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I was recently reading through Genesis 11 and I was puzzled somewhat by this verse:

Genesis 11:31

31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. (ESV)

I was puzzled because it’s not until chapter 12, in this account, that God calls Abram out of his land, to go into Canaan, and promises it to him:

Genesis 12:1-4

12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. (ESV)

From these passages we see two things:

1. In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of Haran, but…
2. In Genesis 11:31, Abram and his family were already on their way to Canaan from Ur of the Chaldeans when they got to Haran

Hm. I thought Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans, not out of Haran? That’s the way I always remember reading it…

Ah yes, here it is:

Genesis 15:7

7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” (ESV)

Nehemiah 9:7 also references God calling Abram out of Ur. So, which is it? Was he called out of Ur, or out of Haran? Stephen, through the Spirit, testifies to the complete history in his great final sermon in Acts 7:

Acts 7:2-4

2 And Stephen said:

“Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ 4 Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. (ESV)

So, following the whole counsel of God, we see the sequence of events was as follows:

1. God appeared to Abram in Mesopotamia (Ur) and called him to go to another land
2. Terah, Abram, Lot, and Sarai left Ur and went to Haran, and settled there.
3. Terah died in Haran.
4. God appeared to Abram again (Genesis 12:1-4) and told him to go to Canaan.

(Note: The text is not clear whether the Lord specified Canaan as the destination when He first appeared to Abram in Ur. Therefore, I have left it the vague “another land” in my own chronology, above.)

See? By applying a little elbow grease and Strong’s (or a good search engine), the Bible is not so mysterious after all. But more on that subject later…