So in Genesis 11:10-26 we've come to another genealogy, the partner to what we had in chapter 5. Just like that one, this one is structured “to show the legitimate descent of God's election,” tracing forward not just anybody and everybody, but only the human lineage that God is choosing, or electing, to carry his promises.1 This one, though, has the added bonus that it forms a bridge between the two main pieces of Genesis. Chapters 1-11 – everything we've been looking at since June last year – is called the primeval history. Everything yet to come in Genesis is called the patriarchal history. And today's passage is what ties the one to the other.
The first few names of it should be pretty familiar, because it repeats a line we partially traced in chapter 10. It starts off with Noah's son Shem, and then introduces his son Arpachshad (Genesis 11:10-13). It's a wild name to have, but it probably means “border of the Chaldeans,”2 and it might indicate a people group living in “the desert regions of western Mesopotamia.”3 Then, Shelah's name suggests someone being sent forth or going out, thrown forward like a spear or arrow.4 The next name is Eber (Genesis 11:14-17), whose name means 'across' or 'beyond,' and might look to a nomadic people crossing over the Euphrates River.5 In the Table of Nations, “to Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan” (Genesis 10:25). In chapter 10, we learned a lot about Joktan ties to southern Arabia; but now we move forward with Peleg's story (Genesis 11:16-19), which might have something to do with the way people in the south needed to create irrigation canals to make their land fertile.
The rest of the genealogy takes us further north, to the steppe region of north Mesopotamia above the bend in the Euphrates. The people up here were organized into confederations of tribes, and each tribe had sub-tribes in it, and smaller groups in those; everybody had a place.6 Following after Peleg, Reu's name seems to mean 'shepherd' (Genesis 11:18-21),7 and the semi-nomadic lifestyle these tribes adopted was all about raising small livestock on the steppe land while having a few settlements here and there to farm wherever there was rain.8 It wasn't bad when they had a strong grip on wool production, because they could command high prices for it.9
Zeroing in on just one area, there's a stretch above the Upper Euphrates where two main rivers flow south to feed into it: the Balikh in the west, and the Khabur in the east. And the next two names in the genealogy (Genesis 11:21-26) are settlements there: Sarugi, to the west of the Balikh, and Nahur, on a west branch of the Khabur.10 So it's people living in this area who are coming into clearer and clearer focus as this genealogy tells us that God's plan for the world is still advancing, that his original blessing is still working itself out, narrowing in on its goal.11
But there's a big bump in the road. Around the year 2200 BC, changes in the ocean currents set off a massive multi-century period of drought in much of the known world, one of the most severe climate shifts in known history. When that rapid-onset drought gripped the areas around Sarugi and Nahur, settlements there collapsed, and hundreds of thousands of people began to move south in search of survival.12 They were, by some definitions of the term, refugees.13 But their movement away from their home was “an exodus of unprecedented proportions” in human history,14 and it seems as though the family line our Bible is tracing was part of it.
Naturally, people in Sumer and Akkad, weren't necessarily thrilled with all of this. All kinds of foreign peoples “descended in increasing numbers on southern Mesopotamia during the decades following 2200 BC.”15 They eventually – a century or so too late – built a 110-mile wall from river to river, trying to keep this wave of northern immigrants out.16 But myriads upon myriads had already made a “persistent infiltration of the south,” bringing a “substantive influx of immigrants” into their cities and lands, until their kind made up about a tenth of the total population.17 That included the immigrants who, unbeknownst to all, carried the hope of the world.
If they went far down enough, then where the Euphrates poured into the Persian Gulf, they found a Sumerian city called Ur. Ur was a very old Sumerian city – from the Bible's point of view, the same kind of city as Babel18 – and its position where the river met the gulf meant it could prosper heavily from the metal trade in addition to its lively textile industry.19 Back when Sumer was united by the rule of Sargon and his kids – you might remember them the other week as the inspiration for the Bible's Nimrod – Sargon appointed his daughter Enheduana as high priestess at Ur.20 Once the Akkadian Empire weakened and was overrun by mountain tribes, eventually a governor of Ur named Ur-Nammu rose up, claimed kingship, and established the Third Dynasty of Ur around the year 2100 BC; and in the city's heart, he built a ziggurat, a big ol' Tower of Babel all Ur's own.21
The other month, as we compared the Bible's flood to pagan stories, we remembered that they thought it was their storm god Enlil who unleashed the flood. Well, the same people thought that their moon-god – Sumerians called him Nanna, and Akkadians called him Sin – was “the firstborn of Enlil.”22 Ur was a city wholly devoted to the moon-god, thinking of him as “king of heaven and earth,”23 as the “lord who lights up the darkness” all through the night.24 They pictured him as a rancher whose field was the night sky and who kept the stars as his cattle. He was especially popular in southermost Sumer, places like Ur, where the economy depended on herds, since shepherds so often watched their flocks by night beneath the moon's protective gaze.25
This is the Ur where some of the immigrants from up north found themselves. Since the kingdom had plenty it wanted to get done, and the immigrants needed work to do, they were ripe to draft for labor in building “massive boundary walls, fortifications, temples, ziqqurats, and canals” at Ur and neighboring cities.26 But the kingdom didn't last. Around the year 2000 BC, it got invaded, and its last king, Ur-Nammu's great-great-grandson Ibbi-Sin, was carried off captive amidst the destruction.27 The kingdom's disintegration meant “largely unchecked migration into the region,” not to mention grain shortages that had stomachs growling.28 And even as kings in other cities (some of foreign background) seized power, Ur was being rebuilt bigger than before: a fourth of a square mile inside the city wall, but lots of settlement beyond the wall.29
It's in this rebuilt Ur of the Middle Bronze Age that we at last meet a man named Terah, who either was born in the area or came there through his or his family's migration (Genesis 11:26). As the story of Shem's legacy closes and a new story begins, we're twice told that Terah “fathered Abram and Nahor and Haran” (Genesis 11:26-27). The one given pride of place, though not necessarily in order of birth, is Abram – whom we'll later know as Abraham, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. The way the genealogies in Genesis are artfully designed, Noah was the tenth generation from Adam, and he had three sons. Now, Terah is the ninth generation from Shem, and he's also got three sons – one of whom will rise into that same tenth-place position Noah had. The question this story has to answer is: which one of them is it going to be?30
So let's come meet Terah as he tries to raise these three boys into men. It's not clear whether Terah lives inside Ur's city walls or in the settlements and tent camps stretching outward from the city. But whatever the case, his life is a lot different from what his ancestors knew before they came south. There just wasn't enough land for all these newcomers to be shepherds roaming free.31 So Terah, and his boys as they came of age, likely did seasonal labor: cleaning canals, making bricks, working construction jobs, hiring out to farms during the harvest.32 They might have even been drafted into military service now and then.33 Have you ever pictured Abraham as a kid, playing board games with his brothers? Have you ever imagined them running through the winding streets of the city? Can you see a teenage Abraham doing those kinds of jobs? Because he would've.
What about their family's religious life? Based on the parallel to Noah, it'd be easy to assume that this chapter traces the family that kept the knowledge of the true God alive, even as every other candle smoldered and died, one by one.34 But the shocking thing is, they didn't. Whatever was true about his fathers before him, Terah “happened to be a heathen.”35 Centuries later, as Joshua reviews for Israel where they came from, he explains that “beyond the River lived your fathers in olden times – Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor – and they served other gods” (Joshua 24:2). Other gods, plural, besides the LORD – they were pagan polytheists! And which other gods? The gods of Ur, especially the moon-god and his wife. In fact, Terah's name is likely related to his language's word for 'moon,' and the names of several of his family members seem to be linked to the moon-cult.36 No wonder later Jews spoke of Abraham's background as “ancestral godlessness.”37 “His family was steeped in pagan idolatry.”38 Luther went so far as to charge that Abram himself “lived in idolatry, had no true knowledge of God, and lacked both faith and the fear of God.”39
So what happened in Abram's life that, in an environment of moon-worship and polytheism and idols and all the many rituals of Ur, led him to turn instead to such a different kind of religiosity? Now that's the big mystery. A common speculation later on, since God's “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20), was that a young Abram “recognized... from the pattern of the stars the One who arranged them,”40 that he “intuited that there must be an invisible, single, intelligent source behind the visible, many, but silent heavenly bodies.”41 Moreover, people figured that Abram must have realized that an idol could never be worthy of its own craftsman's devotion.42 As an early teenager, maybe, Abram “began understanding the straying of the land, that everyone went astray after graven images and after pollution..., and he began to pray to the Creator of All so that he might save him from the straying of the sons of men.”43 Thus, Abram “stopped worshipping idols and started believing in one God,” a radical move to make in the depths of ancient Sumer.44 Perhaps, as one Jewish writing imagines, a voice from heaven answered his prayer: “You are searching for the God of gods, the Creator, in the understanding of your heart. I am He!”45
Later Jewish readers imagined that, once Abram came to this new conviction, he became a bold witness, first and foremost to his dad, urging him to “worship the God of heaven, who sends down rain and dew upon the earth, and who makes everything upon the earth and created everything by his Word, and all life is in his presence. Why do you worship those who have no spirit in them?”46
Whatever the story there, Abram and his brothers grew up. One of those brothers, Haran, had children, such as a son named Lot (Genesis 11:27). But then, tragedy struck. “Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans” (Genesis 11:28). This is the first human death actually stated in Genesis since the Flood itself; that's a big deal. Ignoring later legends about Abram committing arson against a temple and Haran dying in the blaze as he rushes in to rescue his gods,47 all the Bible actually tells us is that something happened – maybe execution, maybe an accident, maybe an illness – that led to Haran dying, not just during his dad's lifetime, but in front of Terah's own two eyes.48
Only now, in the wake of disaster, do we read that “Abram and Nahor took wives” (Genesis 11:29). Nahor marries a woman named Milcah, who is “the daughter of Haran.” Apparently, besides his son Lot, Haran had two daughters, “Milcah and Iscah.” While Terah cares for Lot as his own, Nahor marries his niece Milcah, which was “one way to provide for orphaned daughters who were not yet married at the time of their father's death.”49 So we might expect that Abram will naturally marry Iscah, the other daughter. But instead, Abram marries a woman named Sarai. Unlike Milcah, we aren't told anything of where Sarai comes from; she's “the one woman here without genealogy.”50 And while many early Jews and Christians tried to turn her into Iscah to make things neat and tidy,51 she just isn't. We're left in suspense for nine chapters until finally Abram admits that Sarai is “the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife” (Genesis 20:12). Sarai needs no genealogy because she's a child of Terah by a second wife.52
We're told just one thing about Sarai at this point: “Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Genesis 11:30). It's just six even words in Hebrew, but it packs a punch, becoming “central to everything that follows.”53 This is the Bible's first use of the word 'barren,' finally fulfilling God's warning to Eve about an uphill battle to conceive children (Genesis 3:16). Of all the pairs for God's blessing of fruitfulness to skip over, why Abram and Sarai's?54 Aside from them being half-siblings, of course, which I can't imagine helped matters.55
So here we are, and of Terah's three sons who could be heirs to the line of promise, Haran is prematurely dead, which leaves him out, and Abram's childlessness is, on first glance, “leaving no doubt that Abram is a minor character” in the story.56 The obvious conclusion, for a first-time reader, is that there's only one hope for the future, and it lies with Nahor and his niece-wife Milcah. All told, though, the painful plight of two-thirds of Terah's sons gives him considerable cause to worry about the future of his family.57
So we read that “Terah took” – and what did he take but what family he could? “Terah took Abram his son,” for one, and “Sarai his daughter-in-law, Abram's wife.” Terah doesn't desert them, even if he's losing hope of them providing him any more grandchildren. Terah also took “Lot the son of Haran, his grandson” (Genesis 11:31), to whom Terah had effectively become an adoptive father.58 But Genesis says nothing about Terah taking to himself Nahor and Milcah – which is a strange omission, if they're really the hope for the future. They likely do join the action that follows, but Genesis elides mentioning them here to refocus our attention.
“And they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans” (Genesis 11:31). This home they'd made, this place where they lived – why leave it? Some speculated that they quit Ur, and indeed all of Sumer, owing to religious persecution due to Abram's religious defiance – that the locals “expelled them from the presence of their gods.”59 That's not very likely. What's a bit more likely is the suggestion that Haran's death was so traumatic that Terah just needed to get away from the place where it happened, however it happened.60 By this time, the Gulf was starting to retreat from Ur, which would eventually weaken it as an economic powerhouse,61 and maybe Terah worried that his family wouldn't survive in Sumer.
On a human level, it was Terah who instigated their move away from Ur and out of Sumer,62 even if maybe Abram urged his dad toward the decision.63 But all this was in the hands of divine providence.64 Four chapters from now, Abram will hear the words, “I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans” (Genesis 15:7), and based on that, centuries later Jews would remember the LORD as “the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans” (Nehemiah 9:7). Maybe there's hope that, by freeing the family from immersion in his old environment, Terah can break all the old chains and be fully converted to the LORD.65
Saying goodbye to Ur, Terah and his family begin their journey, heading northwest along the banks of the Euphrates River, since following the river is the easiest way to navigate. They pass by Uruk and its famed walls; in the eastern distance, they spy Nippur, the city of Enlil, and Shuruppak, where local traditions say the ark was built; they march right past Babylon, probably with scarcely a glance.66 They get to Hit, where all the best bitumen is found. They make their way into the territory of the kingdom centered at Mari. And somewhere along this way, Abram has an experience that changes his life.
In the New Testament, the first martyr, Stephen, looks back and suggests that “the God of glory” revealed himself to Abram “when he was in Mesopotamia” (Acts 7:2), before Abram “went out from the land of the Chaldeans” (Acts 7:4). Apparently “it was on that journey that God, we understand, spoke to him.”67 Once Babel is in the rearview mirror, that's when Abram deepens his sense of a purpose for his life, that's when Abram begins to hear this God of Glory speaking to him. Despite his disqualifications, he's been chosen.
Terah's still in the driver's seat, but as Abram is realizing, Terah's decision to uproot the family was actually at the LORD's instigation, whether or not Terah knew him. And now we're told that Terah's destination for this trip was “to go into the land of Canaan” (Genesis 11:31) – again, whether or not Terah realizes that's where he's headed towards. That is his God-decreed destination. That is where Terah belongs. Every step Terah takes in these two months thus far is meant by God to bring him closer to Canaan, so that Terah can become patriarch in a new land and, once fully converted along the way, become someone truly great and majestic. God has a profound purpose for Terah, this idolatrous man who's on his way to deliver his family to their destiny.
So, since the goal is to get to Canaan, then they should soon be taking a westward turn. The Fertile Crescent curves downward through Syria and Lebanon into Canaan, and they should follow that path. But... they don't. The next words we read are that “they came to Harran” (Genesis 11:31), a town “situated on the Jullab river near the source of the Balikh.”68 Reaching Harran on a journey from Ur to Canaan requires missing a big turn and taking a few unplanned ones. Harran is just too far north of the curve, 550 miles from Ur. Apparently, Terah stayed on the Euphrates until he reached the mouth of the Balikh, then veered north and followed it up.
What's going through Terah's mind? Why does he detour to Harran? There's a lot of mystery here – the Bible doesn't outright give us an answer – but it's important. First of all, remember that Terah's ancestors probably came from that region around the Balikh river valley a couple centuries earlier. For maybe the first time in his life, Terah's journey had taken him close to where grandpa was born. How could he not at least pay a visit? He reasons that it isn't too far out of the way. But once he does, Terah finds that this place makes him feel “comfortable in a culturally similar environment.”69 He recognized his roots. He felt at home there.
This journey is likely after 1900 BC, by which time the drought in the region had subsided, and plenty of people were flooding back north to this area; one scholar called it “a veritable land rush,” with “tribes and kingdoms vying for access to and control of pastureland” in that region.70 Communities were being revived, and many of the descendants who'd multiplied elsewhere were on their way up. For Terah to have led his house to Harran meant just following the well-worn path, going with the crowd, letting the flow of traffic bear them along.
What's more, Harran's very name suggests a crossroads for caravans, and Harran was indeed at the intersection of several major international trade routes. It was a natural stop for merchants going between the Mediterranean to the west, the Hurrians to the north, and the river civilizations to the southeast.71 In fact, some scholars suggest that Harran was originally “founded as a merchant outpost by Ur.”72 A place like that makes the dollar signs fill Terah's eyes. And given that the next chapter will mention the many possessions and servants that the family “acquired in Harran” (Genesis 12:5), Terah was right about the “economically promising conditions.”73
As a fourth reason for Terah to stop, Harran was religiously familiar. Ur and Harran were united by both being “thriving centers of moon worship.”74 In fact, it isn't until after the time of Jesus that we have clear evidence of anyone or anything worshipped in Harran other than the moon!75 The moon-god had a major temple in Harran called the 'House of Rejoicing,' and its promised joy tugged at Terah's heartstrings and drew him in.76
And as if that weren't all enough reason to stick around, Terah realizes that, even if Canaan were more of what he was looking for, it's hundreds of miles further. And he has to ask himself: Is any marginal benefit of Canaan worth that added work to get there? Why bother going on, when Harran is at least good enough? So Terah sees Harran, and he judges it to be “an excellent alternative without necessitating further travel.”77 Tired from a two-month journey as it is, Terah throws in the towel. He taps out. He opts for Harran “rather than their original destination.”78 Terah makes the decision on behalf of his family that this is the end of the trip. “When they came to Harran, they settled there” (Genesis 11:31). And “in settling in one worldly location, he is absorbed into the world.”79 For Terah, that's where the story ends. Genesis flashes-forward through “the days of Terah,” revealing that, in the end, “Terah died in Harran” (Genesis 11:32). Terah never went further.
Terah had gotten derailed on the journey he was meant to take in life. He could have kept the course. He could have turned away from the river of ease when he needed to. But he saw that Harran would give him cultural comfort and a sense of family tradition. He could tell that Harran fit with the flow. He saw the lucrative prospects, the strategic opportunities, that setting up shop near Harran could yield. He recognized in Harran all the values ingrained in him by habit, including his old spiritual values. Harran offered him all the things he really wanted, without mustering any more effort for them than he already had. So it's not surprising that Terah turned aside to Harran. But by doing so, Terah veered away from where he was meant to go in life. And as the years and even decades passed him by, Terah stubbornly rooted himself in that decision. Terah never had a change of heart. Terah never escaped his old chains, just set them up in a new place. Terah never saw the destination God had in store. He was “unable to enter because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). And so he never became what he was meant to be. Terah got stuck halfway to his goal, and gave up. And there he died.
Do you ever see Terah when you look in the mirror? God had a purpose for Terah, but Terah veered away; and sometimes, so do we. Sometimes, like Terah, we're tempted off-track by the appeal of a legacy we want to uphold. Terah had his ancestral roots near Harran; we might have our attachment to a particular idea of what it means to be an American, or we might have a family legacy, or some other tradition or custom or cultural bubble, and it's possible we can cling so hard to such things that it derails us from what we're meant to be about. Or sometimes, like Terah, we're tempted off-track by the flow of the crowd. The traffic of our society beats its path in rather predictable directions, toward certain ideas, toward certain practices. Our society travels toward consumption. Our society travels toward self-satisfaction. Our society travels toward particular views of what it means to be a good human, what it means to be a good citizen. Resisting that traffic is hard, and if you track the polls of what Christians in our society actually confess believing, much less what we end up doing, well, we increasingly follow the ways of the crowd. We don't want to swim against the current. We go with the flow.
Sometimes, like Terah, we're tempted off-track by the promise of an opportunity. Terah hoped for riches if he went to Harran – and it sounds like he got 'em. He decided that he could provide better for himself in Harran than God could provide for him on the journey into the unknown. But don't we routinely make the same choice, and don't we choose what will make us feel secure and prosperous? Don't we aim to bless ourselves, to gain and gain? Sometimes, I'm sure we do – just like Terah did – and we'll step off the path of the call to get it.
Sometimes, like Terah, we're tempted off-track by a familiar vice. In Terah's case, it was moon-worship, which was such a familiar habit that it once again took hold of his religious life. For us, though, it could be any vice, any number of things we like to do, are habituated to do, and find that it's just too irresistible to not steer toward this one time... and then another... and then another...
Or sometimes, if we're honest, we – like Terah – find ourselves off-track, for one of those or some other reason, but once we are, we decide it's easier or more comfortable or more pleasing to give up and stay there, rather than to get back on track and go the distance. We settle down where we've gone off-track. And depending on whether it's just our personal potential we're avoiding or else the broader human call to virtue, we might become – in the words of the New Testament – “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13) – because isn't that, after all, what it is to “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and so miss what we're meant for?
That's the tragic story of Terah, and sometimes it can be the story of you and me. But the fantastic news is that “if we get stuck for some reason, it doesn't necessarily mean that God has lost interest in or finished dealing with us.”80 Abram stopped in Harran, the same as his father Terah did, precisely because Terah did. And that was a threat to God's plan for humanity. So what we read in the very next verse is that “the LORD said to Abram: Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). God calls Abram again. Even if Terah won't go with him, even if Terah's old age seems to justify staying put, God tells Abram that the movement comes first. God calls Abram to get back on the road.
It's going to cost Abram, this journey. It asks him to become an exile from his land. It asks him to abandon his clan. It asks him to leave the people closest to him, including his increasingly elderly father. It asks him, in effect, to shear himself of his entire identity. And for what? To step out into the unknown, to a destination not even yet specified. It asks Abram to defy the direction of traffic, to give up the cultural comfort and traditional legacy, to risk losing every ounce of profit he's made in Harran, to forget entirely about the religious influences and habits that have been plying themselves on Abram's soul again and again in pagan Harran. It asks Abram to go hundreds of miles into a grand mystery – all out of trust that this voice won't lead him astray. Can Abram do what Terah couldn't? Will Abram reveal a different love moving in his heart? So we read that Abram “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). He gambled it all on God.
And in so doing, he embodied the hope which Terah's apathy and despair had denied, and in some distant way, Abram redeemed his father. For one day, in the very land which Abram's sandals trod down, there would be born a little boy whose heart beat with a rhythm older than the moon. He would be Jesus, “the son of Abraham, the son of Terah” (Luke 3:34). Because Abram refused to live his life merely halfway there, Terah the idolater became Terah the ancestor of God-made-Man. No wonder, as Jesus grew and began ministering to all the other descendants of Terah and beyond, he declared that he “came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17) – people who'd lost their way and turned aside to their own Harrans, giving up or mistaking their journeys.
And Jesus simply wouldn't stand for that. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself,” as Abram did when he gave up land and kindred and father's house. “And let him take up his cross,” embracing the potential for shame and suffering on the road. “And let him follow me” (Matthew 16:24). “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” Jesus said. That was the lesson Abram had to learn: not to be so attached to Terah as to cling to him in Harran when the LORD was saying go on. “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37-38). Jesus practiced what he preached. One wouldn't need to take a cross to follow him unless he were carrying a cross as well. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient,” not merely as Abram did, to the point of departure, but “to the point of death, even death on the cross” (Philippians 2:8).
Jesus obediently offered his life, for the salvation of Abram, and for the salvation of Haran and Nahor and Terah and Serug and Reu and Peleg and all the rest, if they'd take it. But Jesus refused to make the grave his Harran to settle down in. Taking the lost souls whom he acquired in the realms of death, he journeyed up and out of the grave to the realm of life, and refused to tarry long halfway to heaven. Neither does he bid us settle down at the cosmic halfway marker. The Apostle Paul speaks to us of “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). Where Terah stopped short, we must not. Where Abram continued on in trusting obedience, we have all the more reason to. To close with one of my favorite verses from a seldom-sung hymn: “I do not ask to see the way my feet will have to tread, / but only that my soul may feed upon the Living Bread. / 'Tis better far that I should walk by faith close to his side; / I may not know the way I go, but oh, I know my Guide!”81 Amen.
1 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), 186.
2 Jan Christian Gertz, Genesis 1-11 (Peeters, 2023), 390.
3 Gotthard G.G. Reinhold, The Rise and Fall of the Aramaeans in the Ancient Near East, from Their First Appearance until 732 BCE: New Studies on Aram and Israel (Peter Lang, 2016), 27.
4 Anwarul Azad and Ida Glaser, Genesis 1-11: Bud of Theology, Grandmother of the Sciences, Seedbed of the Holy Books (Langham Global Library, 2022), 277.
5 Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11 (Eisenbrauns, 2009), 79.
6 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 97; Nathan Wasserman and Yigal Bloch, The Amorites: A Political History of Mesopotamia in the Early Second Millennium BCE (Brill, 2023), 50-53.
7 Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11 (Eisenbrauns, 2009), 84.
8 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 18; Edward Lipinski, The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion (Peeters, 2001), 58.
9 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 23.
10 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 85; Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2014), 18-19; John Day, From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in Genesis 1-11 (T&T Clark, 2021), 213.
11 Carol M. Kaminski, From Noah to Israel: Realization of the Primaeval Blessing After the Flood (T&T Clark, 2005), 91.
12 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 61-63, 81.
13 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 82.
14 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 72.
15 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 71.
16 Robert R. Stieglitz, “Migrations in the Ancient Near East, 3500-500 BC,” Anthropological Science 101/3 (1993): 266; Guy D. Middleton, Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 72.
17 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 86, 100, 128-129.
18 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 240.
19 Harriet Crawford, Ur: The City of the Moon God (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 1, 6, 59.
20 Harriet Crawford, Ur: The City of the Moon God (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 77.
21 Harriet Crawford, Ur: The City of the Moon God (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 83-85.
22 Hymn to Utu for King Rim-Sin, line 38, in Mark E. Cohen, New Treasures of Sumerian Literature: When the Moon Fell from the Sky, and Other Works (CDL Press, 2017), 37.
23 Harvest Hymn, line 15, in Mark E. Cohen, New Treasures of Sumerian Literature: When the Moon Fell from the Sky, and Other Works (CDL Press, 2017), 26.
24 Fifteen Phases of the Moon, line 31', in Mark E. Cohen, New Treasures of Sumerian Literature: When the Moon Fell from the Sky, and Other Works (CDL Press, 2017), 53.
25 Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Brill, 1992), 25.
26 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 92.
27 Harriet Crawford, Ur: The City of the Moon God (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 99.
28 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 123.
29 Harriet Crawford, Ur: The City of the Moon God (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 110-112; Charles Gates and Andrew Goldman, Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2024), 63.
30 Carol M. Kaminski, From Noah to Israel: Realization of the Primaeval Blessing After the Flood (T&T Clark, 2005), 92.
31 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 93.
32 Stephanie Dalley, The City of Babylon: A History, c.2000 BC–AD 116 (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 8.
33 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 127.
34 Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 4.16, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:309; Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.12, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:203.
35 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 31.7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:242.
36 Paul Dhorme, “Abraham dans le Cadre de l'Histoire,” Revue Biblique 37/4 (October 1928): 511; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 363; Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), 199; Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2014), 14; John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 204.
37 Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers 12.61, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:693.
38 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), 190.
39 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:1, in Luther's Works 2:250.
40 Recognitions 1.32.3, in F. Stanley Jones, An Ancient Jewish-Christian Source on the History of Christianity: Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27-71 (Scholars Press, 1995), 90.
41 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 241.
42 Apocalypse of Abraham 3.3-4, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:690.
43 Jubilees 11.16-17, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:79.
44 Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2014), 13.
45 Apocalypse of Abraham 8.3, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:693.
46 Jubilees 12.5-6, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:80.
47 Jubilees 12.8, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:80.
48 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 204.
49 Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 301.
50 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 362.
51 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.151, in Loeb Classical Library 242:75; Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 9.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:148; Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.12, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:203.
52 Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2014), 32.
53 David W. Cotter, Genesis, Berit Olam (Liturgical Press, 2003), 73.
54 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 128.
55 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 121.
56 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 128-129.
57 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 204.
58 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 118.
59 Judith 5:8, in Debora Gera, Judith (De Gruyter, 2014), 192; cf. Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.13, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:204.
60 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.152, in Loeb Classical Library 242:75; Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), 200.
61 Harriet Crawford, Ur: The City of the Moon God (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 6.
62 Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 159.
63 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 121.
64 Shaul Bar, Daily Life of the Patriarchs: The Way It Was (Peter Lang, 2014), 19.
65 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 205.
66 John C. Lennox, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt (SPCK, 2024), 42.
67 Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch 1.25.3, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/14:23.
68 Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Brill, 1992), 1.
69 Zvi Shimon, “Distinguishing Abraham from the 'Terahides': The Ideology of Separation Behind Etiology,” in Elizabeth R. Hayes and Karolien Vermeulen, eds., Doubling and Duplicating in the Book of Genesis: Literary and Stylistic Approaches to the Text (Eisenbrauns, 2016), 137.
70 Aaron A. Burke, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 177.
71 Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Brill, 1992), 19-20.
72 Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Brill, 1992), 19; cf. Zvi Shimon, “Distinguishing Abraham from the 'Terahides': The Ideology of Separation Behind Etiology,” in Elizabeth R. Hayes and Karolien Vermeulen, eds., Doubling and Duplicating in the Book of Genesis: Literary and Stylistic Approaches to the Text (Eisenbrauns, 2016), 139 n.37.
73 Zvi Shimon, “Distinguishing Abraham from the 'Terahides': The Ideology of Separation Behind Etiology,” in Elizabeth R. Hayes and Karolien Vermeulen, eds., Doubling and Duplicating in the Book of Genesis: Literary and Stylistic Approaches to the Text (Eisenbrauns, 2016), 137.
74 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 363.
75 Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Brill, 1992), 22.
76 Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Brill, 1992), 21.
77 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 125.
78 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 129.
79 R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 135.
80 John C. Lennox, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt (SPCK, 2024), 42.
81 “His Love Can Never Fail,” hymn #7 in Songs for Young People (Methodist Book Concern, 1897), 9.
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