The Terah to Abraham Connection
By Daniel Gregg
Rashi and the Talmud argue that Abraham was born when Terah was 70. However Don Isaac Abarbanel argues against them. And so also James Ussher.
A precedent is set in the Noah to Shem connection. The text says, "Then Noah be a son of five hundreds year[s]. Then he causes to birth Shem, Ham, and Yaphet" (Gen. 5:32). But from the other data we learn that Shem was born when Noah was 501.
Now according to convention or the norm, a "Then he causes to birth" statement would refer the birth year. But a larger context can overrule the convention with a single child. If the data is sufficent, the initiation of the cause can refer to a marriage date, or a date of conjugal relations. The Hebrew grammar, aside from the convention, allows the cause to be some temporal distance from the effect. Since the text is in the imperfect tense, "causes" can be spread out or may be incomplete with the date listed. It may only be initiated then. This becomes possible when the conventional sense is overruled by the context, just like when words with common meanings suddenly switch to an uncommon sense when the context causes the shift.
Just this sort of sense occurs in Matthew chapter 1:8, "And Joram begat Uzziah" (Ἰωρὰμ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ὀζίαν). This is right were a Hebrew text would make the connection with הוֹלִיד, "he had caused to birth." But we know that this text skips three kings, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. Therefore, the context proves that the effect is temporally distant from the cause.
This argument is right where certain scholars want to stretch out the timeline so that the text means "he [an ancestor] caused X [a distant descendant] to be birthed. But convention can only be overruled with a specific context making an exception. The norm cannot be denied whole cloth without the contextual exception in explicitly mentioned evidence. The Scripture does not provide an evolutionary timeline to allow the norm to be simply dismissed. However, aside from the convention, the grammatical possibility of temporal distance between cause and effect must be admitted, while at the same time upholding the convention.
In Genesis 11:31-32, and 12:4 it states, "Then Terah takes Abram his son, and Lot son of Haran, the son of his son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son, but He causes them to go out from Ur of the Kasdim to go to the land of Canaan. Then they come until Charran. Then they settle there." I must take an aside from the argument at this point to explain the text. The consonantal Hebrew text allows us to read with a different division of the consonnants and vowel structure, "we-yô-ṣēʾ ʾō-tām", "but he caused them to go out..."; the point is that Terah had no intention of going to Canaan. He just intended to leave his troubles behind in Ur. But Yahweh had other plans for Abraham, and he caused them to go out "to go to the land of Canaan," and he induced Terah to do this with the trouble that came upon him that led to the migration. [note: the reading follows the form of the SP and LXX here, and invokes a scribal error known as metathesis (letter transposition). It is completely justified by the statement in Genesis 15:7, and the fact that Terah stopped in Charran because he wasn't obeying a directive to go to Canaan. But YHWH was guiding matters behind the scenes.
There never was a formal call to Abram in Ur, but that is when God sovereignly acted to bring him out (Gen. 15:7). Abraham is being filled in on what God had been doing. This Ur was also in "Ur of the Kasdim" which was in NW Mesopotamia, and not in the southern Ur in Sumer. That was Ur of the Sumerians during the IIIrd Dynasty of Ur. Kasdim was applied to Sumer much later when the Chaldeans migrated there when the term became Kaldu (by a phonetic shift from 's' to 'l').
Ok, now back to our main argument. Genesis 11:32 states, "Then be the days of Terah five years, and two hundred year[s]. Then he dies in Charran." This displacement of the death notice from the normal position in the biographical summaries of the Genesis 11 geneaology shows that it is mentioned when it occurred in the narrative. Terah dies first, and then Abram leaves for Canaan in the next chapter.
Going forward to Genesis 12:4, "Then Abram goes, as that Yahweh had made being spoken to him. And it had been, Lot goes with him. And Abram be a son of five years and seventy year[s], during his going out from Charran." The narrative assumes that Yahweh wasted no time in telling Abraham what he wanted him to do. So the synchronism stands that Terah died at age 205 in the same year that Abram went out at age 75.
The additional rule is thus: it is never the intention of Scripture to prevent an unambiguous construction of the chronology, even if certain elements may be concealed. If a construction is probable, then following this rule renders it a certainty. It is most probable that the death of Terah and the leaving of Abram from Charran happened in the same year. Therefore, if probability were the only data we had, then the intention of Scripture is that this is the certainty we must adopt.
An additional compelling argument against the Talmudic chronology here (and Rashi) is that Abraham could not abandon his Father and take possession of all the clan property while Terah still lived.
Another argument against the Rabbic position, with Don Isaac Abarbanel dissenting, is that the generational gaps do not add up. Abram points out that Sarah is his half sister, not full sister. Further, that Haran died a generation before the other two sons even took wives, and that Lot, son of Haran, was contemporary with Abram.
And for the final argument, I prove that "thou shall cause to birth" can disconnect the cause from the effect by several generations. Second Kings 20:18 translates, "And from thy sons, which will go forth from thee, which thou will cause to birth (תּוֹלִ֖יד), they (or he) will take. Then they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Since this was a prophecy to Hezekiah, it applies to descedants and not his immediate sons. This usage of תּוֹלִ֖יד shows that the Rabbinic demand that Terah "cause to birth" all three sons in his 70th year is entirely unnecessary.
The Gemini AI summarizes the Rabbinic motivation for the chronological gymnastics even while ignoring the precedent established with the birth of Noah's sons. It is to to exalt Abraham and make him the pivotal player in the transmission of authority to bolster their version of "papal" sucession.
"The Rabbinic timeline does not freeze Terah's age at 70 out of a simple need for pre-Flood contact, as the longevity of Shem already secured an ample ninety-year overlap. Rather, the compression was driven by a necessity to thrust Abraham into the immediate legal and historical theater of Noah and the Tower of Babel. The Sages required an Abraham who was already a mature man during the dispersion of the nations, and who possessed direct legal continuity from Noah—the father of human law—thereby protecting Abraham's authority from being entirely subordinate to the priesthood of Shem" (Gemini).