The Call of Abram (Genesis 11:27 to Genesis 12:9)
‘Terah begat Abram, Nahor and Haran, and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves, the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah.'
Like Noah (Genesis 5:32),Terah has three sons, seen as a sign of completeness. The detailed information given in this section is typical of the Ancient Near East as introductory to the covenant that follows. It stresses the importance of Abram
Haran dies comparatively young, but before he dies Haran begets Lot. The mention of Lot here is because he represents Haran in the family. The seed has not died out. Haran's daughter Milcah marries Nahor. We have no further mention of Iscah, but the mention here demonstrates a good knowledge of the family records.
The names of Terah, Abram, Nahor and Haran can all be paralleled in the area in the third and second millennium BC. (Not of course as representing these individuals but as typical names of the period).
It is quite clear that the family home is Ur of the Chaldees. The family are not just semi-nomads wandering from place to place, they are inhabitants of Ur, although probably even at this stage with large herds and flocks. Ur of the Chaldees was an important and highly sophisticated city of ancient origin, where the brothers would have access to a good education.
But they were probably not full city-dwellers as such. Ur's principal deity was Nannar, the moon god, who was also worshipped at Haran, and probably worshipped by Terah. This worship in fact included a number of degrading elements which Abram would have found disturbing. The description ‘of the Chaldees' was probably added much later to identify which Ur it was (there were a number of Urs - for Ur means ‘city').
There is clear evidence that in Ur there was a belief in the afterlife. In the royal ‘death pits' servants had gone into these royal burial places, had taken up their positions and had then drunk poison from cups, sometimes golden ones. This could only have been because they were expected to serve their masters in the life to come. But we must not read too much into this. We do not know what kind of ‘life' they expected and there is no specific mention in the patriarchal narratives of such a belief.
It is interesting that details of Nahor's wife's relationship are given and not those of Sarai even though later she is described by Abraham as ‘the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother' (Genesis 20:12). This again may have been in order to emphasise that Haran was fruitful even though he died comparatively young. Or it may be because Sarai was barren. While it is clear later that Sarai is an outstandingly beautiful woman, she bears the shame of unfruitfulness. Rebecca, the later wife of Jacob, was descended from Milcah (Genesis 22:20-24).
The inter-marrying suggests a sense of exclusiveness, confirmed when a wife is sought for Isaac from within the ‘family'. Sons of Terah could not just marry anybody. Such marriage practises are confirmed elsewhere.
Later narrative (Genesis 31:53), where the God of Abraham is distinguished from the god of Nahor (Yahweh was not ‘the god of their father'), suggests that Nahor continued to worship his father's gods (see also Joshua 24:2). He was not affected by his brother's conversion.
We note that Ur of the Chaldees was destroyed around 1950 BC. This therefore points to the fact that these events took place before then. Possibly God's command to Abram was also a warning of what was to come on Ur.