The descendants of Terah (Gen 11:27-11:32)

“Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.  Haran was the father of Lot.  Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.   Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah.  She was the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah.  Now Sarai was barren.  She had no children.”

Now we get the family background of Abram. Abram who appears to be the oldest took a wife named Sarai, who was barren. Later it will be revealed that Sarai is his half sister, since Terah had a concubine.  Haran had three children, Lot, Milcah, and Iscah.  However, he died early before his father Terah had died.  They all lived at Ur in the Chaldeans, probably in northwest Mesopotamia.  Nahor took a wife named Milcah, who was the daughter of his brother Haran, who had died, the sister of Lot and Iscah.  Thus Haran married his niece.  Haran is a name that will appear again..

“Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out 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 two hundred five years.  Terah died in Haran.”

Terah took his son Abram and his wife, Sarai, and his grandson Lot, and left Ur and went to Canaan. However, they settled in a place that had the same name as his dead son, Haran.  This is where Terah died at the age of 205.  Nahor apparently stayed in Ur with his family, Lot’s sister Milcah. This may have been part of a huge migration in the early second millennium before the common Christian era.