Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

11 :27-32 GENESIS
(BA, 5 5-56) : “Where the migration account begins in
11:31 f., we find Terah in the territory of Ur of the
ees or Chaldeans. Since all the fam names point to
otamia we may imagine Terah and sons as nomads
who had previously traveled to Chaldea from their northern
home before the story of their further migrations opens.
Such a southward movement of’ tribesmen from Mesopo-
tamia to Babylonia takes place annually to this day. Meso-
potamian winters are hard, and so the’ Bedouin go down to
pasture their flocks in the Bahylonian area during that
season . . . In times when there was no strong government
these nomads were wont to rob the farming population en
route or levy on it at will.” Again: “The Terah clan was
certainly only a sojourner in the Ur vicinity, lingering
there by treaty or agreement with the local authorities.
Their sheep or goats would not have been permitted to
invade these well-irrigated, fertile lands on which the life
of Ur depended. From afar these shepherds, however,
could see the mighty ziggurat or tower of the city-today
the best-preserved ziggurat of Babylonia-Like a great land-
mark (cf. Gen. 11 : 3 ), and it may have made them feel at
home that the god Nannar or Sin, the moon-god who was
so prominently worshiped at Haran, was revered there
also.”
(10) What prompted Terah to make the movement
northward? (a) Was it just the customary return to the
north characteristic of the nomads? If so, it was only a
return to familiar territory. Religiously both Ur and
Haran had much in common, especially in the fact that
both were centers of the worship of the moon-god Sin.
It is significant, it would seem, that the descendants of
Nahor, Abraham’s brother, elected to settle permanently in
Haran; that to this region Abraham later sent his servant
Eliezer to seek a bride for his son Isaac; that here Jacob
married Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban “the
Aramean,” and that from this region he fled to escape the
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