Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 11:31

"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son`s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram`s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." — Genesis 11:31 (ASV)

They went forth with them. — This may possibly mean that they went forth in one body; but the phrase is strange. The Samaritan, followed by the Septuagint and Vulgate, by a slight transposition of the letters, reads, “And he (Terah) brought them forth.”

Haran. — The Charran of Acts 7:4, that is, Carrhae in North-west Mesopotamia, about twenty geographical miles south-east of Edessa. The name must not be confounded with that of Haran, the father of Lot, as it is really Kharan in Hebrew, and was so called in Accadian times. In that language, the word means “road,” being, according to Mr. Sayce, the key of the highway from the east to the west. It was both a very early and a very late outpost of Chaldean power (Tomkins’ Studies on Times of Abraham, 55ff.).

Terah’s migration was partly perhaps a movement of a tribe of the Semites northwards (see Note on Genesis 11:28), made restless by the Elamites, who about this time overran Western Asia. But it chiefly had a religious motive: for Ur was the special seat of the worship of the moon-god, Sin. And though Terah had not attained to the purity of Abraham’s faith, he was not altogether an idolater. But why did they intend “to go into the land of Canaan?” As Abram subsequently continued this migration in simple dependence upon God’s guidance (Genesis 12:1), it was probably the Divine rather than the human purpose that is expressed here.

Still, there may have been some tradition in the family, or knowledge handed down from patriarchal times, which made them look upon Canaan as their land of hope. The expedition of Amraphel, king of Shinar, and others against the south of Palestine, recorded in Genesis 14:1-16, and confirmed by our large present knowledge of these popular movements, shows that we must not assume that because Babylonia and Canaan were far removed from one another, they were therefore lands mutually unknown.

We also gather that the Divine summons came to Abram in Ur (Nehemiah 9:7; Acts 7:2), but we learn in Genesis 12:1 that his final destination was not then definitely told him.