Albert Barnes Commentary Acts 7:4

"Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Haran: and from thence, when his father was dead, [God] removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell:" — Acts 7:4 (ASV)

Land of the Chaldaeans. From Ur of the Chaldees, Genesis 11:31.

When his father was dead. This passage has given rise to no small difficulty in interpretation. The difficulty is this: From Genesis 11:26, it would seem that Abraham was born when Terah was seventy years of age—And Terah lived seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. From Genesis 12:4, it seems that Abraham was seventy-five years of age when he departed from Haran to Canaan. The age of Terah was therefore only one hundred and forty-five years. Yet, in Genesis 11:32, it is said that Terah was two hundred and five years old when he died, thus leaving sixty years of Terah's life beyond the time when Abraham left Haran.

Various methods have been proposed for resolving this difficulty.

1. Errors in numbers are more likely to occur than any other type of error. In the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch, it is said that Terah died in Haran at the age of one hundred and five years, which would suppose that his death occurred forty years before Abraham left Haran. However, the Hebrew, Latin Vulgate, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic read it as two hundred and five years.

2. It is not affirmed that Abraham was born exactly when Terah was seventy years of age. All that the passage in Genesis 11:26 proves, according to the usual meaning of similar expressions, is that Terah was seventy years old before he had any sons, and that the three were born subsequent to that.

   However, which son was born first, or how long the intervals were between their births, is not apparent. It certainly does not mean that all were born precisely when Terah was seventy years of age. Nor does it appear that Abraham was the eldest of the three. The sons of Noah are said to have been Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 5:32); yet Japheth, though mentioned last, was the eldest (Genesis 10:21). As Abraham later became by far the most distinguished, and as he was the father of the Jewish people about whom Moses was writing, it was natural that he should be mentioned first. If it cannot be proved that Abraham was the eldest—as it certainly cannot be—then there is no improbability in supposing that his birth might have occurred many years after Terah was seventy years of age.

3. The Jews unanimously affirm that Terah relapsed into idolatry before Abraham left Haran, and this they call death, or a moral death.—Kuinoel. It is certain, therefore, that for some reason they were accustomed to speak of Terah as dead before Abraham left him. Stephen only used language that was customary among the Jews and would doubtless use it correctly, though we may not be able to see precisely how it can be reconciled with the account in Genesis.