Genesis 11:22-32 • Our introduction to Abram/Abraham
- Steve Schott
- Jul 27
- 8 min read
• Our last time together in Genesis we looked at the lineage of Noah. Specifically the first segment of the line of Christ, from Noah to his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson, Abram. This time we are looking at the same chart, but with our focus on the end of it.
• This is a major milestone of Biblical history, at least according to theologians. Chapters 1-11 are what they call "Primeval History". That period of creation, fall, and eventually, flood, to the part where Noah, the only survivor of the flood (along with his family), is commissioned to re-populate the earth. In Gen 9:7 it says (God speaking to Noah) "As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”
→ This was a time that focused on world events and how it affected the people in it.
• God also promised at that time that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood. He gave us the rainbow as a sign of that promise. In Gen 9:8-17 God says, "8Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; 10and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 11I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; 13I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, 15and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
• Today, in dealing with Abram/Abraham, we are moving to what is called the "Patriarchal History" and we will see the story from a different perspective.
→ Where we once focused on world events and how it affected the people in it, now we are going to focus on one family and how they affected the world they lived in.
• We will be in the "Patriarchal History" period until we finish Genesis. The focus of the family will run from Abram/Abraham to Isaac to Jacob/Israel, and then to the sons of Israel.
• It's also interesting (to me) to note that the first 11 chapters of Genesis cover about 2,009 years.
• But chapters 12 to 50 (39 chapters) only cover a time period of only 307 years.
• One last note to mention before we attack our passage for this time. The main character for the next 14 chapters is commonly known as Abraham, but that won't be his official name until chapter 17. At this point in time his name is Abram. We will discuss the changing of his name at that time, but just in case I use the wrong name at the wrong time, I apologize in advance. Now on to our text...
► We are first introduced to Abram at the end of chapter 11.
Genesis 11:22-32 → 22Serug lived thirty years, and became the father of Nahor; 23and Serug lived two hundred years after he became the father of Nahor, and he had other sons and daughters.
24Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and became the father of Terah; 25and Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years after he became the father of Terah, and he had other sons and daughters.
27Now these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran; and Haran became the father of Lot. 28Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan; and they went as far as Haran, and settled there. 32The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.
• Now, there are a few "issues" (for lack of a better word) with some of the pieces of this section of Scripture.
► Issue 1 – 2 Nahor’s • Grandfather & grandson
→ While Nahor the elder was given specific dates (birth when father Serug was 30; fatherhood to Terah at age 29; death at 148 (119 years after becoming a father)), there are no specific dates referenced for the younger, other than v26, stating that Terah was 70 when he had Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
→ If I had to guess, I’d say that perhaps Nahor was the first-born and Terah named him after his father.
→ Abram was NOT the 1st born – we’ll look at that in a minute.
► Issue 2 – Triplets???
→ There are some possible timing issues with verses 26 & 27.
• Are the three sons listed triplets?
► • If so, then there would be a discrepancy with the dates given in this passage compared with 12:4.
♥ (Gen 11:32) Terah lived to be 205 years old
♥ (Gen 11:26) Terah became a father at age 70
♥ (Gen 12:4) Abram was 75 years old when his father died
♥ 70 + 75 = 145. Where did the 60 years go?
→ So how do we reconcile this gap?
• The listing of these 3 sons of Terah does not necessarily mean that they were all born at the same time, but that the first of them was born when Terah was 70 years old. Abram apparently was not the oldest, but is listed first because of his importance historically.
• This would be similar to the listing of the sons of Noah in Genesis 6:10 where it says “10Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
♥ While this verse would also sound like all of Noah’s sons were born at the same time, Gen 10:21 tells us that Shem was the oldest and Japheth was his younger brother. We also know that Ham was the youngest son from Gen 9:24.
♥ So there could have been up to a 100 year gap between the ages of Noah’s sons, but no more than that because Noah became a father 100 years before the flood, but all three of his sons were on the Ark.
♥ And the list of Noah’s sons are not in chronological order, so neither do the sons of Terah need to be.
• So Abram would have been born when Terah was 130 years old. Then the numbers work.
• While all the others in the line from Noah all say that they had “other sons and daughters”, this is not said of Terah, but it should be implied.
► Issue 3 – Nahor & Milcah?
→ If you read the text carefully you will start to understand that Nahor married his niece. Milcah is Nahor’s brother Haran’s daughter.
→ Iscah is Milcah’s sister. We are not told a gender, but it is assumed since the name is feminine in Hebrew, not masculine. Why she is mentioned at all is unknown.
→ Milcah would later become the grandmother, through her son Bethuel, of Rebekah, who would become Abraham’s son Isaac’s wife.
► Issue 4 – Sarai
→ We know nothing at this point about Sarai (who will later be know as Sarah) until we read Gen 20:12, where Abraham for the 2nd time will publicly pose Sarah as his sister.
→ Gen 20:12 → “12Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife;…”
→ So before we get too upset about Nahor marrying his niece, we understand that Abram married his half-sister.
→ What a messed up family!!!
► MORE INFO!!!
→ Keep in mind that all of this is happening in Ur of the Chaldeans.
• Ur is south of Babylon, in modern Iraq, just north of the Persian Gulf, and near the Euphrates River.
→ Terah had 3 sons
→ Haran died after he had a son named Lot
→ Nahor married his niece Milcah
→ Abram married his step-sister Sarai
► Issue 5 – Haran
► The first issue with Haran is that there are 2 of them. We were already told of Haran, Abram’s brother, Lot’s father, who had already died in Ur.
→ Now we are told of a place named Haran, where they stopped on their way to Canaan, but it says they settled there. Why? I thought they were on their way to Canaan. What’s the deal?
→ Haran is 1,200 miles north and west of Ur. If they moved 20 miles a day, which would be a lot, even with horses or camels, that would take them 2 months to get there.
→ We are told that Terah died there at the ripe old age of 205 years old. Maybe he took sick and they sought a doctor for him who told him he needed to rest.
→ We don’t know for sure how soon before Terah’s passing that they settled in Haran. It possibly was in an attempt to see Terah return to health, which he did not.
→ What was their motivation to go to Canaan in the first place, and why didn’t they finish their journey? We haven’t been told yet.
• But we find out the why when we start chapter 12.
• Well, our introduction to Abram/Abraham is a little busy. Basically, at least from a modern viewpoint, there is an Iraqi who lives near the Persian Gulf, whose relatively current lineage is a little more complicated than most modern Americans would find acceptable. He's just finished a 1,200 mile trip northwest, probably on foot, for a reason we haven't yet been told. At this point in Scripture, it seems he went primarily because dad said so. So Terah, Abram's dad, brings his family to Haran, and then dies there. While it's not listed here that Nahor also came to Haran, it should be assumed that he also came, as we will see later, when Isaac needs a wife, he would get one from the family of Nahor, and that family lived near or in Haran.
• In hindsight, we can see that God was working in all of their lives, but I question whether they could see it. So much going on. Constant changes within and around the family. New families started. Fathers passing away. Moves to new and unknown places. Who is conducting this orchestra? Who is navigating these adventures?
• Things will become more clear when we start chapter 12!
Photo • 7/03/2025 - Rainbow over I-40 just west of Ash Fork, AZ
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