Bible dictionaries

Terah

What Bible dictionaries say about “Terah”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Terah - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

The wanderer; loiterer, for some unknown reason emigrated with his family from his native mountains in the north to the plains of Mesopotamia. He had three sons, Haran, Nahor, and Abraham, and one daughter, Sarah. He settled in "Ur of the Chaldees," where his son Haran died, leaving behind him his son Lot. Nahor settled at Haran, a place on the way to Ur. Terah afterwards migrated with Abraham (probably his youngest son) and Lot (his grandson), together with their families, from Ur, intending to go with them to Canaan; but he tarried at Haran, where he spent the remainder of his days, and died at the age of two hundred and five years (Gen. 11:24-32; Josh. 24:2). What a wonderful part the descendants of this Chaldean shepherd have played in the history of the world!

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

Smith’s Bible Dictionary

(station), the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran, and through them the ancestor of the great families of the Israelites, Ishmaelites, Midianites, Moabites and Ammonites. (Genesis 11:24-32) The account given of him in the Old Testament narrative is very brief. We learn from it simply that he was an idolater, (Joshua 24:2) that he dwelt beyond the Euphrates in Ur of the Chaldees, (Genesis 11:28) and that in the southwesterly migration, which from some unexplained cause he undertook in his old age, he went with his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot, "to go into the land of Canaan, and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." (Genesis 11:31) And finally, "the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran." (Genesis 11:32) (B.C. 1921.)

William Smith; revised by F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet; CrossWire SWORD module Smith 1.3

The article in Smith

Translation Words

Definition

Terah was a descendant of Noah’s son Shem. He was the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

Terah left his home in Ur in order to go to the land of Canaan with his son Abram, his nephew Lot, and Abram’s wife Sarai.
On the way to Canaan, Terah and his family lived for years in the city of Haran in Mesopotamia. Terah died in Haran at the age of 205.

(Translation suggestions: How to Translate Names)

(See also: Abraham, Canaan, Haran, Lot, Mesopotamia, Nahor, Sarah, Shem, Ur)

Bible References

Word Data

Strong’s: H8646, G22910

The original work by unfoldingWord is available from https://www.unfoldingword.org/utw. Bible Strong converted the Markdown and resource links to its dictionary schema and normalized Bible references.

The article in Translation Words