ladies in themselves. As much as this may be inferred from their names. It is both allowable and desirable to seek as wives women distinguished for beauty and intelligence, provided also they are noted for goodness and piety.
3. Descendants of the holy line. Doubtless this was one cause which led to the choice of Abram and Nahor. So Christians should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
III. THE TWO HOMES. Formed it might be at the same time, and under similar benignant auspices, they were yet divided.
1. And from the first in their constitutions. This was of necessity.
2. And afterwards in their fortunes. Sarai had no child; Milcah was the mother of a family. "Lo, children are the heritage of the Lord."
3. And eventually in their locations. Nahor and Milcah remained in Ur, and ultimately moved to Haran; Abram and Sarai pitched their tent and established their home in Canaan. So God parts the families of earth.—W.