(4) From thence, when his father was dead.--In Genesis 11:26; Genesis 11:32, Terah, the father of Abraham, is said to have died at the age of 205 years, and after he had reached the age of seventy to have begotten Abram, Nahor, and Haran; while Abraham in Genesis 12:4 is said to have been seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran. This, prima facie, suggests the conclusion that he lived for sixty years after his son's departure. The explanations sometimes given--(1) that Abraham may have been the youngest, not the eldest son of Terah, placed first in order of honour, not of time, as Shem is among the sons of Noah (Genesis 5:32; Genesis 6:10), though Japheth was the elder (Genesis 10:21); and (2) that the marriage of Abraham's son with the granddaughter of Nahor by the youngest of his eight sons, Bethuel (Genesis 22:22), suggests some such difference of age, and that he may therefore have been born when Terah was 130, and so have remained in Haran till his father's death--though probable as an hypothesis, would hardly appear so natural an explanation as that the memory of St. Stephen or of his reporter dwelt upon the broad outlines of the history, and was indifferent to chronological details. It is remarkable that like difficulties present themselves in St. Paul's own survey of the history of Israel. (See Notes on Acts 13:20; Galatians 3:17.) A man speaking for his life, and pleading for the truth with a passionate eagerness, does not commonly carry with him a memoria technica of chronological minuti?. This seems, on the whole, a more satisfactory explanation than the assumption that the Apostle, having a clear recollection of the facts as we find them, brought them before his hearers in a form which presented at least the appearance of inaccuracy.

He removed him.--The change of subject may be noted as more natural in a speaker than a writer, and as so far confirming the inference that we have probably a verbatim report.

Verse 4. - Haran for Charran, A.V.; God removed for he removed, A.V. The land of the Chaldaeans. In Genesis 11:28 Ur is called "Ur of the Chaldees." When his father was dead (see note to ver. 2). God removed. That God is the subject appears from the following verbs, "he gave," "he promised." The verb μετώκισεν, he removed, is the technical word for planting a colony. Wherein, etc. (εἰς η}ν); into which ye came and dwelt.

7:1-16 Stephen was charged as a blasphemer of God, and an apostate from the church; therefore he shows that he is a son of Abraham, and values himself on it. The slow steps by which the promise made to Abraham advanced toward performance, plainly show that it had a spiritual meaning, and that the land intended was the heavenly. God owned Joseph in his troubles, and was with him by the power of his Spirit, both on his own mind by giving him comfort, and on those he was concerned with, by giving him favour in their eyes. Stephen reminds the Jews of their mean beginning as a check to priding themselves in the glories of that nation. Likewise of the wickedness of the patriarchs of their tribes, in envying their brother Joseph; and the same spirit was still working in them toward Christ and his ministers. The faith of the patriarchs, in desiring to be buried in the land of Canaan, plainly showed they had regard to the heavenly country. It is well to recur to the first rise of usages, or sentiments, which have been perverted. Would we know the nature and effects of justifying faith, we should study the character of the father of the faithful. His calling shows the power and freeness of Divine grace, and the nature of conversion. Here also we see that outward forms and distinctions are as nothing, compared with separation from the world, and devotedness to God.Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans,.... The same with Mesopotamia; so Pliny says (b), 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 (c), 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 11:31 and yet a Jew (d) 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 (e),

"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; "but his father dying there", he removed from thence:''

and so says Stephen:

he removed him into this land, wherein ye 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 ye now dwell, Beza's ancient copy adds, "and our fathers that were before us".

(b) De Urbibus, l. 6. c. 26. (c) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 1. p. 2. Ganz Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 5. 2.((d) R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 61. p. 448. (e) De Migratione Abrahami, p. 415.