Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #9 of Genesis, chapter 11 and we are going to begin by reading Genesis 11:23-26:

And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

I will stop reading there. In our last study, we were following the Biblical calendar of history as it picked up again after the flood. Starting with Shem, we counted down from the point of two years after the flood in 4988BC and all the way down to the birth of Nahor in 2445BC. Then after having lived 29 years he begat Terah and then lived another 119 years. We have learned to add the two time references together to got 148 years. So, 148 years from 2445BC is 2297BC. In that year Nahor died and Terah was born.

We are told that Terah lived 70 years and begat Abram, Nahor and Haran. As we began to discuss in our last study, God has been primarily using Bible calendar reference patriarchs, beginning from Adam and his immediate son (Seth) and from there on the Lord began using the “end to end” methodology that we find in this calendar: the same year a Biblical calendar reference patriarch died, the next Biblical calendar reference patriarch was born. The death of one was the birth year of the next and with this method it was a very consistent calendar.

In addition, God was dealing with individuals and we were seeing only little “tidbits” about these individuals’ lives, like a little sentence about Enoch. It was not until we reached Noah that the Lord would go into much greater detail about the life of Noah and the flood. It was after the food that we returned, again, to individual calendar reference patriarchs and, yet, we only had minor information about them. If God spoke of them at all, it was just a simple statement like, “In the days of Peleg, the earth was divided,” even though was an enormous teaching involved with that single verse. Primarily, that is what God has done all the way down through history until we reach the time of Terah and his three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

But, now the Lord is going to make a detour away from the Biblical calendar reference patriarch line and get into a more personal history of a family line, beginning with Abram or Abraham. From this point on, we going to follow Abraham and Israel all the way down through the period of the judges and the kings, and all the way down to the birth of Christ.

Before we move on, there is just one more thing to mention about Terah’s birthdate, which I think I also mentioned in our last study. The year 2297BC is a very significant year regarding a time path from that year to 2033AD. As we have discussed previously, the date 2033AD is coming up repeatedly. There is mounting Biblical evidence for that year as a possible date for the end of the world. The way we do a time path is to start with a date, whether it be an historical Biblical event or a death date or a date that God emphasizes by giving an individual’s age at a certain time. And because we know the Biblical calendar of history, we know the year that something occurred, oftentimes. In this case, we know that Terah was born in 2297BC, so we add 2297 and 2033, which gives us a total of 4,330 and we minus “1” because there is no “year zero.” By the way, that formula for adding the Old Testament years to the New Testament years and then subtracting 1 year to figure out the actual number of years is something anyone would do, including the secular world. I remember back in 2012 when they were discussing the Mayan calendar date, interested secular parties were also subtracting “1” because it is the only way to get an accurate date, since our calendar has no “year zero.”

Now let me just mention this, because I do not think I have ever mentioned how we go about “breaking a number down.” We have the actual number of years between one number we are interested in and another number we are interested in, like 2033AD. For example, when Christ went to the cross in 33AD, it is an even 2,000 years to the year 2033AD and it is itself a very strong time path. If there were no other evidence, we would have to carefully consider the year “2033” based on that fact alone, but there are many other time paths that also point to that date.

By the way, concerning this birth date of Terah and concerning what we are going to read about him and his three sons and their move from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran and then Abram’s movement (along with Lot) into the land of Canaan, we are going to find a spiritual picture that does relate to the end of the world. I would refer anyone who has access to Mr. Camping’s book written in 1994 called “Are You Ready?” In that book, he went into considerable detail to lay out the time path and the historical information we have here regarding Terah and his three sons and the spiritual significance of their movements or lack of movements. We are not going to get into that yet because it is not until we reach chapter 12 that enough history has played out sufficiently to discuss these things. But just to point this out, Terah was a significant character in Biblical history and so were his three sons. Of course, we know that was true of Abram, but the other two sons also had a significant role to play.

So, we find that from 2297BC, Terah’s birth date, we get the number “4329” and then we go about to break it down. It is an odd number. If it were an even number like “4330,” we could start with that as the number of calendar years, but I did not find anything significant in doing that. But, once we minus “1” and get “4329” actual years, I did find something significant. Of course, breaking down a number is part of Bible study, so we should know how to do it. How do we break down a number like “4330” or “4329”? First, you need a calculator. Let us work with that odd number of “4329”? We are interested in certain Biblical numbers like the odd numbers, “3,” “7,” “11,” “13,” “17,” “23,” “37,” “41,” “43,” and, also, numbers like “127” and “153” and specially noted numbers like that. We are interested in “even” numbers like the numbers “2,” “4,” “6,” “8,” “10” and “12.” They all have some spiritual significance.

But, we know with an odd number like “4329,” we are going to start with an odd Biblical number, and I always start with the number “3.” So, we try to divide “4329,” by the number “3,” and does it divide? Yes, it does and, in this case, you can divide it again. For example, when you divide “4329” by “3,” it breaks down to another odd number, so then you can divide again by “3” and it divides again, so “3 x 3” is built into this number. (It does not divide by “3” a third time, but you should try it first.)

Let me pull out a calculator and go through this exercise, because I was just speaking from memory. When you take “4329” and divide by “3,” and you get “1443” and you can divide by “3” again and you get “481.” Now when I divide that number by “3” again, it does not work because it gave me “160.33333” which is not a full number. So, I go back to the number “481” and I try to divide it by “7,” but it does not break down. So, I go back to “481” and divide by “11,” but that also does not work. Then I go back to “481” and I divide by “13,” the next odd number and it works. It gives me the number “37.” Therefore, that would be the breakdown of the number “4329.” It is “3 x 3 x 13 x 37.” That is how the number breaks down and every one of those numbers are extremely significant. The number “3” means purpose and it is “doubled” to give added emphasis. The number “13” points to the end of the world; the Bible indicates that the world would continue for 13,000 years and then the end would come. The beginning of the ending stage in earth’s history began in 1988 with the beginning of the Great Tribulation, 13,000 years from creation, and then there is a short period tacked on it. The number “37” indicates judgment. Of course, there is judgment at the end of the world.

Again, we are not going to get into the details. Anyone that has Mr. Camping’s book, “Are You Ready?” can look it up, but we are going to hold off on getting into the specifics because there is still much more information here in Genesis, chapter 11 and we would have to go into Genesis, chapter 12. I would rather not jump that far ahead and then come back to chapter 11, but we should keep in mind that it is a very strong time path to 2033AD. It is “3 x 3 x 13 x 37” and it is a very significant character in God’s overall program.

Let us go on and read Genesis 11:27-32:

Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren; she had no child. 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. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

This concludes chapter 11. We have already seen that Terah begat Abram, Nahor and Haran. It is because of additional information that God did not give with a great many Bible calendar reference patriarchs when He said that a person begat “so and so” that we know it was not an immediate son. But, since God is transitioning through Terah out of the format of using these calendar reference patriarchs and He is now going to get very personally detailed in the lives of Abram and his descendants, additional information makes it clear that Terah was the immediate father of these three: Abram, Nahor and Haran. So, we do not think that Terah lived seventy years and begat those three (with Abram mentioned first) or that one of the sons was not born at that time. Actually, it was not Abram that was born when Terah was 70 – it must have been either Nahor or Haran. They were not triplets. But, again, remember we mentioned how God did this following a pattern in Genesis 5 as He was going down through history with “end to end” Biblical calendar reference patriarchs, with one dying the same year the other was born. God was emerging from that pattern as He was about to reveal details in the life of Noah and the flood and we saw that it said in Genesis 5:31-32:

And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Again, there were three sons and they are not triplets. God, for His own purposes, stated it this way, with Shem listed first and after the flood, the Biblical calendar picked up with him, just as the Biblical history is now going to follow Abram. So, just as Abram was of greater significance than the other two brothers, Shem was of greater significance. It is the line that most identifies with God and His kingdom and they are listed first even though Shem could not have been born (as it said) when Noah was five hundred years old. Why? Remember we read in Genesis 11:10:

These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:

The flood occurred in Noah’s 600th year and since Genesis 5:32 is saying that Noah was five hundred and begat these three that are named that would mean that 100 years later at the start of the flood if Shem had been begotten when Noah was five hundred he (Shem) would have been 100 years old and two years after the flood he would have been 102. But that is not what Genesis 11:10 told us. It tells us he was 100 two years after the flood, which means he was born when Noah was 502 years old and then 100 years later, two years after the flood. Therefore, it was either Ham or Japheth that was born when Noah was 500. One of them would have been the elder brother, not Shem.

It is the same case with Abram. We will find, based on Terah’s death age and based on Abram’s age when he left Haran and entered in to Canaan (when God gave us his age), we can understand that Abram is doing so upon the death of his father. And that means that Abram was born much later than Terah’s 70th year and we will discuss that when we get into information, as I mentioned, about the spiritual significance of Terah and his three sons.

Again, we read in Genesis 11:27-28:

Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

We are familiar with the Chaldees or the Chaldeans, which we read so much about in the Book of Jeremiah and elsewhere and they are synonymous with Babylon. So, Ur of the Chaldees would be Babylon. Haran died in Ur of the Chaldees and that left just two brothers. It says in Genesis 11:29-30:

And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

We can see that God is now giving us some personal details and some intimate information so we can know a little bit more. We find that of the two sons remaining of Terah, Abram married Sarai and Nahor married Milcah. We are told of Sarai that she was barren and we know that will become very important later in Biblical history, but we wonder why God is telling us that. If Sarai was barren, what about Milcah? If we go to Genesis, chapter 22, it says in Genesis 22:20-24:

And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor; Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram, And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel. And Bethuel begat Rebekah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother. And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also Tebah, and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maachah.

It is very interesting that we find Milcah was said to have born eight. She had eight sons. These were sons of Nahor, Abram’s brother. Nahor also had a concubine, Reumah, and she bore four sons, so he had 12 sons. That reminds us of what would transpire later in time when Jacob married Leah (he was entrapped into that marriage) and then he married the one he truly loved, who was Rachel, and then Leah was bearing sons and she ended up having six sons, but Rachel was barren for a time just as Sarai was barren. Again, we do not have two brothers, but we have two wives in competition with one another and they end up turning their handmaids (as concubines) over to Jacob and Jacob has children through them. Finally, at the end we find that Leah had six sons of her own and her concubine had two sons and they were counted as Leah’s, so Leah bear eight. Then Rachel had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, and her concubine also bore two sons with Jacob, which were counted for Rachel, so Rachel had four sons. Is that not interesting that we find one wife with eight and the other wife with four, just as we find with Nahor and his wife and concubine? Milcah had eight and Reumah had four.

We will see if we can look at this a little bit more in our next Bible study.