Genesis 11:31

31. Terah took Terah, the patriarch of the tribe, here appears as the leader of this movement . In this memorable emigration the divine and the human are seen to co-operate and interact, as in the case of all the great movements of Providence . Natural causes, and even selfish human motives, are taken up into the divine plan . So God uses the avarice of Laban (chap . 31) to bring Jacob back again into Canaan; the envy of Joseph’s brethren to plant Israel in Egypt, (Genesis 45:8;) and the tyrannical cruelty of Pharaoh to transfer them to their final home . In this history, and in the heathen traditions, we see other traces of westward movements from the Mesopotamian plain and the Asiatic table-land around the desert and down the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean shore . Warlike expeditions from beyond the Tigris . as we see from chapter 14, had already brought the kings of the vale of Siddim under tribute to the king of Elam . Shemitic tribes were at this same time pressing westward and southward into the Arabian peninsula, and the Arameans were ascending the Euphrates and settling in Eastern Syria . The migration of Terah and his tribe was thus a part of a general movement of the Shemitic people, settling towards the Mediterranean from the east, divinely guided so as to rescue a branch of that people from the prevailing idolatry, and bless, in their old age, the nations of the earth.

They went forth with them That is, Lot and Sarai, the two just previously mentioned, went forth with Terah and Abram.

To go into the land of Canaan There is no indication that Terah had any other than secular motives, but St. Stephen tells us in Acts 7:2, that Abram had already received a divine call . The tribe, with their dependents and cattle, moved slowly up the Mesopotamian plain, intending to advance northward, around the desert, and then south-westerly into the land of Canaan, but arriving in the vicinity of Haran, ( Charran of the New Testament, the Carrhae of the Greeks and Romans,) and encamping there, perhaps the advancing infirmities of the aged Terah prevented his moving farther, and so they… dwelt there till Terah was dead . Acts 7:4. Then the migration continued, under the leadership of Abram . But more probably we are to understand the text to state that Terah started on the expedition which terminated in Canaan, that is, which Abram continued to Canaan, although Terah himself had not this issue in mind when he left Ur of the Chaldees . This harmonizes better with Genesis 12:1, “Unto the land that I will show thee,” implying that the particular land was not then made known to Abram, and also with Paul’s language, in Hebrews 11:8, “and he went out, not knowing whither he went . ” Haran, or Charran, in north-west Mesopotamia, on the stream Belilk, a little affluent of the Euphrates, situated in a large plain surrounded by mountains, was a natural halting-place for caravans, being but a very little out of the direct route to Canaan, and the point whence diverged the great caravan routes to the fords of the Euphrates and Tigris. There was once here a temple of the moon goddess, as in Ur. The city is remarkable in Roman history as the scene of the defeat of Crassus. It had quite a population under the caliphs, but is now a ruined village, inhabited by a few Arabs.