After recording the events of the Flood
and the scattering of mankind at the Tower of Babel, the book of capitalGenesis
gives us the genealogy of Shem, the son of Noah. Out
of Shem's lineage, would come God's chosen people, Israel.
In running the figures in the book of
Genesis, we calculate that the Flood occurred in 1656 BV (approximately). Two
years after the Flood, Shem was one hundred years old Shem then continued to
live for five hundred more years after the Flood. He continued his life at the
pre-Flood life span level. Shem was a living witness to the post-Flood
generations of the severity of God's judgment upon sin. Shem lived to tell nine
generations of people living after the Flood about the seriousness of
disobeying God. Shem lived almost up to the time of the death of Abraham!
We continue the story in Genesis chapter
11 with the recording of the genealogy of the line of Shem. The record ends
with the detailed record of Terah begetting three sons: Abram, Nahor, and
Haran. Haran (the father Lot) died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the
Chaldees.
The name of Ur is a purely phonetic
rendering of the place name and has no relationship to the actual spelling of
the word. In Hebrew, the word is exactly the same letters as the Hebrew word
which means light. Gesenius, in his Lexicon, says that the word might mean
lucid region or the East.
The issue at hand is: Where was this Ur
where Abraham was born? Archaeologists have claimed to have found a city by the
name of Ur near the mouth of the great Euphrates River near the Persian Gulf.
Of course, almost all of the religious world promptly jumped on the bandwagon
and glorified this ruin as the birthplace of Abraham. But is it?
Now look at the map. On which side of the
Euphrates River is this city of Ur shown? Yes, it is on the west side of the
Euphrates River. Now, find Canaan on the map. With your finger, trace the
so-called migration route of Terah and family if they were traveling to Canaan
on the west side of the river. Would they have come naturally to a stopping
place at Haran? No! Haron is on the wrong side of the Euphrates River, and,
even if they had waded across it at this point, Haran would not have been a natural
stopping point, for it would have been many miles out of the way. There is a
another ancient city by the name of Ur on the eastern side of the Euphrates
River, north of Haran, in Turkish Asia Minor The Turks believe that this city
is the proper Ur, and they have a sign welcoming visitors to "Ur, the city
of Abraham." Scholars, with recognized high academic degrees, believe that
this city is the Ur mentioned in the Bible.
In Genesis chapter 12, we read that God
told Abraham to go "from your land and from your kindred, and from the
house of your father to the land which I will show you." Abraham clearly
understood this land to be the land of Canaan, for he took Sarah and Lot and
all his possessions, including his servants and "departed to go to the
land of Canaan."
The land of Canaan was named after its
early inhabitants, the Canaanites, and idolatrous people. Although God gave
this and to Abraham and to his descendants, saying, "To your descendants I
will give this land," Abraham realized clearly that God did not want
Abraham's descendants to intermarry with the Canaanites. When the time came for
Abraham to choose a wife for his son Isaac, he commanded his servant to go to
his family home, Haran, where his brother's (Nahor's) family had settled, to
get a wife for his son. Abraham said, "You shall not take a wife for my
son from the daughters of the Canaanits--among whom I dwell!"
God, with sovereign authority, gave this
land of Canaan to His servant, Abraham, an "to his Seed," his
descendants. God said to Abraham, "And I will establish My covenant
between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an
everlasting covenant to be God to you and to our descendants after you. Also I
give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are a
stranger --all the land of Canaan for an
everlasting possession, and I will be
their God" (Gen. 17:7-8--Emphsis added)
We should be sure that, in today's
confusing political world in which we live, we stay on God's side in
relationship to the land of God's people, Israel.
King James Bible
The Preserved and Living Word of God
(A 10 Minute Video)
Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
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