Genesis Eleven…. Verses 10-26….
Verse ten is interesting…it states that Shem was 100 years old at the end of the flood and that two years later his first child was born This would have given him time to get established with gardens (food) and somewhere to live. We then see the direct line from Shem to Abraham that was ten generations…. So we can see from this that Shem outlived all of these patriarchs except for his great-grandson Eber who died in the 531st year after the flood…..he even outlived Abraham! Man’s life span was getting gradually less until David could write that a person could only expect to live seventy years or maybe eighty with great difficulty (Psalm 90:10)
All these who lived so long ago, Shem lived enough to see them grow, From Babel’s time when scattered all, Till Abram went where God did call.
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Genesis Eleven…. Where Lot Fitted In.
Verses 27-32….
We see that Terah had three sons (verse 26) Abram, Nahor and Haran, and they lived in the city of Ur which was on the river Euphrates near its mouth into the Persian Gulf. These three sons married….
Haran had at least three children (Lot, Milcah and Ischar, verse 29) and then died comparatively young. Nahor took his niece Milcah as his wife and Abram married his half sister Sarai who was a beautiful girl. Terah and some of his family left the city of Ur and travelled for 600 miles up the river Euphrates to the city of Haran. We aren’t sure whether Terah left in response to God’s first message to Abram, or whether that message came to Abram for the first time in Haran. But Terah felt he had gone far enough, and he settled there until he died in the year 427 after the flood. In the year 367 after the flood, God spoke to Abram again (Abram was 75 at this time, chapter 12:4) about leaving his relatives and Abram moved on, taking his wife and nephew Lot with him. We can see from chapter 12:5 that they all must have been in Haran a few years as it tells us that Abram had got together a team of servants and animals and took them with him. Maybe he thought Lot could be a help to him on the journey to where God was directing him. It seems that Lot was still unmarried at this time, as there is no mention of a wife in this account. Many people say that Abram stayed in Haran until his father died, but that is not correct when the times and dates given here are checked out.
Abram obeyed what God had said, Leaving home, by God was led, Travelled far to the Promised Land, Trusting God’s protecting hand.
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