Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees, while his father Terah was still alive.
Parallel Translations
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Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees, while his father Terah was still alive.
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And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
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And Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (4)
Passages linked to Genesis 11:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 15:7 He said to Abram, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.”
- 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.
- Nehemiah 9:7 You are Yahweh, the God who chose Abram, brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, gave him the name of Abraham,
- Acts 7:2-4 He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your land and away from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land, where you are now living.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 28. And Haran died. Haran is said to have…
28. And Haran died. Haran is said to have died before the face of his father; because he left his father the survivor. It is also said that he died in his country, that is, in Ur. The Jews turn the proper name into an appellative, and say that he died in the fire. For, as they are bold in forging fables, they pretend that he, with his brother Abram, were thrown by the Chaldeans into the fire, because they shunned idolatry; but that Abram escaped by the constancy of his faith. The twenty-fourth chapter of Joshua (Joshua 24:1,) however, which I have cited above, openly declares, that this whole family was not less infected with superstition than the country itself. I confess, indeed, that the name Ur is derived from fire: names, however, are wont to be assigned to cities, either from their situation, or from some particular event. It is possible that they there cherished the sacred fire, or that the splendor of the sun was more conspicuous than in other places. Others will have it, that the city was so named, because it was situated in a valley, for the Hebrews call valleys ארוים (Uraim) But there is no reason why we should be very anxious about such a matter: let it suffice, that Moses, speaking of the country of Abram immediately afterwards declares it to have been Ur of the Chaldeans.
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 Hebrew, Casdim.
Hebrew, Casdim.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 11:28 And Haran died before his father Terah…
Gen 11:28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
Ver. 28. And Haran died before his father Terah.] The Hebrews say he died a martyr, being burnt with fire by his countrymen the Chaldees, because he would not worship the fire, which they had made their god. Martyrdom came early into the world, as we know in Abel, who as he was the first that died, so he died for religion. Now if this be true of Haran, as the Jewish doctors will have it; then he had, for aught we know, the maidenhead (as a certain martyr phrased it) of that kind of martyrdom. The first that were burnt for religion, since the Reformation, are said to be Henry and John, two Augustinian monks at Brussels, anno 1523, under James Hogostratus the Dominican Inquisitor. The executioner, being demanded whether they recanted in the flames, denied there was any such thing; but said, that when the fire was put to them, they continued singing the creed, and Te Deum , till the flame took away their voice. All this Erasmus testifieth, {a} though he was no Lutheran; and thereupon maketh this good but wary note, Damnari, dissecari, suspendi:, exuri, decollari, piis cum impiis sunt communia: damnare, dissecare, in crucem agere, exurere, decollare, bonis iudicibus cum piratis ac tyrannis communia sunt. Varia sunt hominum iudicia, ille foelix qui iudice Deo absolvitur . Our protomartyr in Queen Mary’s days was Reverend Master Rogers; he gave the first adventure upon the fire. His wife, and children, being eleven in number, ten able to go, and one sucking at her breast, met him by the way as he went toward Smithfield. This sorrowful sight of his own flesh and blood could nothing move him, but that he constantly held out to the death, and so received a crown of life. {b} Neither hath God left himself without witness among the very heathens. For in the city of Lima, in Mexico, not two months before our coming there, saith Captain Drake, {c} twelve persons were condemned by the Spaniards there for profession of the gospel; of which, six were bound to one stake and burnt; the rest remained yet in prison, to drink of the same cup within a few days.
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{a} Erasm., lib. xxiv., epist. 4.
{b} Act. and Mon., fol. 1356.
{c} The World Encompassed, by Sir F. Drake p. 59.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain i.e. In the presence and during the life of…
i.e. In the presence and during the life of his father.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Ur--now Orfa; that is, "light," or "fire." Its name…
Ur--now Orfa; that is, "light," or "fire." Its name probably derived from its being devoted to the rites of fire-worship. Terah and his family were equally infected with that idolatry as the rest of the inhabitants (Jos 24:15).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain MIGRATION FROM UR, Gen_11:28-32.
MIGRATION FROM UR, Gen_11:28-32.
28. And Haran died before his father Terah — That is, in the presence of Terah, or it may mean before, as a designation of time, (see Gesenius,) since the phrase refers to both place and time. If Haran were, as we suppose, the eldest son, there is a special reason why his death should here be mentioned. Terah, as the head of the family tribe, adopts Lot, his grandson, in the place of Haran, his son, as heir to the chieftainship, and then, perhaps, saddened at his loss, under a providential leading, resolves to emigrate from his native land. Abram, as we learn from Act_7:2, had already heard a divine call to break loose from the idolatries that surrounded him, and in which it seems that Terah’s family were involved, for Joshua says to the Israelites: “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood [Euphrates] in old time… and they served other gods.”
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Jos_24:2, note.
Ur of the Chaldees — Ur was a city, or district, of the כשׂדים, Kasdim, Kardi, Kurds, or Kaldees, a people not mentioned in the table of nations, Genesis 10, under this name, but whose native name, Accad, as it appears in the Babylonian inscriptions, is mentioned in Gen_10:10, as designating a city in the land of Shinar, the beginning of the (Hamite) kingdom of Nimrod. The primitive Chaldees were an Hamitic people, descendants of Cush, famous as the builders of the first cities, inventors of alphabetic writing, and discoverers in science, especially in astronomy. The name was afterward applied (as in Daniel) to a sect of astrologers and philosophers, who inherited the science and astrologic arts of the ancient Chaldees, and transmitted them in the Cushite language, although dwelling among Shemitic peoples. These Chaldeans of the time of Daniel were thus a learned aristocracy, who had their schools, corresponding to modern universities, (Strabo, 16:1, 6,) at Orchoe and Borsippa, and also (Pliny, H. N., 11:26) at Babylon and Sippara. Chaldea is the great alluvial plain of the Euphrates and Tigris, stretching from the mountains of Kurdistan to the Persian Gulf, about 400 miles in length, and about 100 in breadth, ascending on the east to the chalky limestone wall of the great table-land of Iran, and descending on the west to the Arabian desert. Covered for many centuries with the mighty cities, and teeming with the vast populations, of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, the whole plain fertilized through a network of canals branching from the two great arterial rivers, it is now a desert, with swamps and marshes and pools, the dwelling-place of lions and jackals and wolves, although in early spring it seems a wilderness of flowers. The great plain is ridged here and there along the courses of ancient canals, and dotted with mounds of earth-covered ruins, from which now and then a solitary mass of ragged brickwork rises into the malarious air. Ur is supposed by Rawlinson to be the Hur of the Babylonian inscriptions, the modern Mugheir, in lower Chaldea, about six miles west of the Euphrates. Orfa, in upper Chaldea, is a rival site, but this place is too near Haran, being only a day’s journey distant. On the rude bricks of Mugheir are found legends of Urukh, king of Hur, the most ancient inscriptions known, unless it be those of a king called Kadur-mapula, found in the same region, who is likely to have been the Elamite Chedorlaomer of Genesis 14. The ruins of a Chaldean temple dedicated to the moon, built in stages like the Tower of Babel, (see above, p. 162,) and composed of sun-dried and kiln-burnt bricks cemented with bitumen, are yet found at Mugheir, whose inscriptions are deemed by Assyrian scholars to show an antiquity higher than Abram’s call. This venerable temple, now nearly 4,000 years old, when it stood in massive magnificence, a monument of Chaldean idolatry, we may probably regard as the very shrine where the family of Terah worshipped; and they turned away from its splendours at the divine call to wander to a far land, there to dwell in tents for centuries, that they might learn to teach mankind the lessons of the ONE only GOD. Whether Terah himself had these higher motives is doubtful. See on Gen_11:31.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28. This and the following verse are taken from…
28. This and the following verse are taken from J, and commence the personal history of the patriarch.
Haran died] This may indicate a tradition that the hill people, or families who joined the main body of the Terahites, lost their separate existence and became completely merged in the house of Terah.
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The grave of Haran was shewn in the days of Josephus (Ant. i. 151).
in the presence of his father] i.e. while his father Terah was still alive.
in the land of his nativity] To these words is appended the explanation, “in Ur of the Chaldees,” very possibly added as a gloss by a later hand, as in Gen_15:7. Abram in Gen_24:4; Gen_24:7; Gen_24:10 refers to Haran, or Aram naharaim, as the land of his nativity; and that region is generally treated as the home of the ancestors of the Israelites. It is clear, however, that, beside the tradition which ascribed the origin of Israel to Mesopotamia, there was also another which derived them ultimately from S. Babylonia. See Gen_11:31.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (28) Haran died before his father.—Heb., in the presence…
(28) Haran died before his father.—Heb., in the presence of his father. This is the first recorded instance of a premature death caused by natural decay.
In Ur of the Chaldees.—Ur-Casdim. A flood of light has been thrown upon this town by the translation of the cuneiform inscriptions, and we may regard it as certain that Ur is now represented by the mounds of the city of Mugheir. When first we read of this city, it was inhabited by a population of Accadians, a Turanian race, sprang probably from an early offshoot of the family of Japheth; but in course of time it was conquered by men of the Semitic family, who from thence overran the whole of Shinar, or Babylonia, and expelled from it the descendants of Cush. Mr. Sayce (Chald. Gen. p. 20) puts this conquest at some very uncertain date, two or three thousand years before Christ; but the establishment of a powerful monarchy under a king named Lig-Bagas, and the consolidation under his sway of several petty kingdoms, into which Chaldea had been previously split up, he places with some confidence at 3,000 years before the Christian era (ibid., p. 24). Now, there are in our museums inscribed bricks and engraved cylinders actually from the library of Lig-Bagas, and we learn that the Accadian literature was still older; for many of the works found at Agané are translations from it: and thus all those difficulties as to the antiquity of the art of syllabic writing which used to exist when men had nothing better to judge by than Egyptian picture-writing have passed away. Abraham migrated from a town which was then a famous seat of learning, and where even the ordinary transactions of life were recorded on tablets of terra-cotta. Very probably, therefore, he carried with him bricks and cylinders inscribed with these ancient records. We are no longer, therefore, surprised at the striking similarity between the narratives in the Book of Genesis prior to the migration of Abraham and those preserved in the cuneiform inscriptions. But the believer in inspiration cannot fail to be struck also at their dissimilarity. The cuneiform inscriptions are polytheistic, acknowledging twelve superior gods, and of gods inferior a countless multitude. The Semitic race is accused of adding to these a number of goddesses, chief among whom were Beltis, the wife of Bel, and Istar, the planet Venus. Of all this there is no trace in the Biblical records; nor is there in the whole Chaldean literature anything so grand and Divine as the thoughts expressed in the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
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As Ur is an Accadian word, we must reject all Semitic interpretations of its meaning; we must further add that Mr. Rawlinson gives reasons for believing that its early importance was due to its being a great maritime emporium (Anc. Mon., i. 27). It was, we read, a walled town, and the great port for the commerce of the Persian Gulf, while round it lay a marvellously rich country, said to be the original home of the wheat-plant, and famous for its dates and other fruits. Its being called Ur-Casdim, “Ur of the Chaldees,” shows that they had already won it from the Accadians when Terah dwelt there. Its subsequent name, Mugheir, probably means “mother of bitumen”—that is, producer of it.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And Haran died before his father. Literally, upon the…
And Haran died before his father. Literally, upon the face of his father; ejnwpion tou patrov aujtou (LXX); while his father was alive (Munster, Luther, Calvin, Rosenm perhaps also in his father s presence (Keil, Lange), though the Jewish fable may be discarded that Terah, at this time an "idolater, accused his sons to Nimrod, who cast them into a furnace for refusing to worship the fire-god, and That,haran perished in the flames in his father s sight. The decease of Haran is the first recorded instance of the natural death of a son before his father. In the land of his nativity. jEn th gh h ejgennhqh (LXX). In Ur of the Chaldees. Ur Kasdim (Gen_11:31 Gen_15:7; Neh_9:7) The Kasdim formerly believed to have been Shemites on account of
(1) Abram"s settlement among them,
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(2) the preservation of the name Kesed among his kindred, (Gen_22:22)
(3) the close affinity to a Shemite tongue of the language known to modern philologists as Chaldee, an Arameean dialect differing but slightly from the Syriac (Heeren), and
(4) the supposed identity or intimate connection of the Babylonians with the Assyrians (Niebuhr) are now, with greater probability, and certainly with closer adherence to Biblical history, (Gen_10:8-12) regarded as having been a Hamite race (Rawlinson, Smith); an opinion which receives confirmation from
(1) the statement of Homer ("Odyss.," 1:23, 24), that the Ethiopians were divided and dwelt at the ends of the earth, towards the setting and the rising sun, i.e. , according to Strabo, on both sides of the Arabian Gulf;
(2) the primitive traditions
(a) of the Greeks, who regarded Memnon, King of Ethiopia, as the founder of Susa (Herod., 5:54), and the son of a Cissian woman (Strabo, 15:3,
(b) of the Nilotic Ethiopians, who claimed him as one of their monarchs; and
(c) of the Egyptians, who identified him with their King Amunoph III, whose statue became known as the vocal Memnon (vide Rawlinson"s "Ancient Monarchies," vol. 1. p. 48);
(3) the testimony of Moses of Chorene ("History of Armenia," 1:6), who connects in the closest way Babylonia, Egypt, and Ethiopia Proper, identifying Belus, King of Babylon, with Nimrod, and making him the son of Mizraim, or the grandson of Cush; and
(4) the monumental history of Babylonia, which shows the language of the earliest inscriptions, according to Rawlinson "differing greatly from the later Babylonian," to have been that of a Turanian people (cf. "Records of the Past," vol. 3. p. 3). The term Ur has been explained to be identical with It, a city (Rawlinson); the Zend Vare, a fortress (Gesenius); Ur, the light country, i.e. the land of the sun-rising (Furst); and even Ur, fire, with special reference to the legendary furnace already referred to (Talmudists). Whether a district (LXX, Lange, Kalisch) or a city (Josephus, Eusebius, Onkelos, Drnsius, Keil, Murphy, "Speaker"s Commentary"), its exact site is uncertain. Rival claimants for the honor of representing it have appeared in
(1) a Persian fortress (Persicum Castellum) of the name of Ur, mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus (75. 100. 8) as lying between Nisibis and the Tigris (Bochart, Michaelis, Rosenm Delitzsch);
(2) the modern Orfah, the Edsssa of the Greeks, situated "on one of the bare, rugged spurs which descend from the mountains of Armenia into the Assyrian plains" (Stanley"s "Jewish Church," 1:7); and
(3) Hur, the most important of the early capitals of Chaldaea, now the ruins of Mugheir, at no great distance from the mouth, and six miles to the west, of the Euphrates (Rawlinson"s "Ancient Monarchies," 1:15, 16; Smith"s "Assyrian Discoveries," 12:233; "Records of the Past," vol. 3. p. 9). Yet none of them is quite exempt from difficulty. A military fort, to take the first-named location, does not appear a suitable or likely place for a nomade horde to settle in; while the second has been reckoned too near Charran, the first place of encampment of the emigrants; and the third, besides being exceedingly remote from Charran, scarcely harmonises with Stephen"s speech before the Sanhedrim. (Act_7:2) Unless, therefore, Stephen meant Chaldsea when he said Mesopotamia (Dykes), and Abraham could speak of Northern Mesopotamia as his country, (Gen_24:4) when in reality he belonged to Southern Babylonia, the identification of Ur of the Chaldees with the Mugheir ruin though regarded with most favor by archaeologists, will continue to be doubtful; while, if the clan march commenced at Edessa, it will always require an effort to account for their coming to a halt so soon after starting and so near home; and the Nisibis station, though apparently more suitable than either in respect of distance, will remain encumbered with its own peculiar difficulties. It would seem, therefore, as if the exact situation of the patriarchal town or country must be left undetermined until further light can be obtained.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 11:28 The call of Abram occurred in Ur of…
11:28 The call of Abram occurred in Ur of the Chaldeans (15:7; Acts 7:2-4), the main city of Sumer in Mesopotamia near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The family had moved there perhaps generations before the call. Their ancestral home (“native country,” Gen 12:1) was apparently near Haran, in the region of the descendants of Shem (11:10-26); thus they settled there when they left Ur (11:31) and were later described as “Arameans” (Deut 26:5). • land of his birth: The same Hebrew phrase is repeated in 12:1 (“native country”), making Ur, not Haran, the location of Abram’s call (see 15:7; Neh 9:7; Acts 7:2).
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