And Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
The closing line of Shem's family record names one father and three sons. Two questions sit inside it: why is Abram named first when the chapter's numbers say he was not the eldest, and what was his family like?
Genesis moves in blocks, each headed by a line of "generations." This verse ends one block and opens the way for another.
In Genesis 10 we have "the generations of the sons of Noah," but there side by side rather than in succession... The moral cause is explained in Genesis 11:1-9; after which we find "the generations of Shem" in verses 10-26, and those "of Terah" to complete the picture, and make way for Abram, the man of God's choice, call, and promise. Here we have, unlike any before, at least two genealogies side by side: the nations separate from one another, and the man separated to God with blessing and promise in him, and his seed natural or spiritual.
The same shape appears in the earlier list of chapter 5, and the comparison is instructive.
Here again we find ten names prominent. The same number we have in Genesis 5. Both genealogies in chapters 5 and 11 end with a man to whom God reveals Himself, and with each a new era begins — Noah and Abram. Notice the decreasing years of life. Shem was 600 years old, the grandfather of Abram only 148. The line of Shem was in decline; some of the names show this.
Read straight through, the verse seems to make Abram the firstborn of a seventy-year-old father. Later verses will not allow it.
Verse 26 might lead us to assume that Abram was Terah's eldest son, born when his father was 70 years old. But the chapter states plainly that Terah died in Haran aged 205 years. Verse 4 of the next chapter is just as plain: Terah was dead (see Acts 7:4) when Abram left Haran, and Abram was 75, not 135 as we should have expected. So the conclusion appears to be this. Terah's family started when he was 70, and Abram was not born till he was 130. He is mentioned first in verse 26 because Terah's other children were of small importance compared with him. These things should teach us that God cares about moral and spiritual matters rather than chronological ones.
Commentators differ on which son was the eldest. One reading of the family details settles it, and explains several later relationships.
Haran was really the eldest; Nahor, the second son of Terah, married Haran's daughter Milcah, his own niece; and Abram was the youngest of the three. Lot was Haran's son, as Sarai (or Iscah) was his daughter... The eldest and the youngest sons of Terah were sixty years apart, and they had different mothers, as Abram shows. That difference made this possible and explains the matter.
This is not a slip in the record but a way of writing that Scripture uses more than once.
This verse is a striking example of the way Scripture writes, which men are apt to mistake. It says Terah lived seventy years and had Abram, Nahor, and Haran. It said the same of Noah: he was five hundred years old, and Noah had Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Scripture gave the father's age before naming any of the sons. In neither case did the elder son come first; he came last. Other Scriptures prove this beyond just doubt. In both cases the first place marks the special and spiritual honour God put on each.
Precedence here is a gift, not a birthright.
Abram then, though the youngest son, took precedence in God's mind and word because of the grace God showed him. "The last was made first" — a principle Scripture applies often... In him God began a new headship. Fallen Adam was head of all mankind as they are; Abram is head of the faithful. Scripture says of him: "he believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness."
Terah's household was not a godly one.
This is the first notice the Bible gives of idolatry. It comes not when idolatry began, but when it had corrupted the immediate ancestor of Abraham. Before the flood the world was full of open evil, but we never hear of people serving other gods. And after the flood we find no hint of it, until Scripture speaks this way of the fathers in Terah's day.
Nothing in this family explains what came next. God moved first.
It was in sovereign grace that God thus appeared. Even the line of Shem, the father and kindred of Abraham, were idolaters. Grace gives, not finds, what is good. And the God of glory did more than appear. He appeared to Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia — at the farthest point of his distance from "the land," and among idolaters.
The result was a new division in the world.
To preserve a testimony to Himself, God called Abram right out of the evil, to become a pilgrim and a stranger in the earth. Under God's government mankind was already divided into nations. Now it would see a division of another kind: a godly seed separated from the mass of the ungodly. This was a division produced by divine grace.
- Decline — Shem's line runs down through shrinking lifespans to Terah. The list ends with a family that served other gods.
- Grace — God found nothing good in that house. Grace gives what it does not find, and it reached Abram at his farthest distance from the land.
- Honour — The dates show Abram was not the eldest. He stands first because of the honour God put on him: the last was made first.
- Separation — Out of that idolatrous household God begins a new line of the faithful. Grace alone produced this division in mankind.
And these are the generations of Terah Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot.
This verse opens the family record of Terah, a man of Ur with three sons and one grandson. It reads like a bare list of names, yet commentators see the start of something new here: God acting by the call of one man.
Genesis is built out of "generations" sections. This one is among the longest.
The generations of Terah begin with verse 27, and do not end until we reach the death of Abraham in Genesis 25. As to Terah himself, we learn at the end of our chapter that Ur of the Chaldees was his home. Late in his life he left Ur to go to the land of Canaan, but stopped at Haran on his way.
The verse names Abram first. That is not the order of their births.
The order of the three sons of Terah reverses that of nature. Abram was in no sense the head of the family after the flesh, not even when his brother Haran died. Comparing the dates and facts makes it clear that Abram was the youngest of all. Haran was born when Terah was seventy; Abram not until Terah was one hundred and thirty. His foremost place therefore was due to the choice of God.
Stories grew up later that made Abram look great. Kelly sets them aside and keeps to what Scripture says about Terah and his three sons.
That Terah and his family served other gods, we know on divine authority… Truth needs neither fables nor extra miracles to exalt man. It humbles even those whom it blesses to God's glory. Stephen says in Acts 7:2: "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran." Here is the truth of God in its simple, sure and satisfying light… Of Terah we are told nothing that gives happy confidence. Of Haran, father of Lot and of Milcah, we only learn that he died in front of his father Terah in the land where he was born, in Ur of the Chaldeans. He never reached the town of Haran, the halfway stop in the journey. He died before any of them left their Chaldean home. Nahor, it is clear, did not give up Ur for the town of Haran until later; but once there, he stayed.
The verse ends by naming Lot, Haran's son. One writer notices what is missing from his start.
The first notice of Lot is in "The generations of Terah," where we learn that he was the son of Haran, Abram's brother… Lot does not appear to have had any concern of soul about this separation from Ur. The call of the Lord had come to Abram (Genesis 12:1), and at the start Terah made the first move… Terah took Lot along. Then Lot moved about under Abram's influence, content to be carried to Canaan in Abram's faith, or taken down to Egypt when Abram's faith failed.
Terah's family travelled together, but God spoke to only one of them. Kelly quotes Isaiah 51:2 in an older translation, which reads "God called him alone."
Wholly distinct was Abram, but it was the sovereign call of God that made him so. "Look to Abraham your father," says the prophet, "and to Sarah who bore you; God called him alone, and blessed him and multiplied him." Terah was of no account in this, nor even Lot, though he is called a "righteous man" in his day. But Abram was called "alone," whoever might go with him, or share more or less in the blessing that was his rich portion.
Four hundred years of patience came first. One writer describes what God then did — and what He did not do.
For over four hundred years God bore with this world. Then the God of glory appears to a man on earth and begins to act on a completely new principle: the sovereign call of God. It does not set aside the government of the world. It makes no suggestion about improving or reforming the world, or correcting its evil. It leaves the world just as it is. But it asserts God's supreme claim on one person, whom He chooses in sovereign grace and calls out of the world.
- Record. The verse opens "the generations of Terah," a section that runs all the way to Abraham's death in Genesis 25.
- Reversal. Abram stands first in the list, yet he was the youngest son. His place came from God's choice, not from birth.
- Ruin. Terah's household in Ur served other gods. Nothing in Abram's background explains what came next.
- Rescue. Out of that family God called one man, and Scripture stresses that He called him alone.
- Reach. God does not reform the world. He leaves it as it is and calls people out of it by sovereign grace.
And Haran died before the face of his father Terah in the land of his nativity at Ur of the Chaldeans.
The family record of Terah opens with a death, not a birth. One of his three sons dies in front of him in Ur of the Chaldeans — the city Scripture ties to the worship of other gods, and the city God later calls Abram out of.
Ur was not a neutral address. One writer traces where Scripture first speaks of this sin, and whose household it names:
In Joshua 24 we read that Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.'" This is the Bible's first notice of idolatry. And it comes not when idolatry began, but when it had already corrupted Abraham's own father. There was plenty of open evil in the world before the flood, but of serving other gods we never hear. After the flood there is no hint of it either, until Scripture speaks this way of the fathers in Terah's day.
The verse fixes Haran in place. He never travelled the road his father and brother would later take, and he left the story before it started:
Of Haran, the father of Lot and of Milcah, we learn only this. He "died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans." He never reached Charran, the halfway stop in the migration. He died before any of them left their shared Chaldean home.
Readers naturally want a cause of death, and later Jewish legends supplied dramatic ones. The same writer treats the gap in the record as a discipline for us rather than an invitation to invent:
We need not guess about Haran's death. It is enough to learn from this note of Scripture how unusual it was for a son to die in front of his father, in the land of his birth. If the hidden details held any divine lesson, our God in His goodness would have given us that too. Imagining, or accepting the imaginations of others, is unbelief just as much as hesitating over what the inspired word says. Where Scripture stops speaking, let us learn to be silent.
Verse 27 lists Abram first, yet the dates show the birth order ran the other way. That reversal is read as a signal of how Abram came by his position:
The order of the three sons of Terah reverses that of nature. Abram was in no sense the head of the family after the flesh, not even when his brother Haran died. Comparing dates and facts makes it clear that Abram was the youngest of all. Haran arrived when his father was seventy; Abram not until his father was one hundred and thirty. His leading place, therefore, was due to the choice of God.
Where God found Abram says as much as the call itself:
It was in sovereign grace that God appeared like this. Even the line of Shem, the father and relatives of Abraham, were idolaters. Grace gives what is good; it does not find it. And the God of glory did more than appear. He appeared to Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia — at the farthest point of his distance from "the land," and in idolatrous surroundings.
Haran's death leaves his son Lot in the household. Whose faith carried Lot after that?
There is no sign that Lot himself was stirred in soul about leaving Ur. The call of the Lord had come to Abram (Genesis 12:1), and at the start Terah seems to have taken the lead. Terah, Abram and Lot all left the land and city where "they served other gods" (Joshua 24:2). Abram went at the call of God. Terah, it seems, was moved by Abram's call. Lot was taken by Terah, then moved about under Abram's influence — content to be carried along to Canaan in Abram's faith, or taken down to Egypt when Abram's faith failed.
- Ur — the family lived where Scripture first records people serving other gods, and Terah's household was among them.
- Grave — Haran dies in his father's presence, in his own city, before the family moved a step toward Canaan.
- Silence — Scripture gives no cause of death. If the missing details held a lesson, God in His goodness would have told us. Guessing is unbelief, not devotion.
- Grace — God appears to Abram, the youngest son, inside this idol-serving family and at the farthest point from the land. Grace gives what is good; it does not find it.
- Company — Haran's death leaves Lot travelling on Abram's faith: carried to Canaan by it, and taken down to Egypt when it failed.
And Abram and Nahor took wives the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, a daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah.
This verse drops two marriages into a family list. It looks like bare record-keeping. Yet these few names set up the story that follows: who leaves home, who stays, and through whose family God keeps working.
The verse spends its words on wives, not achievements. One writer sees God's care here for the closest of human ties, written into a word that lasts for ever.
God takes a kind interest not only in the people who deal with Him but in their relationships — above all in marriage, the most important of all natural ties for a human being. Those on both sides here may not have known Him yet. But He knew the end from the beginning, and in His providence He guided those who would play an important part in the future dealings of His grace. He records it in His word, which lasts for ever. In this way He shows how serious it is to all who fear Him, as they take their own steps here below. Above all, He wants them to seek His guidance.
Nahor marries the daughter of his own brother Haran. That makes her his niece. The gap in ages between Terah's sons is what makes such a match possible.
Verse 32 tells us that Terah lived two hundred and five years. His eldest son was born when he was seventy, so that son could not have been Abram. Genesis 12:4 tells us that Abram was only seventy-five when he left Haran, after Terah's death... It would seem from the history that Haran was the eldest son, born when his father was seventy. From this we can understand how Nahor married Haran's daughter Milcah, his niece... We also see more clearly how the granddaughter of Nahor became the wife of Isaac, Abraham's son.
The verse names a second daughter of Haran and then says nothing more about her. An old suggestion tried to fill the silence.
Daughter of Haran, the brother of Abraham. Genesis 11:29. According to Josephus, the Jews believed she was Sarai, Abraham's wife.
Commentators differ. One reports the tradition. Another weighs Abram's own later words in Genesis 20:12 and finds it unconvincing.
Still, I cannot help believing that Abram's words to Abimelech (Genesis 20:12) point more naturally to Terah as Sarah's father by a second and later wife, since she was ten years younger than her husband. Scripture does not hide facts that clashed with the law given at a later day. But it is easy to see why the Jews might try to soften or remove what was discreditable by a so-called tradition.
Milcah stays behind when Abram leaves. So why does the verse name her at all?
Milcah, who was Nahor's wife, is also mentioned, because her descendants come into the history of God's ways later on.
That line runs on to the woman who becomes Isaac's wife.
Of Milcah we hear very little. She was Haran's daughter and Nahor's wife, and as Genesis 22 and 24 tell us, mother of Bethuel and seven other sons. Bethuel was the father of Laban and Rebekah, about whom Scripture says so much there and later on. We know nothing more about Iscah than that she too was Haran's daughter.
The verse marries off both brothers in one sentence. Then their paths split.
Nahor, however, another of Terah's sons, did not come under this influence. He was comfortably settled at home with his wife, and at home they stayed, when Terah, Abram, Sarah and Lot set out from the land of their fathers.
Nahor's life is not a disaster. It grows in every way but one.
Nahor is not moved in this day when God is at work. He and his wife remain in Mesopotamia, and they do well there. They have children; goods and property increase. They make an easy and respectable journey across the world; but they do not grow in the knowledge of God, and bear no testimony, or at best a small and unclear testimony, to His name.
- Registered — God records marriage in a word that lasts for ever. He guides people who may not yet know Him into parts His grace will later use.
- Related — Nahor married Milcah, his brother Haran's daughter and so his niece. The wide age gap between Terah's eldest and youngest sons makes the match understandable.
- Reported, not resolved — Iscah is named and then dropped. An old tradition made her Sarai. Abram's words in Genesis 20:12 point instead to Terah as Sarah's father by a later wife.
- Reaching forward — Milcah appears because her line runs to Bethuel, then to Laban and Rebekah, who becomes Isaac's wife.
- Ruled by response — Abram and Nahor start in the same house and the same verse. One leaves home; the other does well there and bears little testimony to His name.