Genesis 11: Babel, Shem’s Line, and Terah

Now the whole world had one language and a common form of speech. And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” So they used brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar. “Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.” Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building. And the Lord said, “If they have begun to do this as one people speaking the same language, then nothing they devise will be beyond them. Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it is called Babel, for there the Lord confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the Lord scattered them over the face of all the earth. (BSB)

Says 11:1–9 is a single narrative: one language and a common form of speech; a journey and a settlement in a plain in the land of Shinar; bricks and bitumen; a plan for a city, a tower, and a name, and a stay against being scattered; the Lord’s coming down; the confusion of language; the name Babel; and the scattering over the face of all the earth. The BSB’s “the whole world” in 11:1 and 11:9 renders khol-ha'arets, “all the earth,” used of its people. “A common form of speech” renders udevarim 'akhadim, “words, ones,” which has been taken as one vocabulary, the same words and speech, or a few words (the last from the use of the plural of “one” to mean “a few” elsewhere). The first two read the pair as stressing unity; “few words” is less clearly marked by the context. The language of the section is safah, “lip,” not the lashon of 10:5. These wording questions are set out in One language and the same words; no view is adopted here on the exact force of udevarim 'akhadim.

Says They journey miqqedem and find a plain in Shinar. Miqqedem may mean “eastward,” as many modern readers take it with a verb of motion (so Keil, and Skinner’s report of the modern preference, comparing 13:11), or “from the east,” which is how the Greek reads, and how the Targums take it. Driver allows both: “eastwards (xiii. 11), or (RVm.) in the east.” The expression, he adds, is vague. Jubilees has the departure from Ararat “eastward to Shinar.” No view is adopted here. Shinar is the Babylonian region already named in 10:10, where Babel appears as the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom; the verbal xref from 10:10 to 11:2 is pointed to and is not opened again. Driver identifies Shinar with Babylonia.

Says In 11:3 they say, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” So they used brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar. The Hebrew is more tightly built: “let us brick bricks and burn them to a burning,” and “the bitumen was to them for mortar,” a play of khemar (bitumen) against khomer (mortar, clay), as the language note on 11:2–4 records. The detail assumes a land of brick and bitumen, not of Palestinian stone-masonry, and brick laid in bitumen is at home in southern Mesopotamia. King and Rogers describe platforms and temple-towers built with brick and bitumen; those lines are background only, and they do not identify the tower of 11:4. Driver wrote that “No Babylonian parallel to the preceding narrative has as yet been discovered.” Skinner says the same. A temple-tower, or ziggurat — in Driver’s definition, “a massive pyramidal tower, ascending in stage-like terraces, with a temple at the top.” — is one proposed setting. That description is useful as background; no specific building is adopted as the tower of this chapter. The historical note on city, tower, and one language should be read with this paragraph.

Implies The speech of 11:4 gives the project its aims in the builders’ own words. The Hebrew is “a city and a tower, and its top in the heavens,” then “let us make for ourselves a name,” then “lest we be scattered.” The scattering they fear is the spread commanded in 9:1 and already begun in 9:19, where from them the whole earth was populated. The project therefore resists that spread. The name they seek is their own. In 12:2 the Lord will promise to make Abram’s name great; that verse is pointed to and is not treated here. God opposes a self-made name and a refusal to be scattered.

Uncertain The purpose of the city and tower has been read in more than one way, and each has a hold in some clause of 11:4. Pride in a name is the most direct reading of “let us make for ourselves a name.” Calvin finds here “nothing, indeed, is here noticed, except their mad ambition, and proud contempt of God.” and rejects a flood-refuge conjecture as without warrant in the text. Keil takes “the desire for renown” together with a central point to maintain their unity, and treats both as ungodly. Driver takes the city and tower as a center and rallying-point that would hold mankind together. “Its top in the heavens” has been taken literally (Skinner) or as hyperbole (Calvin). A temple-tower reading draws on the ziggurat background just noted, but the text itself speaks of a city and a tower, a name, and a fear of scattering, not of a named shrine. Josephus has Nimrod urge a tower too high for the waters to reach; that is an early expansion, not a clause of 11:4. Each of these views is set out on its grounds; the lean taken above is only that 11:4 resists the spread of 9:1, and that God opposes the self-made name and the refusal to be scattered.

Says The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building. The builders aimed at a top “in the heavens”; the one who comes down is the Lord, and those who build are “the sons of man.” In 11:6–7 the Lord says that they are one people, with one language, and that nothing will be withheld from them (the BSB recasts this), and then, Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech. The capital “Us” is not in the Hebrew. The cohortative plural, with havah, answers the builders’ own “come” of 11:3–4. 11:8–9 then gives the outcome they had feared: the Lord scattered them over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. The Greek of 11:8 adds “and the tower.” The place is called Babel, “for there the Lord confused (balal) the language of the whole world.” Babel is the same word as in 10:10, where the BSB has “Babylon.” The people sought a name, and the city receives one from what the Lord did there. Driver calls the Hebrew explanation “a popular etymology”, and notes that the inscriptions show the name signifies “gate of God.” The narrative’s own account is the play on balal and bavel; the Akkadian etymology is background, not a correction of 11:9.

Uncertain “The Lord came down” has been read as an anthropomorphism for God’s attention, or as a real descent, as in other theophanies. Calvin and Keil take the descent as spoken in reference to men rather than as a change of place in God; Augustine says that God, who is always wholly everywhere, is said to descend when he does anything on earth out of the usual course, so that his presence is felt. The plural of 11:7 has been read as a plural of deliberation or majesty; as God addressing a heavenly court; or as a Trinitarian hint. Driver takes the words as addressed to the inferior divine beings there, his heavenly counselors or associates. The Targum of Jonathan has the Lord address seventy angels who stand before him; Jubilees has “And the Lord descended, and we descended with him to see the city and the tower which the children of men had built.” Calvin rejects the angelic address, because the text does not mention angels, and adduces the verse as a Trinitarian proof. Augustine allows the Trinity, “as if the Father were addressing the Son and the Holy Spirit”, but prefers the angels. The language note on “let us” at 1:26 is pointed to and is not reopened; the Hebrew xref from 11:7 to 1:26 is a wording link only. The court reading must supply hearers the text does not name; the Trinitarian reading draws on later revelation; the deliberative plural stays with a single speaker. No view is adopted here.

Uncertain The confusion of language has been read as a sudden miraculous split, as a rapid fracturing, or as the origin of language families over a short period. The text says that the Lord confused their language so that they would not understand one another’s speech, and that he scattered them. It does not say how many languages resulted, or by what process the change took place. Driver’s remark that the primitive language of mankind is unknown is a limit, not a theory of origins. The Targum of Jonathan speaks of seventy languages, in line with a tradition of seventy nations already treated in the Genesis 10 notes. Each account of the process is set out on its grounds; none is adopted here.

Implies The scattering of 11:8–9 carries out the blessing of 9:1 and 9:19. What the builders feared as a loss, the Lord uses as the means by which the earth is filled. Calvin saw this clearly: men had already been spread abroad, and that spread ought not to be regarded as a punishment, since it flowed from the blessing of God; what is added here is a violent rout, because the bond between them was cut. They gain a name, he adds, but not such as they would have chosen. Augustine says that “The safe and true way to heaven is made by humility, which lifts up the heart to the Lord, not against Him”, and that “As the tongue is the instrument of domination, in it pride was punished”. Driver, without adopting his larger source theory, can still say that the narrative “teaches how the self-exaltation of man is checked by God”.

Uncertain How 11:1–9 sits with chapter 10 is a genuine question, because chapter 10 has already named languages and nations, and has closed with their spread after the flood. One reading takes 11:1–9 as earlier in time than that spread, so that the confusion of language explains how the “languages” of 10:5, 20, and 31 arose. The other takes 11:1–9 as a thematic flashback that explains those verses, and the naming of Peleg in 10:25, “for in his days the earth was divided.” Calvin’s editor allows that the writer “goes back, in the present chapter, to give a detailed account of events, which had been only slightly referred to”. Keil ties the division of mankind to the days of Peleg, born a hundred years after the flood on the Masoretic figures. Driver stresses the tension: in chapter 10 the dispersion can appear as a natural migration, here as the penalty for misdirected ambition, and the Priestly notices of chapter 10 already speak of distinct languages as well as distinct nations (10:5, 20, 31). Skinner holds the section independent of, and even irreconcilable with, the table of chapter 10, yet still thinks a collector of traditions could put the two in historical sequence. How “one language” in 11:1 sits with the languages of chapter 10 depends on which of these readings is taken. No view is adopted here. The notes on the nations’ spread and on Peleg are pointed to and are not treated again. The Hebrew verbal xrefs from 11:8–9 to 10:5, 9:19, and Deut 32:8, and the earlier xrefs from 10:10 to 11:2 and from 10:24–25 to 11:12–17, are wording links already on record.

Uncertain A source division has long been stated for this chapter: 11:1–9 as J, 11:10–26 as P, and 11:27–32 as mixed (Skinner; Driver assigns 11:27, 31, 32 to P and 11:28–30 to J). The case, in its own terms, rests on the change of style from the Babel narrative to the stereotyped genealogy, which closely resembles Genesis 5, and on further seams in 11:27–32. Unity readings (Keil–Delitzsch; Calvin) take the same change of style as a purposeful move from the scattering of the nations to the line that leads to Abram, and do not require more than one author. The question is the same two-accounts question already treated at 2:4–25; see Reading Genesis 2:4–25 alongside Genesis 1: from Josephus and Philo to Keil, Driver and Skinner. It is not re-argued here, and no view is adopted.

Early readings of the story — Nimrod’s part, a flood-refuge, a wind against the tower, seventy angels — are gathered in Babel in early Jewish and Christian reading and are not repeated here. They illustrate how the chapter has been heard; they do not fix the meaning of 11:1–9.

Babel: the city and the tower

A name, and not to be scattered

The Lord came down, and Babel

Relation to the nations list of Genesis 10

Minor variants

Says The printed text of this chapter is the Masoretic Text throughout. For 11:1–32 the English verse numbers agree with the Hebrew and with Swete. Two units have their own textual notes. For the ages of 11:10–26, including Kainan in the Greek of 11:12–13, the printed wording is the Masoretic Text, confidence medium; no view is adopted as to which list is original, or whether Kainan stood in the first text. For Terah’s lifespan at 11:32, the printed wording is the Masoretic 205 years, confidence medium; the Samaritan text’s 145 years is recorded in that note and is not adopted. The remaining differences are box lines, not independent records, and no Hebrew is reconstructed from them. In 11:8 Swete adds “and the tower” to the building that is stopped. In 11:9 the Greek names the place Σύγχυσις, “Confusion,” for Babel, and has “the Lord God” at the second divine name. The Greek and the Samaritan add “and he died” after the remaining-years clauses of 11:10–26, which the Masoretic Text lacks. In 11:28 and 11:31 the Greek has “the land of the Chaldeans,” with no “Ur.” In 11:31 Swete has a singular, “he led them out,” for the Hebrew “they went out with them,” and does not name Sarai in “the wife of his son.” In 11:32 the Greek agrees with the Masoretic 205 years, and adds “in Haran” to the first clause. Other Samaritan differences are not used here. LXX Kainan’s clauses, including the Bodleian corrector’s work, are recorded in the Greek and Hebrew textual notes and are not restated as a table in this box.

This is the account of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. And after he had become the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters. When Arphaxad was 35 years old, he became the father of Shelah. And after he had become the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Shelah was 30 years old, he became the father of Eber. And after he had become the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Eber was 34 years old, he became the father of Peleg. And after he had become the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters. When Peleg was 30 years old, he became the father of Reu. And after he had become the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters. When Reu was 32 years old, he became the father of Serug. And after he had become the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters. When Serug was 30 years old, he became the father of Nahor. And after he had become the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters. When Nahor was 29 years old, he became the father of Terah. And after he had become the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters. When Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. (BSB)

Says “This is the account of Shem.” The heading is 'elleh toledot shem, the same formula that opened the account of Noah’s sons in 10:1 and will open the account of Terah in 11:27. The language note on 11:10–11 should be read with this section. When Shem was 100 years old, two years after the flood, he fathered Arphaxad. The Hebrew places “two years after the flood” at the end of the verse; the BSB moves the phrase forward. The verb through the list is “he fathered” (vayyoled); the BSB’s “he became the father of” is that verb, not a different claim. Each generation then follows a fixed pair of clauses: the age at the birth of the named son, and the years lived afterward, with “other sons and daughters.” Unlike Genesis 5, the Masoretic list has no life-total and no “and he died.” The Greek and the Samaritan add “and he died,” and the Samaritan also gives totals. Those are box lines, except where they belong to the ages-and-Kainan textual note.

Implies Ten names run from Shem to Abram, as ten run from Adam to Noah in Genesis 5. The list is selective: it does not name every son, and it is arranged to lead to Abram. Calvin saw the shape clearly: “And therefore from the many sons of Shem he chooses Arphaxad alone; and from the sons of Arphaxad, Selah alone; and from him also, Eber alone; till he comes to Abram” He also says that God reckons the years of the world from the progeny of Shem, as a mark of honor. Keil takes the list as repeated “to show the direct descent of the Terahites through Peleg from Shem, but more especially to follow the chronological thread of the family line.” Eber is the ancestor whose name later marks the Hebrews; Peleg’s naming, “for in his days the earth was divided,” is already treated at 10:25 and is pointed to, not opened again. Serug is connected by Driver and by Skinner with a district and city west of Haran, in the same region toward which Terah will move. Those identifications are plausible and are not required by the text. The persons named are real; see the persons-and-history notes.

Uncertain The figures themselves are a known three-text problem, and no list is adopted here as “the” chronology. The Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek begetting ages, as the textual note records, are: Shem 100/100/100; Arpachshad 35/135/135; Shelah 30/130/130; Eber 34/134/134; Peleg 30/130/130; Reu 32/132/132; Serug 30/130/130; Nahor 29/79/79; Terah 70/70/70. The years after fatherhood also differ, and the Greek adds a generation: Arphaxad fathered Kainan, and Kainan at 130 fathered Shelah, with 330 years afterward in Swete, spelled Καινάν, inside 11:12–13. The Samaritan text, like the Hebrew, has no Kainan. Driver gives the span from the Flood to the birth of Abraham as 290 in the Hebrew, 1070 in the Greek, and 940 in the Samaritan text, and holds that in this case the Hebrew is generally allowed to preserve the original figures. Skinner, looking at the same three totals, holds that the three versions rest on a common basis, and that it is not easy to decide which of them has priority. Josephus, without Kainan, has Abram as the tenth from Noah, born in the two hundred and ninety-second year after the deluge. Augustine, following a Greek-type list, includes Cainan and counts 1072 years from the flood to Abraham. Luke 3:36 has “the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad,” which some take as evidence for Kainan and others as Luke following the Greek. The same name is already at issue in 10:24; see the Kainan and Luke notes, and the Genesis 5 chronology notes. 1 Chr 1:17–27 follows the Hebrew line without Kainan. The printed text of this chapter follows the Masoretic ages, with medium confidence. No view is adopted as to which list is original, whether Kainan stood in the first text, or how Shem’s being 100 two years after the flood sits with the figures of 5:32 and 7:6. Skinner’s suggestion that “two years after the flood” is a gloss, and Keil’s opposite reading that the two years are included in the chronological total, are noted and not decided.

Says 11:26 closes the list: “When Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” Nahor here repeats the name of Terah’s father (11:24). The verse names three sons after one age. It does not, by itself, fix that all three were born when Terah was seventy, or that Abram was the firstborn. That question becomes sharp only when 11:32 and 12:4 and Acts 7:4 are read together, and it is taken up in the next section. The wording question is already in the language note on the genealogy formula and in the textual note on Terah’s lifespan.

The account of Shem, and the ages

This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah. But Sarai was barren; she had no children. And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran. (BSB)

Says “This is the account of Terah.” The new heading opens the household from which Abram will be called. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died “before the face of his father Terah,” in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans. The BSB’s “During his father Terah’s lifetime” is that idiom; Driver takes it as “in the presence of his father. I.e. while his father was yet alive.”, comparing Num 3:4. Abram and Nahor take wives: Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah. “But Sarai was barren; she had no children.” The double statement is deliberate. Calvin takes it as said “in order to show that it was by nothing short of an extraordinary miracle that she afterwards bare Isaac.” That later birth belongs to the chapters that follow and is not treated here; 11:30 already marks this household as one in which a name and a seed will have to come from God.

Uncertain Iscah is named and not explained. An early Jewish reading takes her as Sarai under another name; the Targum of Jonathan has “Iska, who is Sara,” and Augustine writes that Iscah is supposed to be the same as Sarah, Abraham’s wife. The objection, pressed by Keil, is that “the rabbinical notion, that Iscah is another name for Sarai, is irreconcilable with chap. xx. 12”, where Sarai is a daughter of Terah. Others take Iscah as another daughter of Haran; Ewald’s conjecture that she was Lot’s wife is, as Keil and Skinner both say, without evidence. No view is adopted here.

Says 11:31–32 then moves the household. Terah took Abram, Lot, and Sarai, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; they arrived in Haran and settled there, and Terah died there at 205 years. The Hebrew of the departure is “they went out with them.” Who “they” are, and who “them” are, is open, because Terah alone is the subject of “took.” Driver asks, “and they went forth with them. Who went with whom?” and prefers, with the Greek, the Samaritan text, and the Vulgate, a singular, “he brought them forth.” The Greek of 11:31, as the Greek note records, has “he led them out,” and does not name Sarai in “the wife of his son.” Keil takes Lot and Sarai as the nominative of the plural verb, going with Terah and Abram. Calvin, reading the call of chapter 12 back into this move, infers that Terah was not so much the leader or author of the journey as the companion of his son. The wording question is not a separate textual record beyond the Terah-lifespan note; it is recorded, and no emendation is adopted. The place Haran (with khet) is spelled differently from the man Haran (with he). The goal is Canaan; the halt is Haran, and they “settled there,” the same verb as the settlement in Shinar at 11:2. Josh 24:2 and Gen 15:7, already treated as Hebrew xrefs, remember this household’s past east of the River and the Lord’s bringing Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans; those links are pointed to and are not opened again.

Uncertain Ur of the Chaldeans has been identified with southern Ur, at el-Muqayyar, six miles south of the Euphrates, whose inscriptions Driver cites, or with a northern site, Urfa (Edessa) or another place in that region, which Keil prefers. “Of the Chaldeans” may name a people contemporary with Terah, or it may be a later label. Driver holds that the phrase “is no Babylonian designation of Ur; and must be an addition of Palestinian origin.” The Greek of 11:28 and 11:31 has “the land of the Chaldeans,” with no “Ur,” which is a Greek-note fact and a box line, not a reconstructed Hebrew. Josephus already has Haran die among the Chaldeans, in a city of the Chaldeans called Ur. The historical note on Ur, Haran, and Terah’s household gathers the early readings and does not decide the site. No view is adopted here as to where Ur lay, or whether “Chaldeans” is a later label.

Uncertain Terah’s death and Abram’s departure form the last open question of the chapter, and it is the one that Acts 7:2–4 will press. If Abram is born when Terah is 70 (11:26) and leaves Haran at 75 (12:4), the Masoretic 205 years would leave Terah still alive for some sixty years after the departure. Keil states the arithmetic plainly: “There Terah died at the age of 205, or sixty years after the departure of Abram for Canaan”. The Samaritan text reads 145 years at 11:32, which would place Terah’s death in the year Abram leaves. Driver notes that this figure appears to be presupposed in Acts vii. 4. Acts 7:4 says that Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran, and that after his father died God brought him out of that place into this land. Stephen has already said that the God of glory appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran (Acts 7:2–3). Several explanations are on the table, and none is adopted here. The Samaritan 145 years synchronizes the figures, but may be a later harmonizing. 11:26 may name Abram first without making him the firstborn, so that Abram was born later and the Masoretic 205 years stand; Calvin takes this path and infers a birth in Terah’s one hundred and thirtieth year. The objection is that 11:26 gives no other age. Or Stephen may be following the order of the narrative: Keil holds that he inferred this from the fact that the call of Abram is told after Terah’s death, taking the order of the narrative as the order of events. Augustine reads Acts 7:2 as the appearance in Mesopotamia before Haran, and takes the narrative as having gone back to time already passed. The printed text follows the Masoretic 205 years, with medium confidence; see Terah’s 205 years and 145. 12:1 is the next word of the book, and is pointed to, not treated.

The persons of this household are real. The move from Ur, the halt at Haran, the barrenness of Sarai, and the death of Terah set the scene for the call that follows, without taking that call up here.

Terah, and the move from Ur

New Testament reading

Three New Testament passages are taken up as exegetical cross-references. Each is quoted from the BSB; no Greek form is claimed, and no further New Testament text is developed. Luke 1:51 and John 5:44 remain lookup only.

Acts 2:1–11 is not a formal citation of Genesis 11, and no verbal dependence is claimed. At Pentecost those in the house began to speak in other tongues, and Jews from every nation under heaven heard them, each in his own language, declaring the wonders of God. At Babel the Lord had confused the language of the whole world and scattered the people. Early Christian reading has heard in Acts 2 a counterpart to that confusion: many languages now carry one message. Driver notes “the thought of the universality of Christianity, as expressed symbolically in Acts ii. 5—11.” Keil calls the gift of tongues a type and pledge given when the Spirit was poured out; Calvin points to one gospel in all languages. The texts do not say that Pentecost undoes Babel in every respect. The link is thematic, and it is taken at the weight of an allusion; see Gen 11:1–9 → Acts 2:1–11.

Luke 3:34–36 places Abraham, Terah, and the Shem line in Jesus’ genealogy. At 3:36 the BSB reads, “the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad.” That Cainan is not in the Hebrew of 11:12–13; it matches the Greek of those verses. The same name is already treated at 10:24 and at Luke 3:35–36 in the Genesis 10 notes. The printed Hebrew of this chapter is followed, with medium confidence; no view is adopted as to whether Kainan stood in the first text, or whether Luke is following the Greek. The rest of the names agree with 11:10–26 and with 1 Chr 1:17–27. Luke’s list is a reading of this genealogy, not a second table of ages; see Gen 11:12–13 → Luke 3:34–36.

Acts 7:2–4 is the closest of the three. Stephen says that the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and told him to leave his country and his kindred. Acts 7:4 then states: “So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God brought him out of that place and into this land where you are now living.” Genesis 11:31–32 has the household leave Ur of the Chaldeans for Canaan, halt at Haran, and record Terah’s death there at 205. The tension with Acts 7:4, if Abram is born when Terah is 70 and leaves at 75, is the question already set out in the Terah note and in the textual note on the 205 years. Augustine’s line is the right starting point for the appearance itself: “It is to be understood, therefore, that God had spoken to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran”. How the death of Terah in Acts 7:4 is to be read with 11:32 remains open, and no explanation is adopted here; see Gen 11:31–32 → Acts 7:2–4.

New Testament reading of Genesis 11