John Gill 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)

Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans
The same with Mesopotamia; so Pliny says ^F2, that "because of Babylon the head of the Chaldean nation---the other part of Mesopotamia and Assyria is called Babylonia." And he places Babylon in Mesopotamia; it was out of Ur, in the land of the Chaldeans particularly, that Abraham came, upon his first call:

and dwelt in Charan :
according to the Jewish writers ^F3, he dwelt here five years:

and from thence, when his father was dead ;
who died in Haran, as is said in (Genesis 11:32) and that it was after the death of Terah his father, that Abraham went from thence, is manifest from (Genesis 11:31Genesis 11:32) (Genesis 12:4Genesis 12:5) and yet a Jew ^F4 has the impudence to charge Stephen with a mistake, and to affirm, that Abraham went from Haran, whilst his father was yet living; proceeding upon a false hypothesis, that Terah begat Abraham when he was seventy years of age: but Philo the Jew is expressly with Stephen in this circumstance; he says ^F5, "I think no man versed in the laws can be ignorant, that Abraham, when he first went out of the land of Chaldea, dwelt in Charan; (teleuthsantov te autw tou patrov ekenyi) "but his father dying there", he removed from thence:" and so says Stephen:

he removed him into this land, wherein you now dwell ;
the land of Canaan; see (Genesis 12:5) or "he removed himself", as the Ethiopic version renders it; or rather "God removed him", as the Syriac version reads, and so one copy in the Bodleian library; for it was by the order and assistance, and under the direction and protection of God, that he came into that land: after the words

wherein you now dwell ,
Beza's ancient copy adds, "and our fathers that were before us".

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FOOTNOTES:

• F2: De Urbibus, l. 6. c. 26.
• F3: Seder Olam Rabba, c. 1. p. 2. Ganz Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 5. 2.
• F4: R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 61. p. 448.
• F5: De Migratione Abrahami, p. 415.