At the end of Genesis 11, we find another genealogy list. This devotional reading looks at Shem’s line to Abraham.
Nuggets
- This is the second genealogy list given for the line of Shem.
- We set up the story of Abraham by learning about his father and his early life.
- We are told that Terah lived in Ur of the Chaldeans.
- Terah’s either youngest or possibly middle son Haran, though his wife was not listed, had a son named Lot, who will figure greatly into the Genesis narrative.
- We may or may not be familiar with who Abram was under that name, which means “father is exalted.”
- We know little about Nahor.
- God gives us enough direction about His plans for us to get us moving in the right direction.
Shem’s line is the one who led to the Messiah. On its way there, we come to Abraham.
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in the Abraham the Emigrant series
Shem's Descendants
These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he fathered Arpachshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters. When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah. And Arpachshad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber. And Shelah lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg. And Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters. When Peleg had lived 30 years, he fathered Reu. And Peleg lived after he fathered Reu 209 years and had other sons and daughters. When Reu had lived 32 years, he fathered Serug. And Reu lived after he fathered Serug 207 years and had other sons and daughters. When Serug had lived 30 years, he fathered Nahor. And Serug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters. When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah. And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters. When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran” (Gen. 11: 10-26 NLT)
This is the second genealogy list given for the line of Shem.
We did note in Genesis 10 that the list given there was a difference from the one given in Luke 3. The same issue is noted here. We aren’t really sure who Shelah’s father was. Not only that, but there are also different spellings for the names given for his father: Arphaxad or Arpachshad.
How could there be this discrepancy? Well, it could be the translation process. This was probably written in Hebrew. It may or may not have been translated into Aramaic. Either the Hebrew or Aramaic was then translated into Greek. Then it was translated into Latin. Then it was translated into English.
It is agreed that the Book of Luke was written in Greek. There would have been no translating until the Latin. As the birth of Jesus had to have been told to Luke by Mary, it is probably safe to assume that the genealogy — which is Mary’s — probably was handed down in her family.
Wouldn’t Mary know? This was very important to Hebrew/Jewish people.
Sometimes, we have to take these genealogy lists with a grain of salt. Father may mean he was the ancestor of someone. That means they skip generations.
What we should focus on is Shem was the ancestor of Abraham.
Pastor Steve and I talked about this the other day. God was in the habit of picking one man to do His Will: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus. We’ve been calling it separating. Leale called it a narrowing.
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I can see that. “You can enter God’s kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and it’s gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult and only a few ever doing it” (Mt. 7: 13-14 NLT).
We don’t know exactly what was divided in Peleg’s time. In Genesis 10, we wondered if that was when the Tower of Babel was built.
Renner agreed with that. He also mentioned that some believe that this was when the one continent, called Pangaea, split apart.
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Personally, I can see God doing both about the same time. Pastor Steve believes that God poofed them where they were going to go. He could have made the language split simultaneously with the scattering and separating.
Terah’s Descendants
“Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. 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. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran” (Gen. 11: 26-32 NLT)
We set up the story of Abraham by learning about his father and his early life.
When
We turn our focus on Terah and his family. This family is handled a little differently than the last ones had been. Altein listed Terah being born in the year 1878 from Creation (1883 BCE).
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Once again, we look at three of Terah’s sons. (Again, we don’t know for sure that these were the only children he had. No, it doesn’t say he had other sons and daughters as the other ones did. But we get more about them than the others.)
Ooo, baby. I think I got Noah’s kids wrong. The wording for Terah is what I read for Noah.
- “After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Gen. 5: 32 NLT emphasis added).
- “When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran” (Gen. 11: 26 NLT emphasis added).
All the others list the age of the father – when Dad was X number of years old, Son was born. Noah’s kids probably were single births.
From the list of names, it looks like Abram was the firstborn. Some say that is correct. Altein took this route – and even listed Abram’s mom as Amathlai, daughter of Karnebo.
But, according to biblestudy.org, Abram wasn’t firstborn. They wrote, “Abram (his birth name before God renamed him) was born in the city of Ur of the Chaldees to a family that included older brothers Haran and Nahor. Terah, his father, was 130 years old at his birth.”
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Once again, God may have called the son who was not the firstborn in the family.
Ur of the Chaldeans
We are told that Terah lived in Ur of the Chaldeans.
If we go with biblestudy.org’s timeine, Abram was born in Ur of the Chaldeans in 1960 BC and from where he left in 1890 BC when he was 70.
Look what Joshua said. “Joshua said to the people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River, and they worshiped other gods. But I took your ancestor Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him into the land of Canaan. I gave him many descendants through his son Isaac. To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I gave the mountains of Seir, while Jacob and his children went down into Egypt’” (Josh. 24: 2-4 NLT).
Altein agreed with Terah’s idol worship. In fact, he reported Terah sold idols as well, sometimes enlisting Abram as a salesman.
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Go back to beyond the mention of the Euphrates. Ur of the Chaldeans (Ur Kasdim), a Sumerian city, was located in what is currently southern Iraq.
If we go back to Cain being banished to the Land of Nod – which was anywhere but the Garden of Eden by the Euphrates River – Abraham was called back from the Land of Nod.
Another interesting tidbit is that Terah supposably knew Nimrod. Altein reported that Nimrod appointed Terah as his Chief General of his armed forces.
Nimrod was jealous of Abram and tried to kill him several times. He even was supposed to have thrown Abram in a fiery furnace, but that turned out the same way as it did in Daniel – Abram didn’t die. When this made Haran take his brother’s side over Nimrod’s, Haran was thrown into the furnace and died.
I don’t know how much stock we can put into these stories Altein also said that Terah celebrated the weaning of Isaac with Abraham. How can that be when Terah would have been dead 30 years?
But I put them in to say that Terah and possibly Abram had known Nimrod.
Haran and Lot
Terah’s either youngest or possibly middle son Haran, though his wife was not listed, had a son named Lot, who will figure greatly into the Genesis narrative.
Unfortunately, Haran died before the family left Ur. We aren’t told his age or how he died. Like I said, you decide if you want to put any credence in the fiery furnace story.
We can say that it is rough for parent to bury a son. We aren’t guaranteed that that won’t happen.
We do know that Haran had two daughters, Milcah and Iscah (Gen. 11: 29).
Abram and Sarai
We may or may not be familiar with who Abram was under that name, which means “father is exalted.”
We probably know what God changed His name to — Abraham. That means “father of a multitude.”
Because of his faith, Abraham became the first Hebrew patriarch. That is why he is called “father of the Jews.”
But with Sarai barren, Abram wasn’t becoming the father of anything. I know. With God’s command to “… ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’” (Gen. 9: 1 NLT), how could this be?
Not happening.
We have to put ourselves back into that time period. The woman’s job was to reproduce and build the family.
But here she was taking a road trip with her husband/brother, father-in-law/(maybe step-)father, and nephew.
Nahor and Milcah
We know little about Nahor.
One thing we do know about Haran is that his daughter Milcah married his brother Nahor. I know. Today, we would go, “Ewwwww.”
We discussed, with Cain, who did he or his descendants marry if not family.
It is probably safe to say that the physical defects weren’t as prevent as they were later. God’s hand was lovingly on them, so this didn’t rear its ugly head.
Plus, the Levitical Laws weren’t in play yet.
Moving
God gives us enough direction about His plans for us to get us moving in the right direction.
We credit Abraham for leaving Ur and going to some unknown land. But we read in the last part of Genesis 11 that Terah, Abraham’s father, left Ur to go to Canaan. “… He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there” (Gen. 11: 31 NLT).
Did God call Terah to go to Canaan? We aren’t told that. We really aren’t told in our translations if Terah worshiped God at all.
So, let’s dig into what Laban told Jacob when Jacob was sent to Rebekah’s home to find a wife and find out. “I call on the God of our ancestors — the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of my grandfather Nahor — to serve as a judge between us” (Gen. 31: 53 NLT).
We now we have to go to the Hebrew, so hang on.
“The Elohei Avraham [the God of Abraham], and Elohei Nachor [the God of Nahor], Elohei Avihem [the God of their Father] judge between us. And Ya’akov [Jacob] swore by the Pachad [fear] Aviv [spring] Yitzchak [Isaac]” (Gen. 31: 53 OJB).
Okay. We know Elohim is God in the plural form – the Trinity. This comes from that and, according to AI, focuses on the personal relationship between God and the human.
Maybe the reason Canaan is in these verses is that Moses knew where they were going, and he put it in where they didn’t know that yet. We know he did put current – to him – names of town so that readers would know where he was talking about.
If God did call Terah before or after he and Abram converted to worshping God, he disobeyed because they stopped for some unknown reason at Haran. Maybe he stopped because of health concerns. Some believe they had lived there before.
Or maybe if Abram was called first, Terah went with him because of those health issues, and he went as far as he could. But then why didn’t he stay behind with Nahor? Terah going home makes sense for the journey and the stopping
It doesn’t seem that God held the stop against Abram. If Abram’s call had been made but he stopped because Terah had gone as far as he could, God knew Abram would keep going. Maybe Genesis 12: 1-3 is that restart.
Whoever was called, it was a family move – grandpa, uncle, and nephew. God does work through families. We’ll see that especially in this family.
Yes, it is speculating, but both ways teaches us good lessons. It is the difference between obedience and disobedience.
If Terah was called and he disobeyed by stopping in Haran, he wasn’t rewarded. Information on the biblestudy.org site said that Terah lived five years in Haran before he died.
Whether or not Terah was the one originally called, he did leave his home to follow God’s call to Abram. Look what Tyng said. He wrote,
“It exhibits an old man, after his many years spent in idolatry and ignorance, attempting in a late obedience to Divine commands to remove from his native condition and home, to the land of promise; but wasting in procrastination the time for his journey, and indolently staying upon the road over which he was required to pass to gain the end placed before his view; and finding all his efforts and plans to accomplish his purpose, to prove unavailing for his good. He never attained the inheritance for which he set out so late, and which he pursued so carelessly.”
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Sad. If Genesis 31: 53 is correct, Terah was worshiping Jehovah but apparently not with full obedience.
That is a significant contrast to Abram’s obedience. Procrastination v. complete, immediate obedience.
We know the man who would become Abraham was obedient. “It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith — for he was like a foreigner, living in tents” (Heb. 11: 8-9 NLT).
God knows where He wants us to be and what He wants us to do — and every decision we will make about doing that.
God worked out His plan for Abram’s life. Whatever part God had planned for Terah to play, He got Abram to Canaan, so He could make and fulfill His promises
Making the Connections #1
God has a plan for our lives, also. Sometimes we may not obey Him, but God already has that worked into the plan. He lets us have our own free will.
God’s call to us can be like Abram’s. Sometimes we have no idea where He is calling us to go or what He is calling us to do. We just know He is calling.
Sometimes we know where and what, we just can’t see how. There may be a learning curve or a location change. Many times, we can’t see how we are going to get to where God wants us to be because of the obstacles we see in the way.
Bottom line – faith and obedience. Obedience is a product and a big part of faith.
But God already knows what we are going to decide. He’s got that all written into the plan. His Will will be done. We have to have the faith to let Him work
There is no need to be obedient if you don’t have the faith that God’s got this. The obedience alone won’t get you anywhere because works won’t get you to heaven. “he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3: 5 NLT).
Making the Connections #2
I never thought about it like this.
Pastor Steve and I had just been taking about God choosing one man, one family, to jump start His plan. He doesn’t pick many. He chooses the one faithful man.
But humans had become wicked again. They may have been outnumbering the faithful when they built the Tower of Babel.
Look what Vaughan had to say about it. He wrote,
“It became necessary by this dispersion that God should select one family and one race which He should make a special and secure depository of His one truth. Otherwise probably the truth, split and scattered, would not have survived in the earth. And therefore the next fact in history is the call of Abraham.”
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Why did God choose Abraham? We don’t know.
We’ve talked a lot about Shem’s line being the chosen line. But Noah’s blessing didn’t really say anything about that.
“Then Noah said, ‘May the Lord, the God of Shem, be blessed, and may Canaan be his servant!’” (Gen. 9: 26 NLT).
Really, Noah was blessing God, not Shem.
But isn’t that what we are supposed to do – bless/worship God?
How Do We Apply This?
- Understand that God separates and divides.
- Remember that God calls us to be in the world but not of the world.
- Don’t think these people were unnecessary — they were bringing us closer to Jesus.
- Be willing to be called into the unknown.
- Move immediately when called.
- Put everything in God’s hands.
- Keep our commitment to God’s plans.
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Father God. You want us to study Your Word so that we know what it truly says. Only then can we know what You are really calling us to do. Help us to have the obedience of Abram, even when we don’t know the whole plan. Amen.
What do you think?
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