Genesis 11:27 - Meaning and Application

Here begins the story of Abram, whose name becomes well known in both Testaments. We are first told about his country, Ur of the Chaldees. This was his native land, and it was an idolatrous place, where even the family line of Eber had gone astray. Those who, by God’s grace, become heirs of the promised land should remember where they came from, their sinful condition by nature, and the rock they were cut from.

We are also told about his family, because it matters for the story that follows. His father was Terah, and Joshua says that he served other gods on the other side of the river (Joshua 24:2). So idolatry had spread very early in the world, and even those with some right principles found it hard to go against the current. Genesis 11:26 says Terah was seventy years old when he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, which seems to make Abram the eldest son and born when Terah was seventy. But when Genesis 11:32 is compared with Acts 7:4, it appears that Abram was born when Terah was 130, so he may have been the youngest son. In God’s choices, the last are often first and the first last.

We are also given a little about his brothers. Nahor was the one whose family later provided wives for both Isaac and Jacob. Haran was the father of Lot, and it is said here that he died before his father Terah. Children cannot be sure they will outlive their parents, because death does not follow age order. The shadow of death falls without any rule, as Job says (Job 10:22). Haran died in Ur of the Chaldees, before the family made its happy move out of that idolatrous land. We should hurry to leave our natural sinful state, or death may surprise us in it.

Abram’s wife was Sarai, whom some think was the same as Iscah, Haran’s daughter. Abram himself says she was his father’s daughter, but not his mother’s daughter (Genesis 20:12). She was ten years younger than Abram.

Then the family set out from Ur of the Chaldees, along with Terah, Lot, Abram’s nephew, and the rest of the household, obeying God’s call, which is explained more fully in Genesis 12:1 and following. This chapter leaves them in Haran, or Charran, about halfway between Ur and Canaan. They stayed there until Terah died, likely because he was too old and weak to continue the journey. Many people make it as far as Haran and still fall short of Canaan. They are near the kingdom of God, and yet never enter it.