Genesis 11:28

And Haran died before his father Terah,.... In his father's presence, before his face, in his life time, as Jarchi; he seeing him, as Aben Ezra: it does not so much respect the time of his death,

And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. Haran died ... in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

i.e. In the presence and during the life of his father.

Genesis 11:28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.Ver. 28. And Haran died before his father Terah.] The Hebrews say he died a martyr, being burnt with fire by his countrymen the Chaldees, because he would not worship the fire, which they had made their god. Martyrdom came early into the world, as we know in Abel, who as he was the first that died, so he died for religion. Now if this be true of Haran, as the Jewish doctors will have it; then he had, for aught we know, the maidenhead (as a certain martyr phrased it) of that kind of martyrdom. The first that were burnt for religion, since the Reformation, are said to be Henry and John, two Augustinian monks at Brussels, anno 1523, under James Hogostratus the Dominican Inquisitor. The executioner, being demanded whether they recanted in the flames, denied there was any such thing; but said, that when the fire was put to them, they continued singing the creed, and Te Deum , till the flame took away their voice. All this Erasmus testifieth, though he was no Lutheran; and thereupon maketh this good but wary note, Damnari, dissecari, suspendi:, exuri, decollari, piis cum impiis sunt communia: damnare, dissecare, in crucem agere, exurere, decollare, bonis iudicibus cum piratis ac tyrannis communia sunt. Varia sunt hominum iudicia, ille foelix qui iudice Deo absolvitur . Our protomartyr in Queen Mary’ s days was Reverend Master Rogers; he gave the first adventure upon the fire. His wife, and children, being eleven in number, ten able to go, and one sucking at her breast, met him by the way as he went toward Smithfield. This sorrowful sight of his own flesh and blood could nothing move him, but that he constantly held out to the death, and so received a crown of life. Neither hath God left himself without witness among the very heathens. For in the city of Lima, in Mexico, not two months before our coming there, saith Captain Drake, twelve persons were condemned by the Spaniards there for profession of the gospel; of which, six were bound to one stake and burnt; the rest remained yet in prison, to drink of the same cup within a few days. Erasm., lib. xxiv., epist. 4. Act. and Mon., fol. 1356. The World Encompassed, by Sir F. Drake p. 59.

(28) Haran died before his father.—Heb., in the presence of his father. This is the first recorded instance of a premature death caused by natural decay. In Ur of the Chaldees.—Ur-Casdim. A flood of light has been thrown upon this town by the translation of the cuneiform inscriptions, and we may regard it as certain that Ur is now represented by the mounds of the city of Mugheir. When first we read of this city, it was inhabited by a population of Accadians, a Turanian race, sprang probably from an early offshoot of the family of Japheth; but in course of time it was conquered by men of the Semitic family, who from thence overran the whole of Shinar, or Babylonia, and expelled from it the descendants of Cush. Mr. Sayce (Chald. Gen. p. 20) puts this conquest at some very uncertain date, two or three thousand years before Christ; but the establishment of a powerful monarchy under a king named Lig-Bagas, and the consolidation under his sway of several petty kingdoms, into which Chaldea had been previously split up, he places with some confidence at 3,000 years before the Christian era (ibid., p. 24). Now, there are in our museums inscribed bricks and engraved cylinders actually from the library of Lig-Bagas, and we learn that the Accadian literature was still older; for many of the works found at Agané are translations from it: and thus all those difficulties as to the antiquity of the art of syllabic writing which used to exist when men had nothing better to judge by than Egyptian picture-writing have passed away. Abraham migrated from a town which was then a famous seat of learning, and where even the ordinary transactions of life were recorded on tablets of terra-cotta. Very probably, therefore, he carried with him bricks and cylinders inscribed with these ancient records. We are no longer, therefore, surprised at the striking similarity between the narratives in the Book of Genesis prior to the migration of Abraham and those preserved in the cuneiform inscriptions. But the believer in inspiration cannot fail to be struck also at their dissimilarity. The cuneiform inscriptions are polytheistic, acknowledging twelve superior gods, and of gods inferior a countless multitude. The Semitic race is accused of adding to these a number of goddesses, chief among whom were Beltis, the wife of Bel, and Istar, the planet Venus. Of all this there is no trace in the Biblical records; nor is there in the whole Chaldean literature anything so grand and Divine as the thoughts expressed in the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” As Ur is an Accadian word, we must reject all Semitic interpretations of its meaning; we must further add that Mr. Rawlinson gives reasons for believing that its early importance was due to its being a great maritime emporium (Anc. Mon., i. 27).

28. This and the following verse are taken from J, and commence the personal history of the patriarch. Haran died] This may indicate a tradition that the hill people, or families who joined the main body of the Terahites, lost their separate existence and became completely merged in the house of Terah. The grave of Haran was shewn in the days of Josephus (Ant. i. 151). in the presence of his father] i.e. while his father Terah was still alive. in the land of his nativity] To these words is appended the explanation, “in Ur of the Chaldees,” very possibly added as a gloss by a later hand, as in Genesis 15:7. Abram in Genesis 24:4; Genesis 24:7; Genesis 24:10 refers to Haran, or Aram naharaim, as the land of his nativity; and that region is generally treated as the home of the ancestors of the Israelites. It is clear, however, that, beside the tradition which ascribed the origin of Israel to Mesopotamia, there was also another which derived them ultimately from S. Babylonia. See Genesis 11:31.

FROM UR, Genesis 11:28-32. 28. And Haran died before his father Terah — That is, in the presence of Terah, or it may mean before, as a designation of time, (see Gesenius,) since the phrase refers to both place and time.