Who was Terah in the Bible?

From Shem to TERAH

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 dispensation 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 degenerating; some of the names indicate this. Terah (delay), the father of Abram, was an idolator. The descendants of Shem worshipped idols (Joshua 24:2). When the line of Shem had failed God called Abram.

The second remark concerns verse 26, from which we should be inclined to assume that Abram was the eldest son of Terah, born when his father was 70 years old. But Genesis 12:1 quite definitely states that Terah died in Haran aged 205 years; verse 4 of that chapter states with equal plainness that Terah being dead (see Acts 7:4) Abram left Haran, aged 75 years, and not 135 years as we should have expected. The conclusion to be drawn appears to be that Terah's family commenced when he was 70 years of age, that Abram was not born till he was 130, but that he is mentioned first in verse 26 because Terah's other children were of small importance compared with him. These things should surely teach us that God is concerned with moral and spiritual considerations rather than those of a chronological kind.

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, and that late in his life he left Ur to go to the land of Canaan, but stopped at Haran on his way. With him he had Abram and Sarai together with Lot his grandson. Milcah, who was Nahor's wife, is also mentioned, inasmuch as her descendants come into the history of God's ways later on.

But, as we open Genesis 12, a new fact of great importance is mentioned. This migration of Terah from Ur of the Chaldees, just stated, really took place at the instance of Abram, to whom God had spoken, calling him to a life of separation from his old associations. He was to cut his links with country, kindred and even his father's house; that is, with his national, his social, and his domestic circles, in order to go to a land that God would indicate. The full significance of this will be better appreciated if, before going further, we read Joshua 24:2, then the opening of Stephen's address in Acts 7, and also Hebrews 11:8-10.

There is no mention of idolatry amongst the evils that filled the earth during the antediluvian age. By the time of Abram the post-diluvian apostasy that started with Nimrod and Babel, had developed; idolatry was overspreading the peoples, and threatening to exclude the true knowledge of God. It had got amongst the descendants of Shem and even Terah, if not Abram himself, had been infected by it. To preserve a testimony to Himself God called Abram clean out of the evil, to become a pilgrim and stranger in the earth. Mankind was already divided into nations under the Divine government: it was now to witness a division of another kind — the separation of a godly seed from the mass of the ungodly. This was a division produced by Divine grace.

From verse 10 the line of Shem is traced further than in Chapter 10:21-31, which goes as far as Joktan the son of Peleg and stops with his thirteen sons. This genealogy of Chapter 11 continues with Reu the son of Peleg, ignoring Joktan and his sons. The reason is evident, for Reu's line issues in Nahor, Terah and Abram, and God had purposed Abram to be the father of a chosen race whom He would separate from the rest of the nations. There was to be absolutely no doubt of this though Abraham did not receive the son of God's promise until he was 100 years of age. God has been careful to trace that line down through the ages, and Matthew 1 begins the New Testament by showing that Christ the Messiah of Israel is the official descendant of Abraham, because He was officially the son of Joseph. The actual line is found in Luke 3:23-38, traced backward from the virgin Mary through Abraham to Adam. The marriage of Joseph and Mary was absolutely essential to accomplish the purpose of God in this matter.

Terah had three sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran, and Haran died before his father did (v.28). Then our interest is focused on Abram and Nahor, who were married to Sarai and Milcah respectively. We shall hear more of Nahor, but much more of Abram, for Nahor is only considered insofar as he is connected with Abram's history. The brief mention is made here that Sarai had no child.

From Ur of the Chaldees Terah took his son Abram (not Nahor, however) and his grandson Lot, who was the son of his deceased son Haran) and Sarai, Abram's wife, with the intention of going to the land of Canaan; but they journeyed only as far as Haran (not even crossing the Euphrates River), and stopped there. It may be they named the place after Haran, Lot's father. Terah died there at the age of 205 years. The reason for their move is seen in Chapter 12.

THERE was, as we know, a day of visitation of the house of Terah. The family of Shem had become very corrupt, and in the days of Terah, the sixth or seventh from Shem, they were serving false gods. But the power of the Spirit and the call of the God of glory visited the ear and the heart of Abram, the son of Terah, and separated him from that corruption.

Abraham had dwelt with his father Terah on the east of the Euphrates River, where they were idol worshipers (v.2). This was a humbling reminder for Israel, that they originated from one who had followed false gods. But grace can make a wonderful difference, as it did with Abraham, so that after leaving his native land he was led by God in traversing the land of Canaan, where the Lord also greatly blessed him, multiplying his descendants, though only his one son Isaac is mentioned by name, for Israel was to come from Isaac.

A. The difficulty is due to supposing that Terah's eldest son was Abram. Genesis 11:25, 27, does not give the order of birth, but names Abram first from his superior dignity, as is common in Biblical genealogy.

Acts 7:4 is express that Abram came into Canaan only after Terah's death, who was 205 years old. Deducting 75 years (Abram's age at that epoch) we have 130 as the years of terah's life when Abram was born. Haran was really the eldest; Nahor, the second son of Terah, married Haran's daughter Milcah, his own niece; and Abram was youngest of the three. Lot was Haran's son, as Sarai (or Iscah) was his daughter. Thus Lot was Abram's brother-in-law, as he also is called his brother, and Abram called Sarai his sister. The great difference (60 years) between the eldest and the youngest sons of Terah (by two different mothers, as Abram intimates) made this possible and explains the matter.

The movement in Abraham's family seems to originate with Terah, for we read, "Terah took Abram his son, and Lot, the son of Haran … and they went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan, and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." Terah (meaning "delay") perfectly justifies his name by his actions, ends his days in Haran, which place was called after the name of his dead son. Natural things hold him fast, though death be written on him, and memory but intensities his loss. But his death also closes the sojourn of Abraham at Haran. The natural influence that was holding him back having now gone, Abraham rises in the power of the divine call, which had come to him, and to him alone in the first place; and by which he was separated from country, kindred, and fathers house, to be blessed and made a blessing in the land to which God directed him as his inheritance in faith alone. Natural things no longer clog or hinder; so in the language of Scripture, "They went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came." Which of us does not know something of these compromises in any given relationship of life, which seem to promise much more than God can offer, and appear to exact so much less; but in which obedience to God is relegated to the background, and Haran ("parched place") is the dwelling place, and not Canaan, the land enriched with the munificence of God. How often does God use providential circumstances to lead us in the right direction: yet they may eventually become a hindrance to us. Providential circumstances and natural things can never bring us into the enjoyment of faith's proper portion, which lies outside the sphere of seen and tangible things. The call of God is from the visible and material things, so that the new creation scene, where all things are of God, may fill the vision of our faith: for the things that are seen are for a time, but those that are not seen, eternal."

Terah represents a very large and well-known class of persons who start well and stop short in the journey: an encumbrance to themselves and all connected with them. A prosperous and comfortable place like Haran they find very agreeable to settle down in — much more agreeable than struggling through a hostile wilderness. And yet it is indeed "a dry place;" and they find instead of true case they have, like the ass of Issachar, bowed down to a double burden, and that, (like the ass of Buridanus which was said to be placed between two bundles of hay, and could not make up its mind which to eat till it died of starvation,) they have the satisfaction neither of Ur nor of Canaan, the pleasures neither of this life nor of that which is to come. If the influence of these lukewarm and commercial spirits ended with themselves, it would not matter much; for the loss of their services is not of any particular consequence. But unfortunately their influence is extensive and powerful in staying the foot and paralysing the arm of many an Abram from that day to this. Family relationships are very frequent elements in reference to these things.

It is possible that Terah was a real believer, though an inconsistent one: at least it is certain he was a "professor." There is a great deal about him in the Koran, which represents him as a highly respectable person, moving in the best circles. The eastern authors all represent him as having been the inventor of images instead of pictures for idols, a material and aesthetic advance in divinity which proves him to have been a man of much religiousness, if not of much religion. [ Sale: Koran, p. 25, note. Terah is called Azer.]

"The God of Glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran." "Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt at Charran; and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell" (Acts 7:2-4). The call came to Abram in Mesopotamia. They left their country and dwelt in Haran. Here Abram tarried till his father Terah died. The delay in going to the land to which God had called him was on account of Terah. Typically, Terah stands for the flesh, the ties of nature. This is always in the way to carry out fully the call of God and enter into full and blessed realization of God's calling. While delaying in Haran (Haran means "parched"), God did not reveal Himself anew to Abram.

Nor can we entertain for a moment the Jewish tradition which tells of Abram faithful to the true God from his boyhood. That Terah and his family served other gods, we know on divine authority. That Abram, when at fifty years and trusted to sell the idols which his father manufactured, took in hand the practical measure of demonstrating to Terah the sinful folly of idolatry, is a story suited for the credulity of the Jew Apella, even without the legend of Nimrod's punishing Abram in the flames, and the fountain springing up to extinguish them, with a delightful garden, wherein were seen angels sitting and Abram in their midst. Truth needs neither fables nor more miracles to exalt man. It humbles even those whom it blesses to God's glory. "The God of glory (says Stephen, Acts 7:2) appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charran." Here is the truth of God in its simple and sure and satisfactory light. It was he that believed and acted accordingly. Of Terah we are told nothing which gives happy confidence. Of Haran, father of Lot and of Milcah, we only learn that he "died before the face of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldeans"; he did not reach Charran, the halfway sojourn in the migration; he died before any left their common Chaldean abode. Nahor, it is evident, did not relinquish Ur for Charran till a later day; but there he stayed, so that he made it "his city" in Aram-naharaim or Paddan-Aram.