The Sons of Terah Through Nahor

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I believe Abram was in his forties when the people of the kingdom of Shinar, where the construction site in Babel was abandoned, were being swallowed up by those they sought to rule.

the Bible math says the Exalted Father was forty-three in 340 PD.

Name	Yr Born	Yr Died	Age
Noah	1056 AA	2006AA/350 PD	950
Shem	1556	2156       500	600
Arphacshad	1658 AA / 2 PD	2096       440	438
Shelah	1693          37	2126       470	433
Eber	1723          67	2187       531	464
Peleg	1757          101	1996       340	239
Reu	1787          131	2026       370	239
Serug	1819          163	2049       393	230
Nahor	1849          193	1997       341	148
Terah	1878          222	2083       427	205
Abram	1953          297	2128       472	175
Ishmael	2039          382	no record	???
Isaac	2053          397	2233       577	180
Jacob	2113          457	2260       604	147

AA = Age of Adam  PD = Post Diluvium (after the flood)


Abram, who would go on to become The Patriarch of entire nations (plural), was old enough to have played a role in the politics surrounding Babel. He was certainly old enough to have learned all the Awdawmish stories as told by those who had been telling them since before the flood (I'll even bet he could write, and that he owned servants who could as well). Abram knew YHWH; he was Awdawmish. Most importantly, he bore the Seed God planted in Eve.

Abram was still relatively young, and he had not yet been tested. He'd lost his home, but he had not yet been challenged to the point of breaking, so his sojourn in Haran is only the first step in the Holy Man's journey.

Now, to understand what he was doing there, we need to take a look at his brother, Nahor and his descendants.

Abram's father, Terah was the first Hebrew compelled to pack up all that he could of his life and his family to start over some where else, and we can only hope that the last Hebrew to share the experience has already been born.

The Sons of Eber weren't like their blood kin, the Sumerians of Shinar, who relied on and celebrated, that is to say worshiped the six fragments of God they called gods. The Hebrews would have been equally peculiar to the people who would later be called Chaldeans, who apparently weren't too fond of Sumerians (at one point, after the Sumerians have all but disappeared, it will be the Chaldeans who rule the Plain of Shinar).

What would you do if you were Terah?

He moved his whole family to points north, including all their flocks and all their people. Yes, the ancient Hebrews owned people's lives. We call that slavery, they called it survival. But slavery it was, and we all know it's not going away by itself, but depending on the tone of the comments section, I'm not opposed to posting a discussion starter as a separate article.

What we need to grasp in terms of the story is that we're talking about moving an entire tribe, not just Terah and his boys with their wives and children.

It must have looked like a miniature exodus as they made their way to a place that was over 500 miles to the north. They called the place Haran, perhaps in memory of Terah's lost son (perhaps not).

I would think that things had to be bad for that many settled people to pack up and move, on foot, to a place that was
574 miles away.

Of course, Abram was there, as was his brother Nahor, and their dead brother's children, Lot and Sarai.

Nahor was married to a woman named Milcah, and Abram was married to Sarai. (we are still talking about primitive people here, and there are so many things we don't know, so let's give the obvious incest a pass for now. (I will delete any and all vulgar jokes))

Lot, of course, stayed close to his sister, and became like a son to the Exalted Father Abram, who had no children of his own because, apparently, Sarai was barren.

Nahor's life was a little different. First of all, he was polytheistic (he worshiped more than one god). It may be that he worshiped all seven Sumerian gods, and considered himself more enlightened than those who worshiped the six, or just the One.

Nahor would also end up staying in Haran, and he apparently prospered for a number of generations. His wife, Milcah would go on to have eight sons:

1. Uz
2. his brother Buz
3. Kemuel (the father of Aram)
4. Chesed
5. Hazo
6. Pildash 
7. Jidlaph
8. Bethuel (the father of Rebekah and Laban, the father of Leah and Rachel)

Nahor's concubine, Reumah would have four sons:

1. Tebah
2. Gaham
3. Tahash 
4. Maacah

(the sevens haven't stopped, and now here come the twelves)

Haran was an island of Awdawmish Sumerian blood, set apart from the antagonistic world they left behind, 
but don't go getting all supreme about purity, because by the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus, that concept is going bye-bye.

Guess where Abram's son's and grandson's wives are going to be born?

Next Time: Hero's Quest, or Holy Man's Test?

Peace Y'all