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Genesis 11:27

Now this is the history of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Parallel Translations

  • WEB World English Bible

    Now this is the history of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot.

  • KJV King James Version

    Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

  • JPS JPS Tanakh (1917)

    Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot.

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Examined in Scripture Analysis

Contradictions (1)

Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.

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Cross-references (6)

Passages linked to Genesis 11:27 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.

  • Genesis 11:31 Terah took Abram his son, Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife. They went from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there.
  • Genesis 12:4 So Abram went, as Yahweh had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
  • Genesis 14:12 They took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.
  • 2 Peter 2:7 and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked
  • Genesis 13:1-11 Abram went up out of Egypt—he, his wife, all that he had, and Lot with him—into the South. Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. He went on his journeys from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first. There Abram called on Yahweh’s name. Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks, herds, and tents. The land was not able to bear them, that they might live together; for their possessions were so great that they couldn’t live together. There was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land at that time. Abram said to Lot, “Please, let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen; for we are relatives. Isn’t the whole land before you? Please separate yourself from me. If you go to the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if you go to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well-watered everywhere, before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar. So Lot chose the Plain of the Jordan for himself. Lot traveled east, and they separated themselves from one other.
  • Genesis 19:1-29 The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth, and he said, “See now, my lords, please come into your servant’s house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way.” They said, “No, but we will stay in the street all night.” He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter. They called to Lot, and said to him, “Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them.” Lot went out to them through the door, and shut the door after himself. He said, “Please, my brothers, don’t act so wickedly. See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.” They said, “Stand back!” Then they said, “This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them!” They pressed hard on the man Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men reached out their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door. They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. The men said to Lot, “Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place: for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.” Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city!” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking. When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city.” But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and his two daughters’ hands, Yahweh being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city. It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, “Escape for your life! Don’t look behind you, and don’t stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!” Lot said to them, “Oh, not so, my lord. See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can’t escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die. See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn’t it a little one?), and my soul will live.” He said to him, “Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can’t do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky. He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Abraham went up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh. He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)

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Explain this verse (18 sources)

Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.

John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 27. Terah begat Abram. Here also Abram is placed…

27. Terah begat Abram. Here also Abram is placed first among his brethren, not (as I suppose) because he was the firstborn; but because Moses, intent on the scope of his history, was not very careful in the arrangement of the sons of Terah. It is also possible that he had other sons. For, the reason why Moses speaks especially of them is obvious; namely, on account of Lot, and of the wives of Isaac and Jacob. I will now briefly state why I think Abram was not the first born. Moses shortly afterwards says, that Haran died in his own country, before his father left Chaldea, and went to Charran. But Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Charran to dwell in the land of Canaan. And this number of seventy-five years is expressly given after the death of Terah. Now, if we suppose that Abram was born in his father’s seventieth year, we must also allow that we have lost sixty years of Terah’s age; which is most absurd. The conjecture of Luther, that God buried that time in oblivion, in order to hide from us the end of the world, in the first place is frivolous, and in the next, may be refuted by solid and convincing arguments. Others violently wrest the words to apply them to a former egress; and think that he lived together with his father at Charran for sixty years; which is most improbable. For to what end should they have protracted their stay so long in the midst of their journey? But there is no need of labourious discussion. Moses is silent respecting the age of Abraham when he left his own country; but says, that in the seventy-fifth year of his age, he came into the land of Canaan, when his father, having reached the two hundredth and fifth year of his life, had died. Who will not hence infer that he was born when his father had attained his one hundredth and thirtieth year? But he is named first among those sons whom Terah is said to have begotten, when he himself was seventy years old. I grant it; but this order of recital does nothing towards proving the order of birth, as we have already said. Nor, indeed, does Moses declare in what year of his life Terah begat sons; but only that he had passed the above age before he begat the three sons here mentioned. Therefore, the age of Abraham is to be ascertained by another mode of computation, namely, from the fact that Moses assigns to him the age of seventy-five when his father died, whose life had reached to two hundred and five years. A firm and valid argument is also deduced from the age of Sarai. It appears that she was not more than ten years younger than Abraham. If she was the daughter of his younger brother, she would necessarily have equalled her own father in age. They who raise an objection, to the effect that she was the daughter-in-law, or only the adopted daughter of Nahor, produce nothing beyond a sheer cavil.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He maketh mention first of Abram, not because he…
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 11:27 Now these [are] the generations of Terah:…
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here begins the story of Abram, whose name is…
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Here begins the story of Abram. We have here,
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gen 11:27. Here begins the story of Abram. We…
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain - Section X - Abraham
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Abram, the youngest of the three, being born only…
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain Generations of Terah,
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 27–32. The Sons of Terah. (J and P.)
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (27) Now these are the generations.—This tôldôth, which extends…
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Now (literally, and, intimating the close connection of the…
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat…
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Gen_11:27-32; Gen_12:1-5
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Gen_11:28. Ur of the Chaldees] “Ur in Heb. means…
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Generations of Terah
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Now these were the descendants of Terah
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 11:27–25:11 This is the account (Hebrew toledoth; see study…

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