And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Terah took Abram ... to go into the land of Canaan. The ordinary movements of a nomadic tribe from one encampment to another are begun by order, and conducted under the directions, of the head, or shiech; and so Terah (for we discard as apocryphal the tradition of his being a statuary, or maker of images, and consider him a pastoral chief) is naturally mentioned as having originated the departure from Ur of the Chaldees.
And they went forth with them, [Septuagint, exeegagen autous] - he led them forth. But the reason of Terah's taking this distant western migration is not stated. It may have been, as Josephus says, that he hated Chaldea through excess of grief for the loss of Haran ('Ant.,' 1: 6., sec. 5), or that there is truth in the Oriental legend, which bears that he had resolved to join Abram in abandoning the Zabian idolatry (see the note at Genesis 12:1). Nahor did not accompany them, though at a later period his family appears to have settled in Haran (Genesis 28:10; Genesis 29:4).
And they came unto Haran - i:e., a dry place х Chaaraan (H2771); Septuagint, Charran (G5488); Charrae of the Romans]. Haran (now Harran), a town of Mesopotamia, was situated south of Edessa, on the Bilicus (Belik), a small tributary of the Euphrates, which empties itself into that river about fifty miles below the town. Besides its situation in the midst of a spacious plain environed by mountains, Haran formed the point whence diverged the principal roads which led to the great fords of the Tigris and Euphrates, and consequently was a great commercial emporium (cf. Ezekiel 27:23).
It was the junction of three great caravan routes-one which led southwards to the large towns of Chaldea; a second toward the Tigris, through Nisibis; and the third, southwest, toward Syria. This traditional site of Haran, however, has been recently disputed by Cyril Graham, Corbaux, and Dr. Beke, who, appealing to Acts 7:2 as a proof that it was not in Mesopotamia Proper, fix on a place called Harran El-Awamid (Harran of the Columns, Porter's 'Damas.,' 1:, p. 376), lying about fourteen miles east of Damascus (see the note at Genesis 24:10; Genesis 28:2). If Orfah was Ur, which, according to Rennell, is only twenty-nine miles distant from Haran, the journey could have been made by a pastoral tribe in two days, or less; and it was the direct route to Canaan. But from Mugheir to Haran, which lay far north, must have been a lengthened expedition.
And dwelt there. Hales ('Sac. Chron.,' 2:, p 123), after Abulfaragi, the Arabian historian, says, that when the tribe left Ur, Abram was sixty years old, and that he remained at Haran for fifteen years-an extraordinary delay for a man of so ready obedience to make. But Philo ('De Migr. Abrah.,' tom. 1:, p. 463) states that he remained only a short time there; and Josephus ('Antiq.,' 1: 7), that he departed from Haran in the course of the year in which he came to it.