In the light of all the objections which might be raised by Abram, such an appearance should not be unusual. 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. These appearances, which were constantly repeated from that time forward, must have taken place from heaven; for we read that Jehovah, after speaking with Abram and the other patriarchs, "went away" (Genesis 18:33), or "went up" (Genesis 17:22; Genesis 35:13); and the patriarchs saw them, sometimes while in a waking condition, in a form discernible to the bodily senses, sometimes in visions, in a state of mental ecstasy, and at other times in the form of a dream (Genesis 28:12.). The relationship between the command of God to Abram in verse 1 and the incident at Babel in chapter 11 should not be overlooked. 58-64. How to delete all UUID from fstab but not the UUID of boot filesystem. Abram had two brothers, Nahor and Charan (often anglicized as "Haran"), but Charan died. That verse is not implying that God called Abe out of the blue, nor Abe at random of all persons. Answer Terah is known in the Bible as the father of Abram (known later as Abraham), who in turn received the covenant promise of God regarding the future birth of His Son, Jesus. But in Genesis 18:1. it is stated that three men came to Abram, one of whom is introduced as Jehovah, whilst the other two are called angels (Genesis 19:1). 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. (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 . He left Haran, not because it was the easiest thing to do, but because God intended for him to do it. in 1971. Do you realize that it was probably years from the time Abram was called in Ur until he ended up in Canaan. 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). In Galatians chapter 3 Paul wrote that Christians are the sons of Abraham by faith, and therefore, rightful heirs to the blessings promised him (Galatians 3:7,9). And, it may be worth noting, we see the name "Terah" alluded to in the word "Teraphim". (i) Elmacinus, p. 31. apud Hottinger. 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. But we know from Stephens words that the call came to Abram at Ur (Acts 7:2). By clicking Post Your Answer, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy. Did Abraham receive a call to leave Ur as alluded to in Acts 7:2-4? Abrams age was not a factor in favor of leaving Ur for some unknown land either. Terah is the one who told the people to leave Ur Kasdim in the book of Genesis, not Abram. Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. On the other hand, Gods command was deliberately vague. Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charran.(NIV). Terah was the son of Nahor, who was of Noah's son's Shem's line. Some of Rather, your question should be: why did Abraham leave Haran. The incongruity of God's covenant with Abram in Gen 12:1? It should first of all be said that it was the route we would have expected him to have taken if he were going in that direction. When Sarah died, he had to buy a portion of the land for a burial site (23:3ff.). Genesis 21:16-21. The site of the great city was first discovered in 1854, and has since that time been excavated, revealing much about life in the times of Abram.130 While the actual period that Abram lived in Ur may be a matter of discussion, we can say with certainty that Ur was justified in its boast of being a highly developed civilization. But when they came Terah's Descendants. Terah may have told Abraham why he was leaving Ur and why he decided to settle in Haran. c. Terah was an idol worshipper. 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. 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. This view was adopted by many Romish theologians, by the Socinians, Arminians, and others, and has been defended recently by Hoffmann, whom Delitzsch, Kurtz, and others follow. When Terah died, Abraham was free to set out from Haran on his way to Canaan. 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. Terah received instructions from God to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go into the land of Canaan. But at the point of Abrams call, he was a man whose faith was meager; real, but meager. Terah was born when his father was 29 years of age. 5.) What are some tools or methods I can purchase to trace a water leak? Abrams life is a growth in faith developed under delayed fulfillment of divine promises. The first time that God told this to Abe, it was God's way of provoking Abe to "get real" about Terah's idolatry. Here was the basis for the great name that God would give to Abram. Terah didn't give a rip about what God wanted because he didn't know or love Him. ), which were repeated throughout the whole of the Old Testament, and even occurred, though only in vision, in the case of the prophet Zechariah. 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. 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. 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. At Babel men chose to disregard the command of God to disperse and populate the earth. 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. Abe replied something like, "I saw that remaining idol in the corner smash all the others. Map of Ancient Mesoptomia (Courtesy israel-a-history-of.com). To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Twenty years? I hope that's helpful Clive. Do you believe it? Vos, Genesis and Archaeology, pp. (Note: The only passage that could be adduced in support of this, viz., Psalm 104:4, does not prove that God makes natural objects, winds and flaming fire, into forms in which heavenly spirits appear, or that He creates spirits out of them. What was Terah's son named? Such was true in Abrams 1ife.139 Such is the case with every believer. In Genesis 11, we read that Terah came from Ur of the Chaldeans. Much of Abrams first moves were neither purposeful nor pious, but rather were a more passive response to external forces. Anyone who then wanted to join Abe to go on to Canaan was up to them. 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. Terah started out well (11:31), journeyed about four months, probably stopped at Babylon and then did something very strange. 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. 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. Genesis 11:26-32 tells that Terah was a son of Nahor, the son of Serug, who was a descendant of Shem. This land never belonged to Abram in his lifetime, even as God had said (15:13-16). (j) Ut supra. 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. There are, of course, evidences for the reasonableness of faith, but at the bottom line we simply must believe what God has said to us in His Word. If His Word is not true and reliable, then we, of all men, are most miserable.. This intimates that he would have proceeded with the others to the land of Kenaan if his life had been prolonged, and likewise that they did not leave Haran until his death. Men of all nations would be blessed by the Scriptures which, to a great extent, came through the instrumentality of the Jewish people. What more should we require than Gods Word? 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. If we fix our eyes upon the method of the divine revelation, we find a new beginning in this respect, that as soon as Abram is called, we read of the appearing of God. Abram was told in detail what he must leave behind. 2. Wis. 13-15). Moses did not give us all the background needed to properly grasp the significance of the call of Abram, but it has been recorded for us in the Bible. Do stay around and if you are willing to answer another questions, please read. We reached the conclusion that God called Abram to leave Ur in order to travel to Canaan, and he did that before Terah's death, although he At the same time, it does not follow from this use of the expression Maleach Jehovah, that the (particular) angel of Jehovah was essentially one with God, or that Maleach Jehovah always has the same signification; for in Malachi 2:7 the priest is called Maleach Jehovah, i.e., the messenger of the Lord. This chapter leaves them about mid-way between Ur and Canaan, where they dwelt till Terah's death. 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. Why didn't Abraham tell Isaac the truth in Genesis 22? Are there conventions to indicate a new item in a list? Stephen informs us in Acts 7:2 Brothers and fathers, listen to me. 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. 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. 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. 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). Does With(NoLock) help with query performance? Did Abraham leave Haran before or after his father died? 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. 2. In the words of Vos, Regardless of when Abraham left Ur, he turned his back on a great metropolis, setting out by faith for a land about which he knew little or nothing and which could probably offer him little from a standpoint of material benefits.132. Since Abram was unwilling or unable to leave his father's house, God took Abram's father in death (11:32). All that the Septuagint rendering proves, is that the translators supposed "the angel of the Lord" to be a created angel; but it by no means follows that their supposition is correct.). Starting in Genesis 11:27, we have the account of Terah's (Abraham's father) family line. Cassuto has suggested that the places mentioned (Shechem, Bethel, the Negev) are significant. We have already mentioned the significance of Psalm 127 in relation to the efforts of man at Babel. 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. Pharaoh, for example, was blessed by exalting Joseph. "Now these are the generations of Terah. 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