In the account of
Terah's family mentioned in the
Book of Genesis (), Nahor II ( he, נָחוֹר – ''Nāḥōr'') is listed as the son of Terah, amongst two other brothers,
Abram and
Haran
Haran or Aran ( he, הָרָן ''Hārān'') is a man in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. He died in Ur of the Chaldees, was a son of Terah, and brother of Abraham. Through his son Lot, Haran was the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonite ...
(). His grandfather was
Nahor I, son of
Serug. Nahor married the daughter of his brother
Haran
Haran or Aran ( he, הָרָן ''Hārān'') is a man in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. He died in Ur of the Chaldees, was a son of Terah, and brother of Abraham. Through his son Lot, Haran was the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonite ...
,
Milcah, his niece (). They may all have been born and raised in the city of
Ur: the biblical account states that "Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in
Ur of the Chaldeans
Ur Kasdim ( he, ''ʾūr Kaśdīm''), commonly translated as Ur of the Chaldeans, is a city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the birthplace of the Israelite and Ishmaelite patriarch Abraham. In 1862, Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim with ...
" ().
In the
King James Version, Nahor is also referred to as Nachor ().
When Abram had an encounter with
God, this brother directed his family to leave their native land and go to the land of
Canaan. Terah, their father, coordinated the gathering of his family to journey west to their destination (). They followed the
Euphrates River
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
, with their herds, to the
Paddan Aram region. This was about halfway along the
Fertile Crescent between
Mesopotamia and the
Mediterranean, in what is now southeastern
Turkey.
[Drummond, Dorothy. ''Holy Land, Whose Land? Modern Dilemma, Ancient Roots.'' 2004, p.75] In this region, Nahor and his family settled except for his brother Haran, who had died sometime ago back in Ur (). The city where they settled,
Harran, is the place where Nahor's father would die ().
Nahor II continued his own travels and settled in the region of
Aram Naharaim, where he founded the town of Nahor (). Here, he and Milcah had eight sons ():
# Uz, the firstborn
# Buz
# Kemuel
#
Kesed
#
Hazo
#
Pildash
#
Jidlaph
#
Bethuel, father of
Rebekah
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
, the wife of
Isaac
Nahor and his concubine,
Reumah, also had four sons:
Tebah,
Gaham,
Tahash
According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle ( he, מִשְׁכַּן, mīškān, residence, dwelling place), also known as the Tent of the Congregation ( he, link=no, אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד, ’ōhel mō‘ēḏ, also Tent of Meeting, etc.), ...
, and
Maacah
Maacah (or Maakah; he, ''Maʿăḵā'', "crushed"; Maacha in the Codex Alexandrinus, Maachah in the KJV) is a non-gender-specific personal name used in the Bible to refer to a number of people.
*A child of Abraham's brother Nachor, evidently a ...
().
Nahor in the Book of Joshua
In his final speech to the Israelite leaders assembled at
Shechem,
Joshua recounts the history of God's formation of the Israelite nation, beginning with "Terah the father of Abraham and Nachor,
holived beyond the
Euphrates River
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
and worshiped other gods" ().
In popular culture
Nahor is portrayed by
Kevin McNally in the film
Abraham (1993). The character of Nahor's concubine Reumah is portrayed by
Evelina Meghangi
''Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World'' is a novel written by English author Fanny Burney and first published in 1778. Although published anonymously, its authorship was revealed by the poet George Huddesford in wh ...
in the same film.
See also
*
Harran, the city where the family first settled (spelled differently in Hebrew from the family name of Haran).
References
{{Authority control
Family of Abraham
Noach (parashah)
Ur of the Chaldees