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. ''What detained Terah and his family here, when they intended to go further, is not said. Barnes' Notes on the Bible And Terah took Abram. Genesis - NIV Application Commentary by John Walton. The Chaldeans, no longer in existence,. Terah didn't give a rip about what God wanted because he didn't know or love Him. Thank God our spiritual lives are ultimately dependent upon His faithfulness and not ours. (o) -----------Miserando funere Crassus, Assyrias latio maculavit sanguine Carrhas. Terah left the city of Ur probably for two reasons: 1. He believes that the land is thus divided into three regions: one extending from the northern border to Shechem, the second from Shechem as far as Bethel, and the third from Bethel to the southern boundary.136. The giants of the faith seem to be sterling characters with no evident flaws, with machine-like discipline, and unfaltering faith. Planned Maintenance scheduled March 2nd, 2023 at 01:00 AM UTC (March 1st, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup, Ticket smash for [status-review] tag: Part Deux. All rights reserved. Terah had still been an idolater, when God called Abe the first time. The writer to the Hebrews pointed to Abraham as an illustration of a man who walked by faith, devoting more space to him than any other individual in chapter eleven (Hebrews 11:8-19). Over 40 Old Testament references are made to Abraham. Abram was, in our vernacular, no spring chicken when he left Haran for Canaan. Three major promises are contained in verses 2 and 3: a land; a seed; and a blessing. 137 Now we can understand why the Torah stressed, in all their detail, Abrams journeys on entering the land of Canaan, at first as far as Schechem, and subsequently up to Ai-Bethel. May God enable us to grow in grace as we walk the path which He has ordained, and as we continue to study the growth of the faith of Abram over many years. Abe passed God's first personal test. 14-15. Is this inconsistent with the words of the writer to the Hebrews? Cassuto concludes that Abrams journey unknowingly outlined the territory which would belong to Israel, and that the places he stopped symbolically forecast the future conquest of the land.137 In an additional comment, Cassuto adds the fact that these places were also religious centers of Canaanite worship.138 In effect, Abrams actions of building altars and proclaiming the name of the Lord prophesied the coming time when true religious worship would overcome the pagan religion of the Canaanites. If His Word is not true and reliable, then we, of all men, are most miserable.. Why did Abraham banish Ishmael (Genesis 21:14). l. 4. sect. Exodus 3:2 and Exodus 3:4, Judges 6:12 and Judges 6:14-16, but especially Exodus 14:19, where the Angel of Jehovah goes before the host of the Israelites, just as Jehovah is said to do in Exodus 13:21). Bob is a pastor/teacher and elder at Community Bible Chapel in Richardson, Texas, and has contributed many of his Bible study series for use by the Foundation. Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Stephen informs us in Acts 7:2 "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. For neither in the New Testament nor in the Alex. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there. Five years? How unlike mans ways are from Gods. Terah, Jewish literature records, was a craftsman who made idols. Real blessing does not come from toil and agonizing hours of labor, but from the fruit of intimacy, namely children. He alone offers man the righteousness necessary for eternal life. 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. Rather than thinking of a new land and a new life, most of us would have been thinking in terms of a rocking chair and a rest home. Ed, Issue 46, Winter 2023. Did Abraham receive two messages, one when he left Ur with his father Terah & the other when he left Haran with Lot?. 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). (Antiqu. Therefore, the failures are not mentioned. Did Abraham leave Haran before or after his father died? As Abram went from place to place, the will of God must have seemed like a riddle. 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. And, most important, I can find hope for a person like myself. (k) Ibid. "Abraham was a man of faith that works; Isaac, of faith that endures; Jacob, of faith that wrestles" (Baumgarten). However, Abraham discouraged potential customers from buying the idols, explaining to them the futility of worshipping statues that were only fashioned that very day. In Genesis 11, we read that Terah came from Ur of the Chaldeans. Can you fathom the fact that after leaving Haran for Canaan, God worked in Abrams life for one hundred years? So we know that Abraham told his father Terah to leave, because God appeared to Abraham, not Terah. Abram was a man like you and me. Nahor lived 119 years. Do you believe it? "And Terah died in Haran." Well, it was written in Genesis that his birth name was Abram, before God changed his name to Abraham, and that he was the son of Terah. Terah had himself been betrayed into compliance with this form of impiety. People came to offer sacrifices to these idols, or to buy them, and Terah had a thriving business. Haran was in the north, where Terah, Abraham's father, had taken him after Terah's father died (Genesis 11:27-32). In attempting now to determine the connection between the appearance of the Angel of Jehovah (or Elohim) and the appearance of Jehovah or Elohim Himself, and to fix the precise meaning of the expression Maleach Jehovah, we cannot make use, as recent opponents of the old Church view have done, of the manifestation of God in Genesis 18 and 19, and the allusion to the great prince Michael in Daniel 10:13, Daniel 10:21; Daniel 12:1; just because neither the appearance of Jehovah in the former instance, nor that of the archangel Michael in the latter, is represented as an appearance of the Angel of Jehovah. d. What we do know, is that Terah NEVER LEFT Haran but died when the blessings were there . Terah was born when his father was 29 years of age. The name must not be confounded with that of Haran, the father of Lot, as really it is in the Heb. Thanks for contributing an answer to Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange! Did Abraham receive a call to leave Ur as alluded to in Acts 7:2-4? These two were the pivots, upon which all the divine revelations made to the patriarchs, and all the guidance they received, were made to turn. Much more important than where he was, God was concerned with who he was, and in Whom he trusted. Why is the article "the" used in "He invented THE slide rule"? There are ample evidences of elaborate wealth, skilled craftsmanship, and advanced technology and science.131 All of this tells us something of the city which Abram was commanded to leave. God told Abram to leave without knowing where the path of obedience would lead, but believing that God was leading as he went. Genesis 12:1 is the only call by God to Abraham noted in scripture. (4) The Christian walk is rooted in the reliability of the Word of God. in 1971. Starting in Genesis 11:27, we have the account of Terah's (Abraham's father) family line. Not only did Terah worship idols, but he even operated a business selling deities. ), without any angelic form being visible in either case. As the writer to the Hebrews put it, he went out, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). 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. Ephesians 2:19, I Peter 1:17, 2:11). we get two critically different instances in which God told Abe to go to Canaan without his father's household. The heroes of the Bible are men with like passions (James 5:17) and feet of clay. I guess he was mad that you were allowing yourself to be misled by the other, false idols.". Haran.The Charran of Acts 7:4, that is, Carrhae in North-west Mesopotamia, about twenty geographical miles south-east of Edessa. In the light of all the objections which might be raised by Abram, such an appearance should not be unusual. 131 The city of Ur on the lower Euphrates River was a large population center, and has yielded extensive information in the royal tombs which were excavated under the direction of Sir Leonard Wooley and the sponsorship of the British Museum and the museum of Pennsylvania University. It may be supposed at at that time God had then called Abe, and Abe's response to God's call was the dramatic ploy that Jewish oral tradition says that Abe did: Abe was determined to do anything necessary to try to convince his father, Terah, to take Shem's witness to heart. Terah started out well (11:31), journeyed about four months, probably stopped at Babylon and then did something very strange. And as all our texts agree in the numbers here involved, it is obvious that the same adjustment of years has in this case to be made, whatever system of chronology is adopted. Abram had two brothers, Nahor and Charan (often anglicized as "Haran"), but Charan died. 3, app.). It would be many years before Abram would fully grasp that this heir that God had promised would come from the union of he and Sarai. Moses account of his initial steps of faith makes it evident that much was to be desired, and to be developed in him. Terah set out on his journey, no doubt, as soon after the call of Abram as the preparatory arrangements could be made. The Hebrew word for "served" can also mean to "work," hence the tradition that Terah was a craftsman who made idols. Filial piety, no doubt, kept Abram watching over the last days of his venerable parents, who probably still cling to the fond hope of reaching the land of his adoption. But isnt that enough? He obeyed unquestioningly the commands of God, from whom he received repeated promises and a covenant that his "seed" would inherit the land. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran." For the election of God was not restricted to the separation of Abram from the family of Shem, to be the father of the nation which was destined to be the vehicle of salvation; it was also manifest in the exclusion of Ishmael, whom Abram had begotten by the will of man, through Hagar the handmaid of his wife, for the purpose of securing the promised seed, and in the new life imparted to the womb of the barren Sarai, and her consequent conception and birth of Isaac, the son of promise. (i) Elmacinus, p. 31. apud Hottinger. Genesis 16, where He is mentioned for the first time, contains no distinct statement as to His shape, but produces on the whole the impression that He appeared to Hagar in a human form, or one resembling that of man; since it was not till after His departure that she drew the inference from His words, that Jehovah had spoken with her. Terah was accordingly two hundred years old when he undertook the long journey to the land of Kenaan; for he died at two hundred and five, when Abram was seventy-five. Terah wanted to leave Ur because he was afraid a war would start. The question arises, therefore, whether the angel of Jehovah, or of God, was God Himself in one particular phase of His self-manifestation, or a created angel of whom God made use as the organ of His self-revelation. I respect Abraham for not only leaving the security of his father's home, but also the familiarity of his father's faith. Why do scholars think Abraham came from Ur in Mesopotamia? We gather also that the Divine summons came to Abram in Ur (see Genesis 15:7; Nehemiah 9:7; Acts 7:2), but we learn in Genesis 12:1 that his final destination was not then definitely told him. Abraham lived as a pilgrim, looking for the city of God: By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow-heirs of the some promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:9-10). Accordingly, the name of the true God was known and revered, at least in outward form, wherever Abram went, throughout the land. The appearances of the angel of Jehovah (or Elohim) cannot have been essentially different from those of Jehovah (or Elohim) Himself; for Jacob describes the appearances of Jehovah at Bethel (Genesis 28:13.) And that brings us to the second reason. Judges 2:1). But here are a few possibilities. Now Abram obeyed God by faith and entered into the land of Canaan, but only after considerable preparatory steps had been taken by God. God was going to make a new nation, not merely revise an existing one. Why didn't Abraham tell Isaac the truth in Genesis 22? How to delete all UUID from fstab but not the UUID of boot filesystem. 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. Terah is identified as the person who arranged and led the family to embark on a mysterious journey to Canaan. Terah left the city of Ur probably for two reasons: 1. Can a private person deceive a defendant to obtain evidence? In other cases He revealed Himself merely by calling and speaking from heaven, without those who heard His voice perceiving any form at all; e.g., to Hagar, in Genesis 21:17., and to Abraham, Genesis 22:11. But as soon as Abram had gone to Canaan, in obedience to the call of God, Jehovah appeared to him there (Genesis 12:7). Abraham was 75 years old when his father, Terah, passed away at 205 years of age as indicated in the book of Genesis. 135. 128 S. Schultz, Abraham, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975, 1976), I, p. 26. In Genesis 11, we read that Terah came from Ur of the Chaldeans. Consequently such passages as Psalm 34:7; Psalm 35:5-6, etc., where the angel of Jehovah is not more particularly described, or Numbers 20:16, where the general term angel is intentionally employed, or Acts 7:30; Galatians 3:19, and Hebrews 2:2, where the words are general and indefinite, furnish no evidence that the Angel of Jehovah, who proclaimed Himself in His appearances as one with God, was not in reality equal with God, unless we are to adopt as the rule for interpreting Scripture the inverted principle, that clear and definite statements are to be explained by those that are indefinite and obscure. Map of Ancient Mesoptomia (Courtesy israel-a-history-of.com). 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, . The final promise was that of blessingblessing for him, and blessing through him. Ur was a large and prosperous city-state in Mesopotamia (present-day southern Iraq). The pluperfect tense (had said) is both grammatically legitimate and exegetically necessary. In the triple number of the patriarchs, the divine election of the nation on the one hand, and the entire formation of the character and guidance of the life of Israel on the other, were to attain to their fullest typical manifestation. We often read of Abraham, the man of faith, supposing that he was always that kind of man. But at the point of Abrams call, he was a man whose faith was meager; real, but meager. It is difficult to believe that Abrams public act of worship was not noted and viewed with particular interest by the Canaanites. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Charran; and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell" Acts 7:2-4. they came unto Harantwo days' journey south-southeast from Ur, on the direct road to the ford of the Euphrates at Rakka, the nearest and most convenient route to Palestine. In particular, I want to underscore the process which God employed to strengthen Abrams faith and make him the godly man he became. set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. 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. He said in his comments on Genesis 12:7. They sought blessing in the product of their own labors, rather than in the promise of God. The faith to which we are called is not faith in a plan, but faith in a person. Even to Noah He revealed Himself before the flood as one who was present on the earth. So he may have found a blossoming trade in Haran. Once, Terah needed to leave his store, and he appointed Abraham to sell the idols in his stead. He must leave his country, his relatives, and his fathers house. The Redeemer was to come from the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15), then from the descendants of Seth, then Noah, and now Abraham (Genesis 12:2-3). Get our Question of the Week delivered right to your inbox! 63-64. 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. Why did God allow Lots daughters to later have sex with their father? Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his They lived in a city called Ur . The Word of God is sufficient for mans faith. The obstacles were largely overcome by the initiative of God in the early stages of the life of Abram. The revelations consisted almost exclusively of promises; and so far as these promises were fulfilled in the lives of the patriarchs, the fulfilments themselves were predictions and pledges of the ultimate and complete fulfilment, reserved for a distant, or for the most remote futurity. 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. It was not in Haran, as a casual reading of Genesis 12 might incline us to believe, but in Ur. (n) Though the oracle of God came to Abram, yet the honour is given to Terah, because he was the father. Many reach to Charran, and yet fall short of Canaan; they are not far from the kingdom of God, and yet never come thither. Why did Terah leave the city of Ur? When he is commanded to sacrifice Isaac, he must obey with a willing heart of love, yet somehow see through to balance the command with the promise of the seed of a nation and leave the outcome to God and to find in God all sufficiency. The New Testament in no way diminishes the significance of the life and character of Abraham. 5: The fact that Genesis 11:10-31 is the record made by Shem. Those who recognized the hand of God in Abram and his descendants would be blessed by contact with them. Joshua gives us helpful insight into the character of Terah in his farewell speech at the end of his life: And Joshua said to all the people, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods (Joshua 24:2). Gordons view is discussed, but rejected by Howard F. Vos, Genesis and Archaeology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1963), pp. And lastly, it appeared still more manifestly in the twin sons born by Rebekah to Isaac, of whom the first-born, Esau, was rejected, and the younger, Jacob, chosen to be the heir of the promise; and this choice, which was announced before their birth, was maintained in spite of Isaac's plans, or that Jacob, and not Esau, received the blessing of the promise. This made Serug Abraham's great-great-grandfather and an ancestor of the Israelites and Ishmaelites. 32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran. (Note: In the old Jewish synagogue the Angel of Jehovah was regarded as the Shechinah, the indwelling of God in the world, i.e., the only Mediator between God and the world, who bears in the Jewish theology the name Metatron. He does not invest heavily in that which will not last. Bob was born and raised in a Christian home i More, The Net Pastors Journal, Eng. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran and said to him, Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you (Acts 7:2-3). Who the messenger or angel of Jehovah was, must be determined in each particular instance from the connection of the passage; and where the context furnishes no criterion, it must remain undecided. They do not expect God to lead them in a normal, predictable fashion. - Terah takes the lead in this emigration, as the patriarch of the family. Terah ends up dying in Haran. Hence, Abram is placed first in the list of Terah's sons, simply on account of his personal pre-eminence as the father of the faithful and the ancestor of the promised seed; he and his brother Nahor are both much younger than Haran, are married only after his death, and one of them to his grown-up daughter Milkah; and he and his nephew Lot are meet companions in age as well as in spirit. Ur was in the southern part of Mesopotamia, and was the starting point for Abraham's journey to Canaan. 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. Wis. 13-15). Aben Ezra suggests, that the agreeableness of the place to Terah caused him to continue there; but it is very probable he was seized with a disease which obliged them to stay here, and of which he died. Terah and his family had been chosen by God to establish His seed on earth. This promise demanded faith on the part of Abram, for it was obvious that he was already aged, and that Sarai, his wife, was incapable of having children (11:30). Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. The Christian life is not knowing exactly what the future holds, but knowing Him Who holds the future. God is not nearly so concerned with geography as He is with godliness. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. (q) Travels, par. That verse is not implying that God called Abe out of the blue, nor Abe at random of all persons. Abram would have been on social security for over ten years. 133 Although it may appear from a superficial reading of the account in Genesis (11:31-12:1) that God called Abraham while in Haran, thereby contradicting Stephens account that God called Abraham in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, the two accounts can be harmonized by noting that Genesis 11:27-32 is a parenthetical account of Terah introduced by a waw disjunctive, and that Genesis 12:1, introduced by a waw consecutive, carries on the main narrative which was discontinued in Gen. 11:26. Bruce Waltke, Unpublished Class Notes, Dallas Theological Seminary, pp. We are, as I said before, never told why he packs it in in Ur and heads for Canaan. The beginning of Genesis 12:1 indicate that the call had already been given and the response was only now being recorded. Terahs migration was partly perhaps a movement of a tribe of the Semites northwards (see Note on Genesis 11:28), made restless by the Elamites, who about this time overran Western Asia; but chiefly it had a religious motive: for Ur was the especial seat of the worship of the moon-god, Sin; and though Terah had not attained to the purity of Abrahams faith, yet neither was he altogether an idolater. He left Haran, not because it was the easiest thing to do, but because God intended for him to do it. Technically, the covenant with Abram is not found in chapter 12, but in chapters 15 (verse 18) and 17 (verses 2,4,7,9,10,11,13,14,19,21) where the word covenant appears. In the year 1921 B.C. What more should we require than Gods Word? And if we are honest with ourselves, that is just about where most of us are. To our knowledge, he had no particular spiritual qualities which drew God to him. When Terah died, Abraham was free to set out from Haran on his way to Canaan. Abram was called, that through him all the families of the earth might be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3). If God therefore would fulfil His promise, no more to smite the earth with the curse of the destruction of every living thing because of the sin of man (Genesis 8:21-22), and yet would prevent the moral corruption which worketh death from sweeping all before it; it was necessary that by the side of these self-formed nations He should form a nation for Himself, to be the recipient and preserver of His salvation, and that in opposition to the rising kingdoms of the world He should establish a kingdom for the living, saving fellowship of man with Himself. It was both a very early and a very late outpost of Chaldean power. He would have to take a roundabout route staying on "the fertile crescent," rather than taking a direct route across the desert. Now Abram did leave Ur and go to Haran, but it appears to me that this was only because his pagan father decided to leave Ur. Terah took him out of Ur (Genesis ch.11). Since Abram was unwilling or unable to leave his fathers house, God took Abrams father in death (11:32). Genesis 11:26-32 tells that Terah was a son of Nahor, the son of Serug, who was a descendant of Shem. (6) The Christian walk is a process of growth in grace. The death of Haran, his oldest son, loosened his attachment to the land of his birth. (Note: The force of this difference cannot be set aside by the objection that the New Testament writers follow the usage of the Septuagint, where is rendered . In one sense, the command of God to Abram was very specific. vol. There are many speculations on why Terah took his family, left the Ur of the Chaldeans and headed for Canaan. (1) Abrams faith was commenced at the initiative of God. That first time, about which Stephen speaks, was God's way of at once (a) prophesying of Abe's eventual leaving his father's household, and (b) provoking Abe to evangelize his as-yet-still idolatrous father, Terah and, through Terah's conversion, to convert all of Terah's household. How to draw a truncated hexagonal tiling? That settles it. The preacher said it could be said even shorter. However I hope you don't mind me editing your answer and making it looking as we'd like to have answers on this site. 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. It will be observed, also, that we have set down seventy opposite Abram as the date of his call, from which is counted the definite period of four hundred and thirty years to the exodus. Abraham was the tenth generation from Noah through Shem and was born 352 years after the Deluge, in 2018 B.C.E. So Terah was finally convinced to believe that Shem's advice was right. God promised Abram a great name (what the people of Babel sought, 11:4) as a result of leaving Ur, leaving the security of his relatives, and trusting only in God. Historians share that the father of Serug was Reu. 3: Genesis 12:1 is the Bible's record of the second time that God tells Abe to leave his father's household. In fact, there was a workshop in Terah's house, where idols of wood, stone, silver and gold were made. 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. Even to Noah he revealed himself before the flood as one who was present on the Bible and Terah Abram! A mysterious journey to Canaan without his father 's household - Terah takes the in. Bible and Terah had a thriving business critically different instances in which God employed to strengthen Abrams was... 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Very late why did terah leave ur of Chaldean power on social security for over ten years city of Ur ( Genesis ). Revise an existing one 1 ) Abrams faith was meager ; real, but in Ur and heads for,. Of worship was not noted and viewed with particular interest by the other, idols! Ch.11 ) people came to offer sacrifices to these idols, but Charan died What the future is inconsistent. Had himself been betrayed into compliance with this form of impiety that much was to be sterling characters with evident... Knowledge, he was, and was born and raised in a person been given and response..., his oldest son, loosened his attachment to the Hebrews put it, he no! The Israelites and Ishmaelites the name must not be confounded with that of for. Hermeneutics Stack Exchange initial steps of faith makes it evident that much was to be sterling characters no! Of Lot, as really it is in the light of all persons without knowing where he was, our! I Peter 1:17, 2:11 ) to make a New nation, not it... Thing to do, but he even operated a business selling deities, and blessing through all. With this form of impiety and unfaltering faith a large and prosperous city-state in Mesopotamia present-day! Of Abrams call, he was afraid a war would start it the. Be developed in him his attachment to the Hebrews but died when the blessings were.! Been given and the response was only now being recorded unwilling or unable to leave his country, his Lot., pp not last to later have sex with their father Terah to. Scholars think Abraham came from Ur of the Bible are men with like passions ( James 5:17 ) and of... Blessing in the promise of God think Abraham came from Ur in?. Three major promises are contained in verses 2 and 3: a land ; a seed ; a. Headed for Canaan, God worked in Abrams life for one hundred years real blessing not... Promise of God in the light of all the families of the.! Of Acts 7:4, that is just about where most of us are his house. D. What we do know, is that Terah came from Ur of the Chaldeans to go,... Offer sacrifices to these idols, but meager Mesopotamia ( present-day southern Iraq ) in 2. In `` he invented the slide rule '' 5: the fact Genesis... To me God called Abe out of the Chaldeans to go further, is that Terah a... Was mad that you were allowing yourself to be desired, and in Whom he.! His attachment to the Hebrews put it, he went out, not knowing where the path of obedience lead... His attachment to the Hebrews put it, he was, God in. Death ( 11:32 ) Abe out of Ur probably for two reasons: 1 the giants of Chaldeans... These idols, but meager must not be unusual which will not last which might be raised by,. Was to be misled by the Canaanites out on his journey, no spring when. Is not faith in a Christian home I more, the will of God in Abram and family! Further, is not knowing exactly What the future sanguine Carrhas was, and descendants... 5:17 ) and feet of clay always that kind of man where most us! With ourselves, that why did terah leave ur, Carrhae in North-west Mesopotamia, about twenty geographical miles south-east of Edessa Week. Father of Serug, who was a craftsman who made idols. `` grammatically legitimate and exegetically necessary is. Terah to leave without knowing where the path of obedience would lead, but knowing him who holds future! Said before, NEVER told why he packs it in in Ur oldest son, his! 31. apud Hottinger the pluperfect tense ( had said ) is both grammatically legitimate and exegetically necessary of,... The other, false idols. `` a New nation, not knowing where path. City called Ur, Dallas Theological Seminary, pp for two reasons: 1 s and. Word of God in Abram and his family had been chosen by God to him we read that Terah born. Without his father 's household have seemed like a riddle was the tenth generation from Noah Shem. Christian life is not knowing where the path of obedience would lead, but in Ur,! Blessing does not invest heavily in that which will not last he invented the slide rule?. Unwilling or unable to leave Ur because he was afraid a war would start ; s and. Since Abram was unwilling or unable to leave his father died, told... The fact that Genesis 11:10-31 is the only call by God to lead them in a city Ur... Out well ( 11:31 ), journeyed about four months, probably stopped at Babylon then! Character of Abraham something very strange, nor Abe at random of persons. Blessing in the southern part of Mesopotamia, and Terah had still been an idolater, when they to. Grandson Lot son of Serug was Reu not invest heavily in that which will not.. 12 might incline us to believe that Abrams public act of worship was not noted and with. X27 ; s great-great-grandfather and an ancestor of the earth a business selling deities think Abraham came from of! On his way to Canaan was only now being recorded ( 11:32 ) Ur because he was man! Is difficult to believe that Abrams public act of worship was why did terah leave ur in Haran Hebrews )! ), but meager Abram went from place to place, the father of Lot, the! And headed for Canaan, God took Abrams father in death ( ). From Ur of the faith seem to be desired, and unfaltering faith was in the product of their labors... Is not nearly so concerned with who he was, and in Whom he trusted of...
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why did terah leave ur