But when they came Cassuto has suggested that the places mentioned (Shechem, Bethel, the Negev) are significant. And if we are honest with ourselves, that is just about where most of us are. In fact, there was a workshop in Terah's house, where idols of wood, stone, silver and gold were made. With God's calling of Terah in verse 31, Ancient Israel was set on an irrevocable course. 305-306. Did Abraham leave Haran before or after his father died? The heroes of the Bible are men with like passions (James 5:17) and feet of clay. 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, . There are many speculations on why Terah took his family, left the Ur of the Chaldeans and headed for Canaan. Beyond this, Abram was destined to become a blessing to men of every nation. For , constructed with two accusatives, the second of which expresses the materia ex qua, is never met with in this sense, not even in 2 Chronicles 4:18-22. Historians share that the father of Serug was Reu. Christian faith grows. ), which were repeated throughout the whole of the Old Testament, and even occurred, though only in vision, in the case of the prophet Zechariah. 128 S. Schultz, Abraham, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975, 1976), I, p. 26. God is not nearly so concerned with geography as He is with godliness. They do not expect God to lead them in a normal, predictable fashion. l. 1. c. 6. sect. I see Terah took Abram, Lot & Sarai to go to Canaan, & died on route in Haran, seemingly before God spoke to Abram to leave his country. It is only when God wishes us to depart from the expected that we should look for guidance that is spectacular or unusual. He came in the same form to Gideon, and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah with a staff in His hand (Judges 6:11 and Judges 6:21); also to Manoah's wife, for she took Him to be a man of God, i.e., a prophet, whose appearance was like that of the Angel of Jehovah (Judges 13:6); and lastly, to Manoah himself, who did not recognise Him at first, but discovered afterwards, from the miracle which He wrought before his eyes, and from His miraculous ascent in the flame of the altar, that He was the Angel of Jehovah (Judges 13:9-20). The people of Haran served the same moon god as the people in Terah's former location, the southern Mesopotamian "city of Ur". We have already seen that Abram was seventy-five years of age at the death of Terah. Secondly, the Angel of God was recognised as God by those to whom He appeared, on the one hand by their addressing Him as Adonai (i.e., the Lord God; Judges 6:15), declaring that they had seen God, and fearing that they should die (Genesis 16:13; Exodus 3:6; Judges 6:22-23; Judges 13:22), and on the other hand by their paying Him divine honour, offering sacrifices which He accepted, and worshipping Him (Judges 6:20; Judges 13:19-20, cf. For the nation was to grow out of the family, and in the lives of the patriarchs its character was to be determined and its development foreshadowed. l. 1. c. 6. sect. As a perfectly new beginning, therefore, the patriarchal history assumed the form of a family history, in which the grace of God prepared the ground for the coming Israel. I am greatly distressed by the glamorizing of heroes, especially by Christians. 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). Now the promise to Abram was four hundred and thirty years before the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt Exodus 12:40. Is the Angel of the Lord identifying as God? However, Abraham discouraged potential customers from buying the idols, explaining to them the futility of worshipping statues that were only fashioned that very day. 130 Cf. (2) Abrams spiritual life continued through the sovereign work of God. 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. As we will see next week, the Lord in His grace reached into a family that did not know Him and called Abram out to create a people devoted to Himself. Abram was, in our vernacular, no spring chicken when he left Haran for Canaan. Little wonder that men like Peter and not Paul, are our heroes, for we can see ourselves in them. Can a private person deceive a defendant to obtain evidence? God called him to leave that city and to exchange his townhouse for a tent. He is removed to the better country, and by his departure contributes no doubt to deepen the faith of his son Abram, of his grandson Lot, and of his daughter-in-law Sarai. But whilst, regarded in this light, the continuity of the divine revelation was guaranteed, as well as the plan of human development established in the creation itself, the call of Abram introduced so far the commencement of a new period, that to carry out the designs of God their very foundations required to be renewed. 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. With the choice of Abram and revelation of God to man assumed a select character, inasmuch as God manifested Himself henceforth to Abram and his posterity alone as the author of salvation and the guide to true life; whilst other nations were left to follow their own course according to the powers conferred upon them, in order that they might learn that in their way, and without fellowship with the living God, it was impossible to find peace to the soul, and the true blessedness of life (cf. Think of it. 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. (j) Ut supra. 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. I am saying that Abram obeyed God in faith, but it was a very little faith, and a very late faith. 63-64. As Stephen stood before his unbelieving Jewish brethren, he recounted the history of Gods chosen people, beginning with the call of Abraham: And he said, Hear me, brethren and fathers! That is my query, Hi Carel, welcome to the BH site. 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. In the land of Uz, a Shemite, perhaps even at a later period, lived Job; and in the neighboring districts of Arabia were his several friends, all of whom acknowledged the true God. As such, it would have been an act flowing from faith. 32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran. - All this occurred as a type for the future, that Israel might know and lay to heart the fact, that bodily descent from Abraham did not make a man a child of God, but that they alone were children of God who laid hold of the divine promise in faith, and walked in the steps of their forefather's faith (cf. Acts 7:2-4 supports this single call theory: The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Terah and his family had been chosen by God to establish His seed on earth. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. "And Terah died in Haran." So Terah had two reasons to leave the city of Ur of the Chaldees. "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). 135 Haran, for example, in Assyrian (harranu) meant main road. Waltke, class notes, p. 14. Terah took him out of Ur (Genesis ch.11). 24. (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 . Once, Terah needed to leave his store, and he appointed Abraham to sell the idols in his stead. God said it, and that settles it, whether you believe it or not. I like that. Terah was the son of Nahor, who was of Noah's son's Shem's line. 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. This faith Abram manifested and sustained by great sacrifices, by enduring patience, and by self-denying by great sacrifices, by enduring patience, and by self-denying obedience of such a kind, that he thereby became the father of believers ( , Romans 4:11). 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. 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. 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. The command of God to Abram is, in effect, a reversal of what man attempted at Babel. l. 4. sect. 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. Josephus says this, "Now Terah hating Chaldea, on account of his mourning for Haran (his son), they all removed to Haran." 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. 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 difference is important. 10. sect. Abraham received only one call (Genesis 12:1). 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. Thank God our spiritual lives are ultimately dependent upon His faithfulness and not ours. (Antiqu. Conclusion Terah died in Haran (Genesis 11:32), so Abraham was free to follow that call. They sought blessing in the product of their own labors, rather than in the promise of God. He obeyed unquestioningly the commands of God, from whom he received repeated promises and a covenant that his "seed" would inherit the land. People came to offer sacrifices to these idols, or to buy them, and Terah had a thriving business. "They came to Haran and dwelt there." Had Abrams spiritual life depended solely upon his faithfulness, the story of Abram would have ended very quickly. One purpose of the genealogy of chapter 11 is that it informs us that men were living shorter lives, and having children younger. 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. 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). (Antiqu. It is of interest to note that Islam holds Abram second in importance to Mohammed, with the Koran referring to Abraham 188 times.128. 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. 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. 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. 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. No stop along the path was irrelevant or without purpose. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). When Sarah died, he had to buy a portion of the land for a burial site (23:3ff.). Many reach to Charran, and yet fall short of Canaan; they are not far from the kingdom of God, and yet never come thither. God also appeared to Moses at the time of his call (Exodus 3:2, etc.). rev2023.3.1.43266. Did Terah go to Canaan because God spoke to Abram?". But isnt that enough? This was God's first direct test of Abe, and Abe passed with flying colors. Here in chapter 12 the general features of the covenant are introduced. (4) The Christian walk is rooted in the reliability of the Word of God. For some reason, Terah and his family stopped short of Canaan, and remained in Haran. Here was the basis for the great name that God would give to Abram. Why did God punish Pharaoh for Abrams lie (Genesis 12:17)? In Genesis chapter 12 we come not only to a new division and an important theological covenant, but most of all to a great and godly manAbraham. Abram was called, that through him all the families of the earth might be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3). Abrahams blessing was largely to be seen in his descendants. 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