Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 12:5

"And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother`s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came." — Genesis 12:5 (ASV)

Their substance that they had gathered. —Not cattle only, but wealth of every kind. As we have no data about the migration of Terah, except that it was after the death of Haran and that Haran left children, we cannot tell how long the family rested at their first halting place; it was probably a period of several years. And since Abram was very rich in silver and in gold, he had apparently engaged in trade there and thus possibly knew the course the caravans took.

The souls that they had gotten. —Hebrew, had made. Onkelos and the Jewish interpreters explain this as referring to proselytes, and persons whom they had converted to the faith in one God. Such individuals were probably in Abram’s company; but most of them were his dependents and slaves , though the word 'slave' suggests a very different relationship to us than the one that existed between Abram and his household. Their descendants were most certainly incorporated into the Israelite nation, and we have direct testimony that Abram gave them careful religious training (Genesis 18:19). Thus, the Jewish traditions record a fact, and by acknowledging Abram’s household as proselytes, they admit their claim to incorporation with the race.

Into the land of Canaan they came. —Slowly and leisurely, as the cattle with their young and the women and children could travel, Abram would make his way along the 300 miles that separated him from Canaan. The ford by which he crossed the Euphrates was probably that at Jerabolus, the ancient Carchemish, as this route is both more direct and more fertile than either the one leading to the ferry of Bir or that by Thapsacus. The difficulty of crossing so great a river with so much substance, and people, and cattle would give fresh importance to his title of 'the Hebrew,' the passer over, already his by right of descent from Eber, so named from the passage of the Tigris.

More correctly, these names are ‘Eber’ and ‘Ebrew,’ and have nothing in common with “Heber the Kenite” (Judges 4:11). From Carchemish, Abram’s route would lie to the southwest, by Tadmor and Damascus. Josephus (Antiquities, 1.7) has preserved the legend that “Abram came with an army from the country beyond Babylon, and conquered Damascus, and reigned there for a short time, after which he migrated into the land of Canaan.” In Eliezer of Damascus, we have a reminiscence of Abram’s halt there (Genesis 15:2). But it could not have been long, for Mr. Malan (Philosophy or Truth, pp. 98-143) has conclusively shown by the dates in Holy Scripture that only about a year elapsed between Abram’s departure from Kharan and his settlement in Canaan.