Genesis
12:4 ¶ So Abram departed, as the LORD
had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five
years old when he departed out of Haran. 5
And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their
substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran;
and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan
they came.
Abram obeyed God
and took his nephew with him, the servants and possessions they had acquired in
Haran, and entered the land of Ham’s grandson, Canaan. Haran was a village
which ruins some believe lie in Southern Turkey. The question might be asked,
did Terah found the village and name it after his dead son? Haran is used as a
person’s name later as well. Abram, who will eventually be renamed Abraham,
left the religious associations of his father as commanded.
Joshua
24:2 And Joshua said unto all the
people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side
of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of
Nachor: and they served other gods. 3
And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led
him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him
Isaac.
They traveled
northwest from Ur several hundred miles and settled in Haran, from whence Abram
and company would travel southwest to Canaan. Haran, when translated from the
Greek language, rather than the Hebrew here, will be spelled Charran in Acts
7:2,4. The CH is pronounced as a K when you find it in the Bible transliterated
from one of the original languages. Think of Nebuchadnezzar or Michael. But
when we moderns say Cherubims we use the CHA sound, not the K sound. Words that
are directly from English like checker in
1Kings 7:17, of course, would be exceptions to this rule.
Abram, being 75
years old, is not elderly in the way we would think today. Prior to this time,
as you read, many people lived hundreds of years. Their natural abilities,
their appearance, would have remained far more youthful than we would consider
a 75 year old’s body to be today although the upper age limit of men was
rapidly falling in the new environment after the Flood and Abram will consider
himself old and beyond the age of fathering children fairly soon.
Genesis
17:1 And when Abram was ninety years old
and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God;
walk before me, and be thou perfect…17
Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart,
Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah,
that is ninety years old, bear?
Terah, Abraham’s
father, lived to be 205. (Genesis 11:32). When the dispersal at Babel occurred
the lifespan dropped dramatically. See also in chapter 11 Peleg’s lifespan of
239 years as opposed to his father, Eber, who lived 464 years.
Regarding the word
souls, in the Old Testament, as the
operation of God in separating the soul from the sins of the flesh referred to
in Colossians, chapter 2, has not taken place yet, soul and souls are used
to include the physical presence of the person or beast spoken of as well as
the soul, which is tied to the flesh until Christ’s resurrection and the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in those people who believe and are given faith.
Numbers
31:28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD
of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of
the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep:
For
those who do not believe that some beasts have souls and spirit also note;
Job
12:10 In whose hand is the soul of every
living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
Ecclesiastes
3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that
goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
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