The Road Beyond Haran

The account began with Terah and his sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot, and then died in Ur of the Chaldeans while his own father was still alive. Before the family took to the road, there was already a death among the names, a father who had outlived his son.

Abram and Nahor married. Abram’s wife was Sarai; Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah. The family account named fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, and then stopped over something Sarai did not have. “But Sarai was barren; she had no children.”

Nothing more was said about her there. No age was given, no account of how long she had waited, no words of her own. Beside the names of children and their fathers, the sentence stood plainly. Sarai was Abram’s wife, and she had no children.

Terah took Abram, Sarai, and his grandson Lot out of Ur of the Chaldeans. They set out for Canaan, but when they reached Haran, they settled there. The place they had meant to reach remained farther along the road. Terah lived to be 205, and he died in Haran.

Then the LORD spoke to Abram. “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.” The command named what he was to leave with more precision than where he was to go. His country, his kindred, his father’s household — these were the things already known to him.

The LORD continued: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” He said that He would bless those who blessed Abram and curse those who cursed him. Through Abram, He said, all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Abram departed as the LORD had directed him. He was seventy-five years old when he left Haran, and Lot went with him. He took Sarai and all the possessions and people they had acquired there. This departure carried a whole household toward the land Terah had once set out to reach.

They came into Canaan. Abram traveled through the land as far as the Oak of Moreh at Shechem, where the Canaanites were already living. The journey had brought them to their destination, but the land was inhabited. Arrival did not make it an empty place waiting for their tents.

There the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” Abram built an altar to the LORD who had appeared to him. The promise now named offspring and the ground beneath his feet. Sarai, who had come with him from Haran, still had no child.

From Shechem, Abram moved into the hill country east of Bethel. He pitched his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east, built another altar, and called on the name of the LORD. Their life in the land continued from one stopping place to another. The tent was pitched, and afterward the journey went on.

Abram traveled toward the Negev, with Sarai among the household moving with him. Behind them were Haran and the two altars; ahead was the southern country. They had reached Canaan with the promise of a great nation spoken over a household without Sarai’s child. Now famine was about to send them toward Egypt.